Available funding in Finland
Background information
Funding opportunities for upskilling and reskilling to support the digital competences of individuals and organizations are available in the form of loans, grants, and financial instruments. For the period 2021 – 2026, most of the activities in digital transformation are financed through Recovery and Resilience facility but also as activities in Horizon, Erasmus+, ESIF and EEA grant schemes. You may find more information on the page of Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the page of the Jatkuvan oppimisen ja työllisyyden palvelukeskus (The Service Centre for Continuous Learning and Employment).
Recovery and Resilience Plan
Finland’s Recovery and Resilience Plan consists of 39 investments and 18 reforms, supported by €2.1 billion in grants. 50% of the plan will support climate objectives and 27 % of the plan will support the digital transition. Finland's recovery and resilience plan allocates funds for various initiatives to facilitate the country's digital transition. One aspect of the plan involves investing €50 million in the development of high-speed broadband infrastructure across Finland. Additionally, the plan provides €85 million to support the Digirail project, which aims to implement the European Rail Traffic Management System on the entire national railway network by 2040. This project also involves the establishment of the 4G and 5G-based Future Railway Mobile Communication System. The plan further includes €100 million to promote digital innovations in social welfare and healthcare services, €46 million for investments in continuous learning, and €25 million to accelerate the development of key technologies such as microelectronics, 6G, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Moreover, the plan dedicates €20 million to streamline work- and education-based immigration processes and facilitate international recruitment.
‘Digitalisation’ projects focus on areas such as:
rail transport digitalisation (Digirail project)
high-speed internet connections throughout the country
further investments in leading edge technologies: 6G networks, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and microelectronics
real-time economy: digital, real-time business processes, e.g. saving receipts and invoices in a standard, machine-readable format
investments in research on cyber and information security.
The full plan (in English) is available through the following link.
As an example, Virtual Finland service platform is designed to enhance Finland's competitiveness by facilitating the provision of digital services from both the public and private sectors for different groups coming to Finland. The primary objective of this investment is to offer a single service interface to people who would like to reside in Finland, starting with employees immigrating to the country. The service platform aims to cover a wide range of public services such as digital identity, e-residency, while also enabling the support of private services such as commercial insurance, banking, accounting, financial, legal, and other related services. A total of EUR 4 million in funding has been allocated to this project from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and Finland supports the project by an additional EUR 2 million.
Reform of digital infrastructure for immigration processes is aiming to attract international talent by streamlining the administrative procedures for processing residence permit applications based on work and education. Steps will be taken to accelerate the work-based residence permit process, to make it easier for students and researchers to enter into and stay in Finland, and to improve the status of seasonal workers with measures such as legislative amendments, with additional attention to preventing the exploitation of foreign labour.
National Funding
The Service Centre for Continuous Learning and Employment (Jatkuvan oppimisen ja työllisyyden palvelukeskus) analyses the competence and labour market needs of working life, finances education and training intended for working-age people, develops information, advisory and guidance services, supports regional and other cooperation and participates in the work to develop a digital service package for continuous learning. As part of their services, they are funding vocational trainings, education at university level, completion of professional degrees etc. Funded skills services are free of charge for participants, and they are mainly aimed at people who are employed and people who are not in the workforce.
As part of the RRF the reform of continuous learning at The Service Centre for Continuous Learning and Employment is aiming to improve employment opportunities of working age people by developing their skills and competences and to support the long-term growth potential of companies and the vitality of regions. The reform aims at increasing the matching between the provision of educational courses and the labour market’s needs through creating a service centre for continuous learning and employment, carrying out training programmes which support the digital transition, the understanding of new ways of working, and citizens’ ability to manage new digital tools.
Different funding options are also available on the Digital Skills and Jobs platform, you may find a listing for Finland on this link.
