Figure: Sanna Krook / City of Oulu
Northern Ostrobothnia is an attractive, diverse, open and international region, whose development and progress attracts national and international experts to meet the needs of business and industry. This requires promotion and development measures from the Regional Assembly of Northern Ostrobothnia, as well as investment in innovation and RDI activities and education. Tourism to the region has increased. The unique nature of Northern Ostrobothnia is the region's attraction factor.
- Enhance vitality through practical measures such as land use, high-quality business services and co-creation in cooperation in cooperation with universities and educational decision-making bodies.
- Investing in the attractiveness and digitalisation of regional educational decision-making bodies, high-quality language teaching and multicultural learning experiences.
- Enabling work, business, leisure and housing that fits your lifestyle
- The region of Northern Ostrobothnia is actively promoted to increase its positive reputation and the region's attractiveness.
- Develop the year-round nature of tourism, the accessibility of tourist destinations, the productisation of attraction fstakeholders and sustainable tourism.
- Invest in targeted tourism marketing.
How to build international competitiveness
More experts in Northern Ostrobothnia!
There is a shortage of talent in many sectors in the region, which is perceived by companies as an obstacle to growth. The solution to this is seen as labour migration, which the European Union also seeks to promote. Municipalities in the region must coordinate and join forces in planned immigration and integration work. The capacity of companies and their ability to hire international labour will be supported. The quality of daily life and integration of foreigners moving to the region will be invested in. The aim is to strengthen the integration of international students and the working-age population into the Finnish labour market and to achieve this, regional cooperation is needed. The region's national and international awareness requires strong investment in communication activities.
What is the pace of growth?
- Promote cross-industry cooperation between companies and research institutes.
- Identify the international strengths and development targets of the region's innovation activities.
- Smart specialisation creates innovation ecosystems in the region that support the renewal of the businesses.
- The operation of business ecosystems is supported in all regions in order to commercialise products and services, increase companies' RDI investments and promote exports.
- Participate in EU-level partnership networks to support specialisation, in cooperation in cooperation with a view to obtaining direct EU RDI funding.
- Invest in enabling higher education decision-making bodies in the region to focus on generating new knowledge and a skilled workforce.
- Link climate action to livelihoods and new business opportunities.
- Supporting stakeholders in the region in the green transition.
Impact of transport on international competitiveness
Northern Ostrobothnia is a transport hub at the intersection of the Baltic Sea and the Arctic region, connecting the most important industrial, research and know-how hub in Northern Europe. Investing in a smart and sustainable TEN-T core transport network corridor connecting the Nordic countries to the Mediterranean, as well as in the trans-European transport, energy and digital networks, is important for growth and sustainable mobility. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery of air traffic at home and on international flights is important for the recovery of international tourism. Public transport should be developed to serve tourism, especially the internal travel chains of the region, but also for the sake of sustainable tourism and accessibility. The development of node services will increase the attractiveness and use of public transport.
What do we do in practice to achieve our goals?
Key projects for international success:
- Increasing labour and educational migration
- Implementation of the tourism strategy for Northern Ostrobothnia
- Networked innovation and ecosystem strengthening and RDI projects
- Promotion of TEN-T priority transport projects
- Developing environmentally friendly transport solutions
- The region's international and national communications and marketing profiling project
- Increasing the reputation of Northern Ostrobothnia
- Increasing the attractiveness of educational decision-making bodies and higher education decision-making bodies
