Science, Technology and Industry Co-operation in Finland - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 439

The Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation established in
Finland are new public-private partnerships. Their main goal is to thoroughly
renew industry clusters and to create radical innovations.

• Energy and the environment (CLEEN Ltd).
• Metal products and mechanical engineering (FIMECC Ltd).
• The forest cluster (Forestcluster Ltd).
• Built environment innovations (RYM Oy).
• Health and wellbeing (SalWe Ltd).
• Information and communication industry and services (Tieto- ja viest-

intäteollisuuden tutkimus TIVIT Oy).

7 Tekes Programmes for Start-ups

Growth companies are the backbone of economic wellbeing. Finns must be
encouraged to become entrepreneurs, and successful entrepreneurs encouraged to
become investors. Finland may very well become the European centre for growth
companies in the technology industry. Tekes has improved its services further to
meet the needs of start-ups and growing SMEs. These services encourage com-
panies to focus on growth and aim for global markets from the start. Success is
evident in, for instance, the games industry and in the recent Deloitte and Wired
listings.
Tekes offers numerous services for growth companies. Services such as
Funding for young innovative growth companies and the Vigo-acceleration pro-
gramme have proved to be effective especially with regard to ICT companies
(Tekes Homepage).

8 Tuli

Tuli is a programme funded by Tekes that helps researchers and research com-
munities to evaluate the commercial potential of a research-based inventions or
ideas and aids in the process of their commercialisation. The programme was
launched first time in 1993 and reshaped into a 4-year national programme in
2002. The programme was operated via a network of local technology parks and
the total budget of the programme in 2005 was approximately €2.5 million.
Annually there were about 500-650 business ideas identified.
The latest Tuli programme runs from 2008-2012. In 2008-2010, 14 universi-
ties, 21 polytechnics and five research institutes—all in all, 40 research organi-
sation—are involved. The overall budget for the whole programme is
approximately €50 million. Tuli aims to give birth to new research-based business
with the aid of licence agreements, know-how transfers and new companies.