Research in Finland
In 2007 research and development expenditure represented 3.5% of the gross domestic product, which puts Finland among the OECD top. The Finnish R&D expenditure was about 6.2 billion euros.
The private sector investments constitute 67%, national public input 26% and foreign funding the remaining 7% of the total Finnish R&D expenditure. About half of the business sector investments come from the electrotechnical industry.
Over the past decade, the number of R&D personnel has grown from 40,000 to nearly 80,000. This makes over 2% of the overall labour force, which is the highest figure among all the OECD countries. The number of doctoral degrees has similarly doubled in the past ten years.
Science policy is designed to raise the level, coverage, impact on society and international visibility of Finnish research.
Graduate schools lower the age of doctoral candidates
The Finnish universities have had a system of graduate schools since 1995. They were put in place in order to shorten the time it takes doctoral students to write their thesis and to increase international cooperation. In the graduate schools, doctoral students are paid and work on their theses full-time. There are 119 graduate schools, which have altogether 1,500 postgraduate places. One in three doctoral students in the graduate schools are under 30 when they defend their thesis.
Science policy at the Ministry of Education
At the Ministry of Education science policy is the responsibility of the Department for Education and Science Policy and its Science Policy Division.Current priorities are to develop public research funding, raise the profile of Finnish science, to intensify the utilisation of research findings and to improve the knowledge base for science policy. More about the work of the Division for Higher Education and Science in the Ministry section.
Research.fi
The science and technology service research.fi contains statistics and other data, publications and documents describing R&D in Finland.