Academy of Finland Newsletter, December 2009
The Academy of Finland newsletter will keep you updated on scientific research funded in Finland and on other news from the Finnish world of science and research. In case you wish us to send this to someone else in your organisation or if you do not want to receive these newsletters in the future, please let us know at viestinta@aka.fi.
Features:
Strategy for promoting internationalisation of Finnish education, research and innovation
Research and development expenditure EUR 6.9 billion in Finland
Finnish-Indian research and technology cooperation
Academy research programme visits Belgium
New brochure on cooperation between the Academy of Finland and Russia
Evaluation report: Broader research collaboration needed on environment and sustainable development
Latest issue of ProAcademia out now
Young people from around the world apply for science camp in Helsinki
EURAXESS Finland opened for researcher in motion
Scroll down for more on these stories
STRATEGY FOR PROMOTING INTERNATIONALISATION OF FINNISH EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
The Finnish Research and Innovation Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, has adopted a strategy document concerning the internationalisation of education, research and innovation. The aims and policy guidelines are set for 2010–2015. The aim of internationalisation is to sustain Finland's own growth and development, consolidate bilateral cooperation with our key partner countries, enhance our possibilities to exert influence as part of larger communities and improve our capacity for shouldering responsibility for common cross-border problems. Major challenges demanding multilateral cooperation include climate change, energy issues and governance of the social and economic impacts arising from globalisation.
With a view to more effective cooperation, Finland must prioritise the research areas and geographical regions which have the greatest relevance to Finland and in which Finland has world-class expertise and potential for development. In international collaboration Finns must be able to exert more influence regarding both the content and targets of cooperation. Success in international cooperation and competition calls for both specialisation and reallocation of resources and actions. The choices must fall on areas already prioritised, such as the bio and nano fields. Second, Finland must concentrate on fields in which Finnish research exceeds critical mass and is internationally known. Third, it is necessary to focus on new openings, such as sustainable, energy conserving and environmentally friendly solutions and clean technologies. Similarly, the need for knowledge, new procedures and innovations in the health and well-being sector is growing at a rapid pace, which calls for significant deepening of international cooperation in this sector.
In development, attention needs to be focused on improving the attractiveness of researcher careers and increasing researcher mobility. Better quantification and targeting of education and knowledge are of the essence. The aim in development is a genuinely international higher education and research community. This entails renewing operational principles and procedures in universities, R&D institutes and polytechnics and those of the funding organisations. The aim must be to identify promising researchers and encouraged them to stay in Finland, to internationalise graduate schools and the researcher career system, and to promote the export of education and expertise.
The national intermediaries (including Finpro; Invest in Finland; Tekes; the Academy of Finland; Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund; the network of Finnish missions abroad) must jointly invest in coordinated bilateral promotion of international interaction. The areas to be prioritised in science, research and innovation policy action alongside the leading EU countries are the US, China, Japan, Russia, the most relevant bilateral partner countries (including South Korea), and the emerging economies in Asia, the Americas and Africa.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURE EUR 6.9 BILLION IN FINLAND
Approximately EUR 6.9 billion was spent on research and development (R&D) in Finland in 2008. According to Statistic Finland’s recent statistics, business enterprises accounted for EUR 5.1 billion, the higher education sector for under EUR 1.2 billion and the rest of the public sector for nearly EUR 600 million of this. A good EUR 600 million more R&D expenditure than in the previous year was recorded in statistics. Most of the growth came from the business sector, but R&D expenditure also rose somewhat in the other examined sectors. In 2009, R&D expenditure is estimated to remain more or less on a level with 2008.
In 2008, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP rose to 3.72 per cent from the 3.5 per cent level where it has stood for the past few years, while in 2009 the corresponding figure is estimated to be 3.92 per cent. For a long time now, Finland’s R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP has been the second highest among the EU countries after Sweden, and even among other countries the only one ahead of it is Israel.
In 2008, a total of 79,300 people were employed in research and development tasks, which was 200 less than one year previously. The number of R&D personnel increased by just under 800 employees in business enterprises but decreased by around 500 employees in both the higher education sector and the public sector. Seventy per cent of the R&D personnel were researchers and R&D engineers, while the rest were engaged in expert or support tasks related to R&D activity. Women accounted for one third of the R&D personnel. More information: www.tilastokeskus.fi.
