Gound-breaking Science Meets Regions in Helsinki-Uusimaa completed – towards a better future through cooperation and a change of direction in regional policy
The Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council launched the programme Science Meets Regions in Helsinki-Uusimaa in early 2022. This intensive project was also completed this year, and the results are clearly visible.
The programme showed how the Helsinki-Uusimaa Region could further enhance wellbeing across Finland while generating sustainable growth using a completely new way of developing a region, also in an international context. The process was intended to pave the way for a new and more ambitious culture of collaborating with influencers in different fields.
Helsinki-Uusimaa has unique potential for innovative sustainable growth. The region has also been a leader in many international comparisons in Europe and the world. Its strengths are associated with wellbeing, the population’s high level of education and innovation.
However, there are also areas in the region that need development in terms of, for example, sustainability and employment. Putting Helsinki-Uusimaa’s strengths and potential to use requires closer cooperation between the various actors in the region and, at national level, a regional policy decision to move resources to the Metropolitan Region.
The programme can help achieve the regional objectives
In order to enable the region and the whole of Finland to move in a new direction, the Science Meets Regions in Helsinki-Uusimaa promoted the spearheading of the objectives in the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Programme through informed decision-making.
The programme was aimed at decision-makers and stakeholders in the private and public sectors in Helsinki-Uusimaa: top management in the industry, services and other businesses as well as in science, arts and public administration, and key players and other trailblazers working on the region’s goals and challenges.
“The regionals objectives are ambitious, and new ways of cooperation are needed to achieve them. In 2022, we brought influencers together: a wide range of organisations and individuals from the EU and our region,” says Ossi Savolainen, Regional Mayor, and continues:
“The Science Meets Regions process has made it clear that the objectives of the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Programme work well for the future of our region. Finland’s success in the future requires an understanding that opportunities for the growth of the whole country are concentrated in densely populated growth areas. Our systematic and long-term cooperation also sets an example for the rest of the world.”
Helsinki-Uusimaa is well able to achieve its objectives by 2030. The organisations in the region are currently collaborating on several levels, and the Science Meets Regions programme has opened up new ways of working together for the future. With ambition, courageous experiments and decisions that combine practice and science, we will achieve climate neutrality, attract investments and create jobs across the region. The practical work has already begun.
The Science Meets Regions programme was developed in cooperation with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Its long-term objectives are innovations that combine scientific and experience-based data from various fields.
For more information, please contact:
Markku Markkula, President of the Regional Board, markku.markkula@aalto.fi, phone +358 50 464 455
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