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Sweden, Denmark and Finland were ranked as innovation leaders with respective ranks of first, second and fourth in the innovation scoreboard in the EU Framework Programme 7 (FP7) monitoring report.
Jukka Lukkari wrote in the Tekniikka & Talous magazine on the 2nd of April 2015 that EU funding is slipping through Finland’s fingers. It is indeed true that the renewed and more innovation-oriented contents of the EU Horizon 2020 funding program, as well as its accelerated processing speeds, have increased the application activity both in Finland and elsewhere in Europe. This has, in turn, led to even tougher competition than before and to somewhat lowered success rates in the EU area.
Column in Kauppalehti by Pekka Koponen 6.10.2014, B18
According to the recently published statistics of Finland’s participation in the EU’s 7th framework program, Spinverse is in third place as to the number of projects out of all Finnish SMEs, totaling to seven funded projects. The success rate for Spinverse for the application to funding ratio is 100%.
Many Finnish companies miss an opportunity to get EU funding because Finland lacks a national strategy to support this.
The European Commission is launching the biggest Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020. Its budget of 70 billion for seven years is the biggest of its kind in the world. In the previous Framework Programme, Finland was a net recipient: we received 1.33 times more money than we contributed. Many things will change this time around and there is a possibility that we’ll be left with nothing.
The looming threat of a recession increases the importance of R&D funding, both directly from Tekes and by other means such as tax incentives. Recipients of such funding also have an obligation to communicate to taxpayers about how it is being used, even before specific results are achieved. When the message is clear, new and bold, the media writes. Also positively.
European sources can provide very substantial support for company’s investment in R&D. For example, compared to TEKES, the percentages of allocated funding can be larger: 50% for demonstrations, 75% for research activities and 100% for the coordination of projects. On the other hand, the competition in all EU-funding is tougher, and the amount of bureaucracy higher.