Engineering and technology
Below you will find SWOT analyses of the different fields of engineering and technology in Finland. The analyses have been compiled by discipline-specific groups of researchers. The development proposals have been outlined by the Academy’s Research Councils. At the end of each section, you will find links to bibliometric data on that specific field as well as links to PDF versions of the material for printing.
Chemical engineering and process technology | Construction and municipal engineering, architecture | Electrical, automation and communications engineering, electronics | Energy and environmental engineering | Materials science and technology | Mechanical engineering and manufacturing technology | Pulp and paper technology
Chemical engineering and process technology : SWOT analysis and development proposals
Chemical engineering and process technology:
Strengths
- Established, reliable and working research collaboration between industry and academia
- High-quality doctoral training; good links between Graduate School in Chemical Engineering and other national graduate schools in nearby disciplines
- Highly multidisciplinary research
- Opportunity to influence the promotion of sustainable development
Chemical engineering and process technology:
Weaknesses
- Small research teams, lack of funding: difficult to compete internationally
- Low researcher mobility, especially outward mobility
- Insufficient core funding and international funding
- Too low supervisor-to-student ratio
Chemical engineering and process technology:
Opportunities
- Good image of environmental engineering among young people, more interest in the field
- Increased multidisciplinarity thanks to research collaboration within universities but also between different universities of technology and faculties
- Raising the level of scientific impact quickly by means of international research cooperation
- Increasing the amount of innovative scientific research and keeping the equipment up to date thanks to increases in long-term funding
Chemical engineering and process technology:
Threats
- Reduced significance of academic research due to fragmentary research projects and great number of applied research projects
- Decreased amount of experimental research due to ageing equipment
- Lowered quality of researcher training due to scrapping of national graduate school network
Chemical engineering and process technology:
Development proposals
- It is important for the field to identify special expertise and build a strong academic profile in terms of promoting a biobased economy, increasing the sustainable use of natural resources and solving climate issues.
- There is a need to increase long-term funding for chemical engineering and process technology.
- Finland must ensure that research infrastructure in the field remains competitive.
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Construction and municipal engineering, architecture: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Construction and municipal engineering,
architecture: Strengths
- Discipline significant in terms of both society’s competitiveness and sustainable development and economic importance
- Attracts talented students
- Good cooperation with different actors (researchers, end-users, businesses and the public sector)
- Tradition of cooperation between industry and research in applied construction engineering, enables maintenance of and researcher recruitment to experimental research infrastructures
Construction and municipal engineering,
architecture: Weaknesses
- Little scientific basic research; current research often very problem-centred, short-range and industry-driven
- Poor academic culture of research careers and publishing
- Lack of professional researchers; very few doctoral graduates
- Little international cooperation and systematic mobility
- Underdeveloped transdisciplinary research and low regard for it; not enough expertise in ordering, steering and evaluation
Construction and municipal engineering,
architecture: Opportunities
- Plenty of opportunities in multidisciplinary research into topical societal and physical phenomena of the built environment
- Deeper scientific research in construction and increased impact through cooperation between construction researchers and researchers in other fields
- New research directions thanks to design research that stems from architectural expertise
- Improved academic research culture with increased researcher training and mobility
Construction and municipal engineering,
architecture: Threats
- Continued decrease in the number of professional researchers at universities
- Delayed initiatives due to recession, research interests defined by the needs of the business sector
- No match between chairs and training and the changing operating environment
Construction and municipal engineering,
architecture: Development proposals
- The core funding of university departments in construction and municipal engineering and architecture should be raised to a level that would cover the costs of teaching, facilities (rents) and infrastructure
- Finland should increase awareness of different research career options and create support structures for the postdoctoral career (tenure-track systems)
- There is a need to develop international research collaboration and increase the recruitment of foreign postgraduate students and researchers.
