Several regional technology and innovation strategy documents have been written covering every region within Finland in recent years. However, the approaches, methods and semantics used in those documents vary considerably. This variation has made it difficult to compare them with each other. The purpose of this report is to present and analyze already existing regional innovation strategies of Finnish regions using one conceptual framework developed for this purpose. The basis of this framework rests on a recent national level strategy document prepared and published by Tekes, The Finnish Funding Agency of Technology and Innovation, but it also includes elements from the theories of regional innovation systems and international trade.
This report aims at strengthening the dialogue between the national and regional level policy actors. It was written during May and June 2008 and is mainly based on materials and insights that were collected during 14 one-day seminars, which were held in March and April in every region of Finland, except Uusimaa, which will be covered in a revised version of this discussion paper. The authors wish to thank all participants of those seminars for their very active contribution during those seminars and constructive comments on early versions of this report.
