Finnish Startup Community calls for increased R&D investments

The goal is worthwhile, but not enough, according to the Finnish Startup Community. Increased R&D spending is easier to achieve by enabling and promoting the activities of the companies involved. New jobs are created in new growth-oriented companies.

The solutions to long term economic growth are immigration, education and supporting companies' R&D investments. According to Youssef Zad, the economist of the Finnish Startup Community, Finland competes for international R&D investments, especially with Sweden, the Baltics and Germany. The availability of skilled personnel, the proximity of other units and customers of a company, and the level of public R&D subsidies affect which country companies focus their research and development on, said Zad.

There is an increase in education places and the availability of R&D personnel in Finland that can influence the availability of international students to stay and find employment in the country. The proximity of the company's other units can be influenced by the proximity of companies to locate in Finland in general.

If we can create more attractive business clusters in Finland, it is likely that significant R&D investments will be built around them, said Riikka Pakarinen, CEO of the Finnish Startup Community. Parinen reminded that the gaming industry is a good example of this.

R&D investments have a positive impact on the entire national economy. The best amount of R&D expenditures can only be achieved with the help of state funding, according to economist Zad. Research literature shows that innovation activities have a positive impact on economic growth in the long term. Research literature has found that public R&D funding and additional tax deductions have been able to increase R&D activities.

The business support policy of the coming decade needs to be examined carefully so that scarce resources are used most efficiently. The government's budget allocations for research and development in the public sector have been positive as it's 2022 budget allocations will increase by 272 million from 2021 to 2021, according to recent developments in the public sector's R&D funding policy. The state's R&D funding will increase to almost 2.5 billion euros in total. The direction of R&D support policy was weak in the 2010 s but the current government has been able to make decisions in the early 2020s in the right direction. The direction is very positive at the moment.

The members of the Finnish startup community invest significant amounts in research and development expenses and aim for significant growth by the year 2030. If the growth targets are realized and the ratio of R&D expenditure to turnover can be kept at the same level as opposed to the current level, this would bring Finland no less than 391 million euros in additional R&D investments. According to CEO Pakarinen, this would be estimated to be up to 10 percent of Finland's R&D spending growth target.