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Electrical, automation and communications engineering, electronics: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Electrical, automation and communications
engineering, electronics: Strengths
- Internationally competitive research teams/groups with high-quality, mostly research-based teaching
- Long-term and natural collaboration between research teams and industry; research community recognises the whole value chain and what it requires from science
- Finland a preferred partner in the rest of Europe; active contacts within Europe and very international activities as a whole
- Good amount of doctoral training, good rate of employment
- A good number of patents and spin-off companies
Electrical, automation and communications
engineering, electronics: Weaknesses
- Distorted proportion between basic and external funding; lack of core research funding for research units
- Research environment changing for the worse: purchasing power, effect of channelling methods, “acquisition costs”, fragmentation, dysfunctional system of Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation
- National culture less positive towards researcher mobility than in many other countries
Electrical, automation and communications
engineering, electronics: Opportunities
- Great significance of the field in solving the grand challenges facing society
- Increasing contacts outside Europe (BRIC countries) by developing funding models, thus strengthening industry collaboration as production and product development transfers outside Finland
- Breakthrough research made possible thanks to Centres of Excellence, Academy Professors, tenure-track system and FiDiPro researchers
- Transdisciplinary opportunities in, for instance, healthcare, environmental, energy and materials technology
- Increasing the appeal of the field among women
Electrical, automation and communications
engineering, electronics: Threats
- Weakened general interest towards engineering
- Decreased supplementary funding for universities as industry moves outside Finland
- Research infrastructure only partly up to date, funding also needed for small equipment and maintenance, repairing and construction of equipment
Electrical, automation and communications
engineering, electronics: Development
proposals
- Basic research in the field should be strengthened by reserving more budget funding for academic outputs, especially to allow for breakthrough research.
- There is a need to further increase researcher mobility and the number of international projects.
- Doctoral training should be maintained at the current level.
- Finland needs to develop funding instruments that provide opportunities outside Europe (e.g. the US, Russia and the Far East).
- To increase the international impact of the field, more attention needs to be paid to publication forums.
- Salary funds need to be reserved for applied research projects, to also allow for academic outputs, particularly publications.
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Energy and environmental engineering: SWOT analysis and development proposals
Energy and environmental engineering:
Strengths
- Good collaboration with business companies
- Good level of expertise
- Good resources for R&D
- Good image and future outlook
- Strong industry support in energy technology
Energy and environmental engineering:
Weaknesses
- Bibliometric underachievement decreases scientific exposure
- Lack of positions in doctoral training
- Partly outdated research infrastructures
- Scattered and inadequately coordinated resources
Energy and environmental engineering:
Opportunities
- Increasing utilisation of international funding opportunities
- New initiatives created through multi- and transdisciplinarity
- Increased need for research due to paradigm shifts in the field
- Emphasised significance of science in energy issues
- Wide utilisation of systemic thinking
Energy and environmental engineering:
Threats
- Slow rate of regeneration
- Growing international competition for expertise
- Brain drain from Finland
Energy and environmental engineering:
Development proposals
- Finland needs a national operational coordinator to oversee the managing and upgrading of research infrastructures in energy and environmental engineering. This coordinator could be, for example, the Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation CLEEN, the Academy of Finland, Tekes or Sitra.
- Doctoral training should be increased through national collaboration.
- Funding for scientific basic research and publication activities in basic research need further reinforcement.
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Materials science and technology:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
Materials science and technology:
Strengths
- Multidisciplinary, dynamic and accomplished researchers
- Good-quality research infrastructures
- Good application potential of research in basic industry, especially in forest, mining and electronics industries
- Good education traditions (doctoral programmes, international Master’s programmes and recruitment networks)
- Versatile international collaboration: European networks and contacts with the US, Japan and China
Materials science and technology:
Weaknesses
- Research funding flagging, lack of funding for high-risk research
- Fear of failure and lack of courage obstacles to founding of new business companies
- Unclear resource policies and practices in university doctoral programmes
- Decreasing researcher and doctoral student mobility and work ethic
- Problems in student recruitment: smaller age groups, lacklustre image of materials technology
Materials science and technology:
Opportunities
- Increased profiling in recruitment and education; focus on quality, not quantity
- Tapping into the field’s potential in solving the grand challenges facing humankind (energy, the environment and natural resources)
- Regeneration of core industry, offering fresh research opportunities
- Good operational environment and infrastructures, which enable long-range development
- Focusing research with researcher-driven approaches and by utilising existing strengths
Materials science and technology:
Threats
- Core industry unable to reinvent itself (e.g. wood processing industry and mining industry) or leaving the country (electronics industry)
- Increased difficulties in recruiting students and researchers
- Failure to attract and commit foreign experts to Finland; weak employment prospects in industry
- Decreasing level of research funding
- Increased difficulties in the employment of doctoral degree holders
Materials science and technology:
Development proposals
- The best research units need to be strengthened through a refocusing of resources.
