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.
There are solutions for long term economic growth that are work-based immigration, education investments and support for companies' R&D investments. Finland competes for international R&D investments, especially with Sweden, the Baltics and Germany, according to Youssef Zad, economist of the Finnish Startup Community. 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.
The availability of R&D personnel in Finland is influenced by increasing higher education places and getting 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.
Riikka Pakarinen, CEO of the Finnish Startup Community, said if we create more attractive business clusters in Finland, it is likely that significant R&D investments will be built around them. 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 optimal amount of R&D expenditures is only 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 funding and additional tax deductions have been able to increase R&D activities.
The business support policy of the coming decade must be examined carefully so that scarce resources are used most efficiently. The government's budget allocations for research and development will increase by 272 million compared to 2021, as recent developments in the public sector's funding policy have been positive. The state's R&D funding will increase to almost 2.5 billion euro 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 Finnish startup community invests a lot of money in research and development expenses and aim for significant growth by the year 2030, according to the members of the Finnish startup community. If the growth targets are realized and the ratio of R&D expenditure to turnover can be kept at the same level as compared to the current level, this would bring Finland no less than 391 million euros in additional R&D investments. CEO Pakarinen says that this would be estimated to be up to 10 percent of Finland's R&D spending growth target.