Finnish visit to EPRC: Structural Funds in the Tampere Region in Finland.

On 18 November, Esa Halme and Jukka Alasentie from the Council of Tampere Region gave a presentation on the implementation of Structural Funds in their region. They underlined the importance of innovation for the region and explained how the challenge of transforming research into concrete innovation is addressed. Instead of using Structural Funds contributions as a discount on already existing activities, the region views that European funding should be used to 'purchase change'. They also showed that research activities are not always correlated to innovation. While some regions perform well in innovation terms, their R&D expenditure can be comparatively low. Regional innovation policy is not necessarily linked to regional research institutions, since research can be bought in from the outside. Finally, they concluded with a brief outlook on the 2014-20 programme priorities. The presentation slides of the seminar are available http://www.eprc.strath.ac.uk/news/Structural_Funds_in_Tampere_Region.pdf