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Did you know that we have 60 museums? Eleven of them can be accessed in cooperation in cooperation with a museum card. We also have great opportunities for museum visits. Museums are interesting. The growth in visitor numbers has been rapid. What is interesting about museums and why should we invest more in them in the future? This is what Raahe Museum vs. museum director Miska Eilola discusses in his own blog post. Read the entire blog post... All of the cultural development programme's blog posts can be found here.

Public hearing concerning the Interreg Aurora programme draft, and the draft of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is open now. You will have the possibility to share your opinions in an online survey and in information events. The public hearing process takes 30 days and its open due to May 20, 2021. Feedback will be passed on to the Joint Programming Committee and the programme will be finalized based on this. Interreg Aurora-programme invites you also to Information events (online) in each programme country.      

The draft Interreg Aurora programme 2021-2027 and the Environmental Impact Assessment (SEA) have been published. Both can be found on the program's website. The public consultation on the programme has started at the same time. You can participate in the consultation by replying to the online questionnaire by 20 May 2021. You can comment on the selected priorities and the draft programme as a whole. In addition, a public consultation webinar will be held on 5 May from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to present the objectives of the new programme on the basis of the draft. Now is the place to Influencing how funding is distributed in the region.  

At its second meeting in 2021, the Regional Assembly of Oulu Region examined the reformed structural fund programme and various funding options, as well as the ongoing regional programme work. The Regional Assembly of Youth Societies of Northern Ostrobothnia was presented. “The only way for organisations to succeed in the future is through closer cooperation, which can be used, for example, in project activities. Among the forms of funding, ESF funding, for example, is a tremendously great and big opportunity for organisations.” This is how Secretary General Arja Sutela summarised the discussion about the different funding options currently available from the Youth Friends Regional Assembly and the new structural fund programme under preparation. Riitta Ilola, Finance Manager at the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Northern Ostrobothnia, was opening the meeting to discuss the state of preparation and draft content of the new and competent Finland 2021-2027 programme. The implementation of the programme will start in the autumn of this year. Organisations are encouraged to play an active role in the implementation of projects. In particular, the ESF, as a form of funding, is well suited to the activities of organisations. Also …

Northern Ostrobothnia strengthens its position as an ICT region The industrial sectors in Northern Ostrobothnia recovered well towards the end of the year. The uncertainty of the summer turned to strong growth especially in the ICT cluster, the wood products industry and perhaps surprisingly also in the metal cluster. Correspondingly, the net sales of construction, which had been growing for a long time, started to fall clearly, while the decrease in the number of personnel levelled off. The decline in construction is not due to seasonal fluctuations, but to weakening cyclical conditions. The services-intensive sectors have been hit hardest by the coronavirus, which is reflected in the development of the tourism workforce. Although domestic tourism recovered rapidly, demand for services has not started to rise. The strong growth in the number of staff in the private welfare cluster has also come to a halt. The creative economy cluster recovered well from the summer's grounding. In Northern Ostrobothnia, the cluster is closely linked to industry and construction, not so much to the event and art industries that have suffered from the coronavirus…

The call for applications from the European European European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (ERDF) (ERDF) for projects under the REACT-EU programme amendment ended on 19 April 2021 in the Regional Assembly of Oulu Region. By the deadline, 53 applications were received by the Regional Assembly of Oulu Region. 23 applications were received for specific objective 12.1 Strengthening SMEs, in particular from the perspective of digitalisation and the green economy, and 30 for specific objective 12.2. Development of research and innovation activities, especially from the point of view of promoting digitalisation and achieving the goal of carbon neutrality in society. The applications applied for funding from the Regional Assembly of Northern Ostrobothnia for a total of EUR 19 084 767. The funding available for projects is approximately EUR 7.2 million.

Immobility costs money. At the Finnish level, the price of inactivity is estimated from 3.2 billion euros to as much as 7.5 billion euros per year in a study conducted by the Director of the UKK Institute Tommi Vasankari. A comparison can be made, for example, in cooperation with the acquisition of fighter jets by the Finnish Defence Forces, which is the most expensive acquisition in the history of the Finnish state. The price is estimated to be between $7 and $10 billion. The fighters are renewed approximately every 30 years, but the cost of immobility is annual. The majority of the costs of inactivity are currently borne by the adult population, the working age population. However, various studies show that the movement of children and adolescents has also decreased and overweight has increased. According to the same study, lack of mobility costs nearly 400 million euros per year in Northern Ostrobothnia. Measured by a different morbidity index, Northern Ostrobothnia is one of the most ill regions…

The situation in North America is interesting. In many places, the area is strongly growing, while in other places it is strongly shrinking. We are far from other growth centres and the capital, where accessibility is a particular issue for the development of our region. As values change and in the face of Finland's emission reductions, we need environmentally sustainable ways to travel to both the rest of Finland and Europe. The Helsinki-Oulu route is the most popular domestic flight in Finland. By speeding up the main line, you could get to Helsinki by train in as little as three and a half hours in cooperation with the current train fleet and thus get a smooth alternative to flying. For a train of less than four hours, we need the green light from the government and financial assistance from the EU. Train traffic in this period was on the rise before the coronavirus. The figures, together in cooperation with the freight tonnage, speak clear language in favour of additional tracks. The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency published…

The mission of universities is to promote free research and scientific and artistic education, to provide research-based supreme education and to educate students to serve their country and society. In carrying out their duties, universities must offer opportunities for continuous learning, interact in cooperation with the rest of society and promote the societal impact of research results and artistic activities. Basic scientific research produces new information on the subject to be studied. This work is fuelled by the curiosity and interest of researchers to better understand the subject of their research. The significance of new knowledge is universal in nature and brought to the attention of the world's scientific community through scientific publications and presentations. Applied research, on the other hand, aims at utilising already existing information, for example, to implement the desired type of product. It is worth noting that many, perhaps most…

"How do we get young people to stay at home? Every one of us may have attended a workshop, a webinar or a coffee table discussion, where this – I would not say – question of eternity has been discussed. In order not to go around the same old ideas in this blog post, I suggest that you change your mindset a bit." This is how project coordinator Satu Himanen starts her own blog post under the Northern Ostrobothnia Culture Development Programme. Read what Satu proposes to do to increase the grip and attractiveness of the county. All the blogs of the Cultural Development Programme can be found here.