Strengthening the Innovation Ecosystem through an Alliance Agreement

The Oulu Innovation Alliance (OIA) operating model was created in 2009. The stakeholders during the third OIA agreement period in 2021–2027 include the City of Oulu, University of Oulu, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Educational Consortium OSAO, Natural Resources Institute Finland, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Wellbeing Services County of North Ostrobothnia, and Technopolis. During its history, the cooperation between the OIA network and regional actors has been fruitful, and the activities have contributed to several developments that are significant for the region. OIA's strategic target areas are based on the region's special expertise.
An ecosystem agreement between the City of Oulu and the state on innovation activities in 2021–2027 corresponds to the OIA’s strategy. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland negotiated ecosystem agreements with 16 different city regions for targeting public and private RDI funding to strategically selected fields and building the international brand of Finland as a forerunner of technological development, innovative acquisitions, and trial culture.

The aim of the project “Blazing trails for Northern Innovation — Oulu Innovation Alliance 2.0” was to develop the effectiveness of OIA cooperation to match the conditions for growth by digitalization and the green & clean transition. Strong, Oulu region innovation-based ecosystems support business-oriented research, development and innovation, as well as the formation of ecosystems and clusters, and meeting the needs of future competencies.

The project was set to enable the Oulu Innovation Alliance to develop towards the best in Europe, both nationally and internationally renowned, agile and attractive digital value-added innovation ecosystem, whose value chain it is easy for both large locomotive companies and start-ups to join. Our work packages consisted of 1) Oulu innovation alliance network organization and ecosystem coordination, 2) Oulu Innovation Alliance 2.0 – ecosystem development and 3) impact communication.

During the project Oulu Innovation Alliance 2.0 operating model was developed, which will now, after the project has ended, support the region's RDI activities and national co-operation and internationalization in an even more business-oriented manner. With the help of the project, the SUD funding rounds were executed in a high-quality manner and the region's development work was linked to the national Innocities-network work. During the project our joint project portfolio has seen significant growth and is now approx. 58 million € (ERDF, JTF). With the help of the project communication and marketing efforts of the Oulu Innovation Alliance and its impact has had a major uplift, and we have now an active home site filled with current information about activities, funding rounds, projects and events. We have also created an internal workspace for active OIA network and cluster leaders.

OIA based cooperation has been very successful in SUD implementation. We have 3+1 target fields, 13 spearhead programs, approx.150 person active network of RDI-doers and together we have generated a project portfolio of 58 million euros (2021-today). Impact is visible: In 2024 the city of Oulu was awarded the 3rd place in European Capital of Innovation and the formation of new startups has tripled from 2022 and Oulu was recognized as 2nd active startup ecosystem after the Helsinki capital area.

Agreement based RDI cooperation alliance model gives a good structure for local innovation ecosystem formation. With the help of development and coordination project "Blazing trails for Northern Innovation — Oulu Innovation Alliance 2.0 "we have developed and updated operating model for our RDI cooperation and supported Oulu area to become Europe’s best, nationally and internationally known, agile and attractive digital innovation ecosystem that produces global added value, and to which the alliance partners are committed and value chains where businesses from large locomotive companies to startups can easily access.

https://oulu.com/en/oia/