Present projects

CULTURE-BIZ IN FINLAND

FinnEKVIT is one of the national partners in the new comparative gender study Culture-Biz financed by the EU/DG Employment and Social Affairs (programme of Equal Opportunities) The national financing comes from the Gender Equality Unit of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

The Finnish research team consists of Ilkka Heiskanen, Jenni Toivoniemi (University of Helsinki) and Mirja Tervo (University of Jyväskylä). Th team is advised by Ritva Mitchell (the Finnish Foundation for Cultural Policy Research); the national evaluator is professor Ullamaija Kivikuru (Swedish School of Social Sciences/University of Helsinki.

For further information, see the ERICArts website.

FINANCING AND GOVERNANCE OF CULTURE IN FINLAND

In 2003-2004 FinnEKVIT has carried out an one-year research project "Financing and Governance of Culture in Finland". The project is financed by the Finnish Foundation for cultural policy research. It is now at its final stage; the three main reports are at present being read by experts. The reports will be published by the financier in Finnish; several English language articles will also be published.

The project has been implemented by a consortium of three professors: professor Pertti Ahonen (University of Tampere, public finance administration), professor Lasse Oulasvirta (University of Tampere, public administration) and professor (emeritus) Ilkka Heiskanen (political science, FinnEKVIT).

The project first carries out an evaluative analysis of the present organisation of financing, assessing its adequacy and, using scenario techniques to present alternative options for its development for the eight-year period 2004-2012. From the analytical point of view the focus is on the compatibility of public and private financing; that is, on the phenomena of crowding-in and crowding-out. In addition, special attention is paid to the synergetic use of financing in functional sectors (education, creation, production, diffusion, and storing) and to its innovative and chronological management in different institutional sectors (art forms, types of cultural services).

Secondly, the analysis of financing is broadened to a more general analysis of governance. In addition to the "carrot" (financing), these analyses cover also "sticks and sermons", that is, regulative and normative control and cognitive guidance mechanisms. Here too the synchrony and synergy between the activities of public and private (profit and non-profit) sectors are the main foci of analyses, which are carried out against the contextual backdrops of the on-going restructuring of Finnish public administration, the increasing importance of EU-induced policies and the escalating development of the information society. The analytical approach here is by and large that of neo-institutional organisational theory.