Sitra to significantly increase funding for solutions that renew Finland

Sitra launched ten funding calls between February and April 2025. In line with the strategy adopted a year earlier, Sitra is strengthening its role as a funder of social innovation.

This spring’s funding calls will fund solutions such as the development of regional RDI co-operation (in Finnish) as well as the utilisation of data in the public sector and social welfare and healthcare.

There is also an open funding call to harness the health benefits of nature in the fight against common and widespread chronic diseases in Finland (in Finnish), thereby aiming to reduce their societal costs.

Approximately three million euros have been reserved to be channelled through the funding calls that were launched during February and April.

The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra aims to address societal challenges and further accelerate sustainable economic growth in partnership with other organisations. To achieve this, Sitra will increase the amount of funding and its support to procurements to approximately EUR 15 million from 2026 onwards.

This is just over 40 per cent of Sitra’s annual budget. A significant part of this support is channelled through funding calls.

Multiple funding calls aim to boost RDI co-operation between businesses and the research community

According to Sitra’s national business survey (2024), in addition to funding, facilitating co-operation with research organisations is the most important factor for companies in increasing their RDI activities. We took advantage of this opportunity through the funding call (in Finnish) for InnoCities.

As a result of the funding call, RDI co-operation activities will begin in the regions of Seinäjoki, Turku, Tampere, Joensuu, Vaasa, Jyväskylä and Lappeenranta. The work will begin with the production of situational snapshots of the obstacles and functional solutions to RDI co-operation between businesses and research organisations in the area. At the same time, it will create a national overview of how co-operation should be developed across various parts of Finland.

Furthermore, Sitra will continue to work for improved RDI co-operation in 2025 by launching more funding calls.

From understanding societal problems to disseminating and embedding innovation

Depending on the topic, Sitra’s funding calls may target the public sector, businesses, organisations or research and educational institutions.

“We fund work that could focus on gaining a deeper understanding of a societal problem, developing new solutions or putting them into practice,” says Lasse Miettinen, director of Sitra’s programmes unit.

For example, the Futures of economic growth funding call aims to gain a deeper understanding of a societal problem related to the economy. In this call, Sitra funds studies that help anticipate economic trajectories in a rapidly changing world, prepare for crises and diversify the discourse surrounding economics.

The dissemination of new innovations is pursued through funding calls focused on democracy, for example. One of these sponsors the use of citizen panels to support decision-making in public administration. In addition, Sitra launched separate funding calls for the municipalities and wellbeing services counties (in Finnish) to finance the use of the digital Polis platform to strengthen participation in decision-making.

Citizen panels and the Polis platform are new methods of civic participation that Sitra has been testing and refining over the past several years (in Finnish). The aim now is to establish and use the methods with as many actors as possible.

Sitra to increase investment in the public sector’s data use and AI transition

The use of data and AI are opening up new opportunities to improve productivity by streamlining the work of professionals, developing service processes and reallocating staff efforts. International reports predict a significant AI-driven breakthrough also for the public sector.

We tackled this change in the spring with the Data and artificial intelligence in public-sector strategic decision-making funding call. Strategic decision-making refers to decisions that significantly direct the activities of an organisation and its use of resources.

Projects to be funded can, for example, speed up decision-making and automate routine tasks, or support the rapid deployment of AI solutions in the public administration and assist in how data is used across organisational boundaries.

The call is part of Sitra’s broader efforts that aim to support the development of the Finnish public sector as a pioneer in the use of data and AI. Moreover, in 2025 Sitra will launch more funding calls with a focus on the use data and AI.

Sitra’s support is “more than just euros”

In the future, Sitra will work more closely with partners to further accelerate solutions to transform Finland. Instead of extensive thematic funding calls, Sitra will aim to narrow down its calls more precisely.

“We are working on the topics of our funding calls with those who are most familiar with the problem. We only open a funding call when we have together defined the problem so well that we believe our call can help find innovative solutions,” says Kalle Nieminen, director of the solutions unit at Sitra.

Sitra differs from many funding organisations in that it also maintains close co-operation during the implementation phase of the funded projects. If the projects benefit from it, Sitra actively contributes to the implementation with the support of its experts.

“In addition to financial investment, our core competence includes supporting partners in implementing social change, co-developing innovations, future-oriented thinking and building networks. This support amounts to more than just euros,” Nieminen concludes.

For more information on open calls, please visit the Apply for funding page (in Finnish).