City of Oulu’s ecosys­tem agree­ment receives 1.5 mil­lion euros for imple­men­ta­tion for the year 2025

City of Oulu’s ecosys­tem agree­ment receives 1.5 mil­lion euros for imple­men­ta­tion for the year 2025

The Finnish Gov­ern­ment has decid­ed on the allo­ca­tion of grants for 2025 under the “Inno­va­tion and Skills in Fin­land 2021–2027” EU region­al and struc­tur­al pol­i­cy pro­gram as well as Inter­reg pro­grams. A grant of 1.5 mil­lion euros was allo­cat­ed for the imple­men­ta­tion of the ecosys­tem agree­ment between the city of Oulu and the Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Employ­ment for the year 2025.

The Oulu ecosys­tem agree­ment is imple­ment­ed in coop­er­a­tion with the Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance (OIA), which includes the city, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, OSAO, VTT, Pohde, the Nat­ur­al Resources Insti­tute Fin­land, and Tech­nop­o­lis. The com­mon goal for the years 2021–2027 is to make Oulu region the best Euro­pean ecosys­tem to cre­ate glob­al added val­ue with dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion. The agree­ment and OIA strat­e­gy have three the­mat­ic focus areas: dig­i­tal­iza­tion in urban envi­ron­ment, dig­i­tal health, and sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar econ­o­my and clean solu­tions. The agree­ment tar­gets also sup­port­ing skills and con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, the devel­op­ment of busi­ness ecosys­tems and clus­ters, and the cre­ation of new busi­ness­es, with­in these three the­mat­ic areas.

So far, since 2021, a total of 25 projects have been fund­ed and sup­port­ed under the agree­ment, with a total project port­fo­lio vol­ume of approx­i­mate­ly 8.1 mil­lion euros. The lat­est projects fund­ed in 2024 includ­ed the Water Data Space , which aims to cre­ate a reli­able dig­i­tal data test plat­form, enabling researchers and com­pa­nies to access a wide range of water indus­try data; the Por­tAu­toma­tion project relat­ed to the han­dling of sea con­tain­ers in the port with auto­mat­ed work machines; the flag­ship project “Oulu­ver­sum,” which brings togeth­er the meta­verse theme of the Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance; and the “New Inno­va­tion Hubs in Indus­try” (TUIKE).

For the year 2025, the Sus­tain­able Urban Devel­op­ment ERDF project call imple­ment­ing the ecosys­tem agree­ment in Oulu has slight­ly more fund­ing than pre­vi­ous years, 1.5 mil­lion euros. The sup­port per­cent­age for projects is 60%, and the city of Oulu is pre­pared to finance sup­port­ed projects up to a max­i­mum of 30% of the total project bud­get. The tar­get­ing and sched­ules for the 2025 project call are cur­rent­ly being planned by city’s offi­cials.

How can com­pa­nies ben­e­fit from an ecosys­tem agree­ment and OIA col­lab­o­ra­tion?

Com­pa­nies inter­est­ed in research and devel­op­ment activ­i­ties – espe­cial­ly small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es – are invit­ed to a com­pa­ny financ­ing clin­ic orga­nized at the begin­ning of April. In addi­tion to RDI rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance, financ­ing experts from Busi­ness­Fin­land, the ELY Cen­ter, and Business­Oulu will be present. The aim of the event is to bring togeth­er com­pa­nies plan­ning to apply for fund­ing for their devel­op­ment activ­i­ties, pro­vide sup­port for the appli­ca­tion process, and offer an oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work and link their own project to the broad­er region­al RDI coop­er­a­tion.

Com­pa­ny Financ­ing Clin­ic April 1^st, — Reg­is­tra­tion https://www.lyyti.in/TKIrahoitus

Finnish Government’s press release: https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410877/eur-357-million-is-allocated-to-support-regional-growth-and-vitality

For more infor­ma­tion:

Maria Vuoren­so­la, Pro­gram Man­ag­er
Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance, Business­Oulu
+358407601288
maria.vuorensola@businessoulu.com