| Abstract: |
An important prerequisite for the renewal of Finland’s industrial and economic
base is the ability of the universities to promote the renewal of the
knowledge base. The UNI project studied ways in which changes in external
funding mechanisms and recent governance changes in Finnish universities have
changed the framework conditions influencing innovativeness and innovation in
university research. Innovation here refers to novel approaches and
potentially, breakthrough research, requiring risk-taking. The UK provided a
comparative perspective for the study. This report reprints four separate
policy briefs and reports that the UNI project has produced and provides an
overall concluding chapter for them. A major conclusion of the study is that,
so far, there has not been much impact from the recent policy changes on
intellectual innovation in research in Finland. University governance
influences research content very indirectly and is mediated by multiple other
factors, meaning that policy changes are not, at least in the short run,
translated into changed research content. As far as research funding
organisations are concerned, Finland has not had a funding organisation that
encourages risk-taking and intellectual innovation in research. Recent policy
changes have not fundamentally altered this situation. In the UK, the
established practice of performance measurement of universities seems to
narrow notions of appropriate research content and standards of performance
and is becoming an ominous factor in reducing variety and risk-taking in
university research. This phenomenon is further developed in the UK, but
Finland seems now to be ‘catching up’. In industry-university collaboration
short-term commissions and most of Tekes’ industrial collaboration support
draw on existing knowledge and know-how and are not intended to promote highly
innovative and high-risk activities. More flexible and longer-term contracts
can in principle promote such research activities provided that the knowledge
they produce will be in the public arena since scientific breakthroughs, to
bear fruit, require a great deal of further development and wide adoption of
the novel concepts, methods etc. by the scientific community. |