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FINLAND This country page presents the information as available in the Strengths and Weaknesses report. The main data tables and graphs are also available in Annex F from the EIS report. The report on Sector Innovation Scoreboards provides information at the NACE 2-digit sector level for a subset of 15 countries. The TrendChart countrypage provides more general information on innovation and innovation policies.
Overview Finland is one of the EU's two star performers on innovation, a position that it shares with Sweden. It ranks second out of the 25 EU countries and third out of 33 countries, after Switzerland and Sweden. Finland ranks among the top three countries for each of the six EIS composite indices with the exception of applications and is in 1 st place for innovation demand and innovation governance. Consequently, Finland has no readily identifiable weaknesses, with above average results for all EIS indicators and for all indicators behind the domestic demand and innovation governance indices except one: the youth share of the Finnish population is 18.6%, which is below the EU country mean of 20.7%. There is little that policy can do about this over the short term. The trend results are below the EU average for many indicators, but this is often due to Finland's good performance, as with S&E graduates (1.1), participation in life-long learning (1.4), and EPO patents (5.1). Its trend for community trademarks (5.4) is slightly below the EU average, but this is partly due to the high uptake for trademarks by the new member states.
Innovation governance, demand and modes Full data for innovation governance and demand are available in Annex A. Finland ranks first within the EU for both innovation demand and innovation governance. It performs particularly well on all four governance indicators. The distribution of innovative capabilities among Finnish firms is strongly skewed towards creative innovation (see Figure 3), with 32% of firms either strategic or intermittent innovators. In contrast, only 13% of Finnish firms largely innovate through diffusion (technology modifiers and adopters). Main challenges The only major weakness for Finland is that 55% of its firms do not innovate, which places it 7 th within the EU. However, the remaining 45% of Finnish firms that do innovate are concentrated among the ‘creative innovators' with Finland ranking first within the EU for both strategic and intermittent innovators. Finnish firms have largely shifted away from a focus on innovation diffusion (with a particularly low percentage of firms that only adopt innovations) and towards developing innovations partly through in-house creative activities (strategic and intermittent innovators). Finland is 1% point below the EU average for the share of total R&D accounted for by medium-high and high tech manufacturing (2.3). In Finland's case, this is a sign of strength, showing greater diversification of manufacturing R&D in low and medium technology manufacturing sectors. The low share of university R&D funded by business (94% of the EU average) also does not appear to have had any negative effects on applications or other outputs. Peer countries for innovation patterns Finland pattern of strengths and weaknesses is most similar to those of the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Indicator quality concerns: None known. The fall in EPO patents between 2001 and 2002 reflects a general decline in patenting in both the EPO and the USPTO. There is a break in the data series for life long learning in 2000 and 2003 and in the youth education attainment level in 2000.
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