- Materials science and technology need a national forum that could take a stand on strategic changes taking place in the field as well as on participation in international infrastructure projects.
- A recommendation must be issued to Finnish universities on the coordination of decisions on tenure-track systems, lest strong transdisciplinary fields such as materials science and technology be ignored.
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Mechanical engineering and manufacturing technology: SWOT analysis and
development proposals
Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing technology: Strengths
- Wide-ranging and multidisciplinary research
- Teams able to implement test environments
- Strong process expertise and systemic thinking
- Good industry cooperation and networks, good ability to react to new research needs
- One Centre of Excellence, one Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation and several doctoral programmes in the field
Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing technology: Weaknesses
- Inadequate culture of publishing research results
- Weak researcher mobility and other exposure
- Early stages of research career hampered by insufficient supply of dissertation opportunities
- Undersized volume of doctoral programmes
- Underutilisation of funding opportunities offered by EU and other international mobility programmes
Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing technology: Opportunities
- Creating critical mass and increasing exposure through concurrent effects of Academy of Finland, Tekes and EU funding
- Utilising the ability to react swiftly in research into emerging topics and needs
- Increasing international research collaboration
- Stepping up cooperation with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)
- More university agreements on collaboration
Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing technology: Threats
- Loss of production chains decreasing the number of research topics
- Culture trumps technology among young people, makes student recruitment more difficult
- Ever tighter budgets due to economic uncertainty
- Funding directed at standing themes
- Research fields trimmed based on performance indicators
Mechanical engineering and
manufacturing technology:
Development proposals
- Besides strong initiatives from campus-level consortia, the field of mechanical engineering and manufacturing technology needs more national and international networking, mobility and collaboration between research teams.
- Network-based structures such as doctoral programmes must be maintained and made more international. Universities should participate in national and international collaboration agreements in mechanical engineering research and degree education.
- Finland should safeguard and renew the key research environments in the field to avoid completely replacing experimental research with modelling.
- Joint test environments should be established and implemented in new thematic areas such as in decentralised energy production systems.
- Researchers in the field should actively participate in big science projects, and research teams in the field should actively recruit experts in the natural sciences.
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Pulp and paper technology:
SWOT analysis and development proposals
Pulp and paper technology:
Strengths
- Good reputation of Finnish pulp and paper research, attracts foreign researchers and students
- Strong technological and industrial way of thinking
- Very high-level applied research
- Link to applications usually easy to draw even from fundamental research
- Strong national tradition in the discipline
Pulp and paper technology:
Weaknesses
- Innovation environment not supporting Finland’s aim to be the best in the discipline (particularly in basic research)
- Lack of ambition in fundamental research
- Breakthrough character in current research not cutting-edge
- Blurry national research agenda, lacks profile
- Low overall image of the sector
Pulp and paper technology:
Opportunities
- The whole ecosystem in the field changing, leading to new opportunities
- Utilising Finland’s specific resource, Northern softwood, for different value-added products
- Raising the level of fundamental research
- Possible focusing and sharpening of the discipline after scientific evaluation of Finnish research
- Industry funding for research infrastructures
Pulp and paper technology:
Threats
- Too large a role for FIBIC (previously Forestcluster), limits bottom-up research and technology
- Decline in research as industry moves out of the country
- Continuing decline in the attraction of the field
- Further weakening of the field due to changes in the global economy
- Continued deterioration of research infrastructure
Pulp and paper technology:
Development proposals
- More long-term research funding is needed for the sector. The Academy of Finland’s research funding budget should be strengthened in order to ensure opportunities for bottom-up breakthrough innovations.
- The Academy of Finland should have a large targeted, multidisciplinary call in bioeconomy.
- Finland needs more Centres of Excellence in applied disciplines and technology-driven research.
- Some of the funding for FIBIC’s (previously Forestcluster) research programmes should be made available through open calls without predefined research targets.
- A scientific evaluation of the discipline is urgently needed.
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