FINNISH-INDIAN RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY COOPERATION
Mr Mauri Pekkarinen, Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs, visited New Delhi with representatives of Finnish science, research and technology communities and business companies. During the visit to India, a high-level technology meeting was arranged with a view to presenting Finnish expertise and know-how and finding potential partners in India. The focus of the visit was on three fields: cleantech, diagnostics and ICT. Materials science was also highlighted as a cross-cutting theme.
Four official memoranda on cooperation and some ten agreements between business companies were signed during the visit. Finland and India have a valid agreement on science and technology cooperation that was signed in 2008. Finland has corresponding agreements with strategic key partner countries. The aim is to promote bilateral cooperation with world technology drivers, such as the US and Japan, as well as with China and India that are rapidly growing market areas.
The Academy of Finland and the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology signed a memorandum of joint guidelines for a joint call in the fields of green chemistry and material research. The first call in green chemistry will be opened in December 2009. Four Finnish-Indian joint calls have already been carried out in biotechnology research with the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Indian Ministry of Science and Technology. At the moment, the Academy of Finland funds 17 Finnish-Indian joint projects.
The other Finnish funding organisation, Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, signed as well a cooperation agreement in the field of biosciences with the Department of Biotechnology, and a cooperation agreement concerning renewable energy with the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The cooperation initiatives will provide a basis for long-term Finnish-Indian research and development. There is a great demand for Finnish bioenergy know-how and products in India where Finland is known as a pioneer in bioenergy.
ACADEMY RESEARCH PROGRAMME VISITS BELGIUM
How does power manifest itself in the European Union? How do political parties react to the news that voters may be in favour of both left-wing economic policy and right-wing immigration policy at the same time? Why were Finnish women the first in Europe to attain universal suffrage and eligibility to stand as candidates in elections? These are some of the questions that were discussed at the joint seminar in Brussels of the Academy of Finland-funded Research Programme on Power and Society in Finland and the Royal Flemish Academy for Science and the Arts of Belgium.
Even though the seminar dealt with Finland and Belgium, comparative perspectives were also taken from France, the Netherlands and other parts of Europe. Dr Wouter van der Brug, Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam presented research that investigates voters’ views of socio-economic and socio-cultural issues, specifically in connection with immigration. These views were compared with the position of Western European political parties in relation to the socio-economic and socio-cultural dimension. It appeared that a majority of Dutch people support left-wing parties in socio-economic issues whereas in immigration issues they support right-wing or conservative parties that represent a stricter policy toward immigration issues. However, Western European political parties do not split up according to these dimensions in the same ways as voters, which means that there are a great number of voters whose views are not represented by any party.
Dr Laura Stark, Professor of Ethnology at the University of Jyväskylä, discusses factors that contributed to the very radical change in the right to vote in Finland in 1906. Professor Stark considers material interests a key factor in the explanation: agriculture was the mainstay in Finland at the time and husbands and wives worked alongside each other and depended on each other’s labour. As a consequence, decision makers decided to bring women to the public sphere because they were useful. Professor Stark has investigated the power strategies of agrarian women in Finland in the 18th and 19th centuries, and her studies show that there was public debate on the women’s rights as early as the 1860s in issues related to farm inheritance and succession and the division of labour.
Professor Peter Kraus, Director of the Centre for Ethnic Relations and Nationalism at the University of Helsinki, talked about minority policy in the Nordic countries where cultural homogeneity has been the key to understanding both social integration and the position of minority groups. In the Nordic countries, ethnic conflicts have been limited and the welfare state has evolved without any major obstacles. On the other hand, equality in the welfare state has been understood in the framework of cultural uniformity, which has made the Nordic countries less pluralistic than the rest of Western Europe.
NEW BROCHURE ON COOPERATION BETWEEN THE ACADEMY OF FINLAND AND RUSSIA
The Academy of Finland´s international strategy identifies Russia as one of its main areas of collaboration. Finland and Russia share a long tradition of scientific cooperation. During the past few years, this cooperation has increased in several fields. Russia is taking an active part in international research funding cooperation, which is a sign of an active internationalisation of Russian science.
The Academy of Finland engages in close cooperation with three Russian science and research funding organisations: the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Foundation for the Humanities. A new brochure Research Collaboration with Russia explains the forms of cooperation. The brochure is available on the Academy of Finland’s website at www.aka.fi/publications or it can be ordered at viestinta(at)aka.fi.
