Co-evolution of the Finnish National and Local Innovation and Science Arenas: Towards a Dynamic Understanding of Multi-Level Governance

Abstract

In Finland, science policy is in the hands of central government and regions/localities do not directly have any say in the formulation of science policies. However, Finnish city-regions have influenced national science policies indirectly and the interaction of national and local policies has unfolded in time in innovation and science arenas. This paper aims to provide answers to the following questions: a) how has the institutional basis for science and innovation evolved in Finland over the past 50 years, especially in three Finnish case city-regions b) who have been the main actors in the evolution of institutional capacity and what have their main strategies been c) how have national and local policies and developments co-evolved over time? The article focuses particularly on how different policies, local and national, have co-evolved in the context of multi-level governance.