Standard of scientific research in Finland remains unchanged in international comparison

The scientific impact of research funded by the Research Council of Finland (RCF) is higher than the impact of Finnish science on average. Finland’s research personnel is increasingly international: a significant proportion of research at Finnish universities is carried out by staff with a foreign background. Businesses are the main source of funding for R&D in Finland. These are the main conclusions of the latest RCF data on the State of Scientific Research in Finland.

Over the past 20 years, Finland has climbed above the world average in scientific impact as measured by the top 10 index and has remained there, according to data from the Research Council of Finland’s latest State of Scientific Research review. Over the period 2018–2021, Finland’s top 10 index was 1.09. However, key reference countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands are still ahead of Finland in terms of the impact of scientific publishing.

The top 10 index examines the relative proportion of scientific publications in the most cited 10 per cent. The world average in each discipline is 1.

RCF-funded research has high scientific impact

According to the data, the citation impact of scientific publications from RCF-funded projects is higher than in Finland overall, EU 15 countries or OECD countries. Over the four-year period 2017–2020, the top 10 index of publications by RCF-funded researchers was 1.16.

The RCF funds high-quality, knowledge-generating, long-term and peer-reviewed research through open funding competitions in accordance with the multiannual plan for the use of government research and development funding. The aim of the funding is to support productivity growth by strengthening R&D skills and the number of R&D talents in Finland.

In 2022, around 25 per cent of university research funding was granted by the RCF. In addition, RCF funding accounts for around 10 per cent of the funding for government research institutes.

Internationalisation of research continues

The State of Scientific Research data show that the internationalisation of Finnish universities is continuing. Foreign nationals accounted for around 40 per cent of all work performed by doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers and for around 15 per cent of work by senior academic staff in 2023.

The statistics also show that the scientific impact of international co-publications in Finland is clearly higher than that of publications without international collaboration. During the period 2018–2021, the top 10 index for international co-publications was 1.44, compared to 0.82 for national co-publications, for example. In bilateral scientific publishing cooperation, the United States is Finland’s most common partner.

Businesses play major role in R&D expenditure growth

Business companies are the main source of R&D funding in Finland, and around two-thirds of R&D is carried out by businesses. Business R&D expenditure has been increasing since 2016, but the growth slowed down slightly in 2022.

The proportion of PhDs in total research output has risen in all sectors in the 2000s, most markedly in the business sector over the last ten years. Statistics show that companies are the largest employer of PhDs after universities. In 2020, 27 per cent of employed PhDs were working in business companies.

However, PhDs accounted for only 8 per cent of the research conducted in the business sector in 2022, and the proportion of PhDs in higher education research has been falling since the late 2010s.

Explore more data on the State of Scientific Research in Finland 2024:

• State of Scientific Research in Finland: research funding, research personnel and scientific publishing (PDF)

The Research Council of Finland regularly reviews the state of scientific research in Finland to support Finnish higher education institutes and government research institutes in their efforts to further develop their operations. The reviews also serve to inform science policy. The reviews are published in the form of statistical and bibliometric analyses on research funding, research personnel and scientific publishing. They also include analyses on specific themes. Finland is examined in relation to key reference countries.