Internationalisation of Finnish Public Research Organisations Dr. Antti Pelkonen Senior Scientist, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland China-OECD Roundtable on Innovation Policies Beijing, 18 October 2011 Based on Loikkanen, T., Hyytinen, K., Konttinen, J. & Pelkonen, A.: Internationalisation of Finnish Public Research Organisations – Current State and Future Perspectives. Advisory Board for Sectoral Research 3/

2 24/10/2015 Content ● Finnish economy and innovation system in a nutshell ● Public research organisations (PROs) in Finland ● Internationalisation of Finnish PROs ● Conclusions ● Finnish economy and innovation system in a nutshell ● Public research organisations (PROs) in Finland ● Internationalisation of Finnish PROs ● Conclusions

3 24/10/2015 The Finnish economy and innovation system in a nutshell  Finland is a small, export-driven open economy in the Northern Europe  Forest and metal industries the traditional key economic sectors  Strong rise of the ICT sector driven by Nokia in the 1990s  In the 2000s all key economic sectors facing important challenges: growing need for systemic changes in the economy  Finnish national innovation system  4.0 % of GDP used in R&D, second highest in the OECD countries after Sweden (in 2009)  Internationalisation is an important challenge for the whole innovation system

4 24/10/2015 Public research organisations in Finland – Missions and tasks  19 PROs operating in 8 administrative sectors  PROs are very diverse in their size, focus, and activities  Core missions  To produce and transfer knowledge to support decision-making  To carry out strategic research to sustain the high quality of their applied research services  Sector and organisation specific functions defined in acts of PROs

5 24/10/2015 Finnish PROs – Funding and organisation  Funding from several sources: directly from budget, income from services, competition-based research funding  Share of direct budget funding decreased  PROs acquire increasingly competition-based research funding (45 % of all R&D funding in PROs; nearly 70 % in the most market- oriented PROs)  This has challenged them to develop service culture and customer driven activities  PROs organised according to sectoral and administrative structures but research needs are increasingly horizontal, crossing sectoral borders

6 24/10/2015 Public Research Organisations in Finland

7 24/10/2015 Internationalisation of PROs – Driving forces and rationales  Important socio-economic challenges (climate change, necessity of ne.w energy sources etc.) are considered as the most important driver  Internationalisation of research and innovation itself: open innovation, global networks and acquisition of R&D services from global markets  Public funding to PROs is expected to decrease  Scientific rationale of internationalisation: advance of science is based on international collaboration.  Carrying out the official tasks of PROs also requires growing international collaboration.

8 24/10/2015 Current state of internationalisation in Finnish PROs  Internationalisation considered as an important strategic aspect in most PROs, yet the importance varies across PROs. Internationalisation is less relevant for those whose activity area is very domestic.  Overall level of internationalisation still relatively modest, e.g.:  The volume of international funding is still rather low, on average around 7 per cent (15 % at highest). In the 2000s the volume has increased in most PROs, mainly from EU-sources (EU FPs).  Expert mobility: in most Finnish PROs the proportion of foreign staff is between 1 and 4 per cent of the whole staff (in some over 20 %).  In many PROs the challenge now is to mainstream internationalisation; thus far it has been limited to small part of the institutions and their staff.

9 24/10/2015 International research collaboration of Finnish PROs  Finnish PROs have close links to global scientific and expert communities  Extensive collaboration in scientific publishing, in particular with US, Sweden, UK and Germany  Almost all PROs have long-term research cooperation with the Nordic countries and Russia, and with countries with large research systems (e.g. Germany, France, UK)  Half of them have established collaboration in the USA  Countries with the biggest potential for growing future collaboration are India, Japan, China, Australia and some European countries (e.g. Portugal)

10 24/10/2015 Geographical orientation of Finnish PROs´ in scientific publishing

11 24/10/2015 Main research partners of Finnish PROs in the world atlas

12 24/10/2015 How to promote internationalisation?  Promoting outward mobility of own staff is considered as the most important method to support internationalisation: financial support, language and culture training, incentives in terms of employment, communication.  Framework contracts with foreign institutes also important.  Recruiting international top-level professionals: challenging but may be very influential.  However, requires an attractive and high-quality research community, good physical environment (laboratory), well-know international reputation of the PRO, flexibility in terms of practical working conditions and good personal connections and networks.  The most effective method for promoting internationalisation is to maintain a high-quality research environment

13 24/10/2015 Conclusions  PROs are primarily national actors, but operating increasingly internationally. Internationalisation challenges the legitimacy of national funding and policy.  Need for evidence of national benefits of PROs’ international activities  Information about internationalisation should be gathered and disseminated more systematically and extensively to support monitoring, target setting and policy-making.  In the context of increasing internationalisation, the (Finnish) PROs need... ...a common proactive strategy which allows them … ...to form strong, multidisciplinary critical masses in order to be... ... competitive in the `internal´ European applied research markets and … ... capable to search for science-based solutions to grand socio-economic challenges in global markets of applied research.

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