EVALUATION REPORT: BROADER RESEARCH COLLABORATION NEEDED ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The conceptual and thematic integrity of law and environment research in Finland needs to be improved. This would enable the research community that has formed around the subject to build a stronger common identity for the purpose of working together to establish a more robust and long-term approach to a subfield of the environment and sustainable development. This was among the conclusions of the panel that evaluated the Academy of Finland’s Environment and Law Research Programme. The Academy of Finland funded seven projects within the research programme in 2005–2008. Overall funding for the programme came to EUR 2.5 million.
The panel found that the programme’s greatest strength was its genuinely multidisciplinary approach. The research results were of a generally high standard in view of the resources available. According to the panel, the programme’s field of research presents many challenges and has extremely high relevance in today’s world. The most visible weakness of the programme was poor integration of the concept of sustainable development into the programme. The programme could also be criticised on the grounds that more traditional legal research could have been given a stronger presence within and across the research themes. The aims of the programme were to strengthen research on the legal and social systems and practices concerning the environment and natural resources; to promote and deepen multidisciplinary research approaches in studies of environmental law; and to support and generate national and international networks of cooperation between universities, research institutes and different disciplines. The programme generated new knowledge particularly concerning the nature of conflicts arising from the environment and natural resources and means to controlling them.
The evaluation report on the Environment and Law Research Programme is published in the Academy of Finland publication series. The report is available in pdf format on the Academy’s website at www.aka.fi/publications or it can be ordered at viestinta(at)aka.fi.
LATEST ISSUE OF PROACADEMIA OUT NOW
The latest issue of the Academy of Finland’s magazine ProAcademia includes a number of interesting articles on science and research. In the editorial, Paavo Löppönen, Director for Development and Evaluation, explains why a national science strategy should be developed, completed with ten-year development objectives and the measures needed for achieving them. The magazine also presents one of the Academy’s research programmes, Responding to Public Health Challenges. The programme strives to find ways of preventing major diseases rather than looking for ways to cure them. In the programme, individually tailored measures for guidance and motivation will be tested as a prevention method for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Read also the column by Saskya van Nouhuys, Academy Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki, about her first steps in Finland in April 1997. You can ask a copy of ProAcademia at viestinta(at)aka.fi or read it at www.aka.fi/publications > Magazines.
YOUNG PEOPLE FROM AROUND THE WORLD APPLY FOR SCIENCE CAMP IN HELSINKI
The first international Millennium Youth Camp (MYCamp) will be arranged in Finland in July 2010. A total of 995 young people from around the world have applied for participation in the camp. One of the highlights of the camp will be participation in the Millennium Technology Prize Gala. The camp is arranged by the national LUMA Centre, the Technology Academy Finland, the Finnish Ministry of Education and the Centre for School Club in cooperation with the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish National Board of Education, the Academy of Finland, Finnish universities, the Economic Information Office, the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, the Association of Biology and Geography Teachers, the Finnish Association of Teachers in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Informatics, the Finnish Science Centre Heureka, the Museum of Technology and Finnish business companies.
EURAXESS FINLAND OPENED FOR RESEARCHERS IN MOTION
The Academy of Finland has opened a new EURAXESS Finland portal that provides information for researchers in motion. The portal is designed to serve foreign researchers who come to Finland or are already staying in Finland, as well as for Finnish researchers going abroad. The portal contains information on issues such as immigration legislation, social security, Finnish research environments and job vacancies. Personal assistance to researchers is provided directly by universities and research institutes.
EURAXESS Finland is part of the European EURAXESS portal that facilitates researcher mobility. The European EURAXESS main portal involves national researcher services and all information regarding the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers, as well as job vacancies. EURAXESS provides employers with an opportunity to recruit the best possible researchers through an open international call.
EURAXESS is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the 35 countries participating in the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research. The Academy of Finland acts as the national EURAXESS bridgehead organisation. For more information, go to www.aka.fi/euraxess, www.aka.fi/eracareers and ec.europa.eu/euraxess.
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Academy of Finland in brief: The Academy’s objective is to promote scientific research of a high standard through long-term quality-based research funding, research and science policy expertise and efforts to strengthen the position of science and scientific research. The Academy makes decisions on research funding worth about EUR 314 million in 2010. Each year about 5,000 people benefit from Academy research funding. For more information, go to www.aka.fi or send a message to maj-lis.tanner@aka.fi.