Proposal to move Finnish Environment Institute to Kainuu

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Timo Reina, chairman of the government’s working group on regional distribution projects, is proposing the relocation of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) to the Kainuu region in the northeast of Finland. The institute employs between 500 and 600 experts.
     The government of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) wants decisions during the present government term on moving between 4,000 and 8,000 state jobs to different parts of Finland. Under the plans, the jobs should be transferred by 2015.
     The working group on regional distribution includes representatives of all ministries and government parties.
      Reina says that the process has moved ahead well. The government has decided on redistributing about 3,300-3,400 jobs around the country.
     Now the task is to find new targets for redistribution.
     “So far, no regionalisation potential has been found at all in environment administration. This is strange. Some regionalisation should be found there as well”, Reina notes.
     She feels that relocating the expert jobs in the Finnish Environment Institute from Helsinki to Kainuu would benefit both environmental research and the region of Kainuu.
     
“One might imagine that on the environmental side there would be plenty of research and development activities that would be beneficial to do somewhere other than the Helsinki Peninsula. Kaunuu could be a good environment for something like that”, he says.
     Reina notes that Kainuu already has a regional environment centre, and that in the future it will also have a business, transport, and natural resources centre, around which it would be possible to develop national environmental research and development work.
     
He sharply rejects the idea that he would be seeking to assuage the north of Finland, which has been reeling from the blows taken by the paper industry there.
     “The state cannot regionalise its activities based on the fact that forest industry jobs are lost somewhere, but it seems that this could offer a possibility to strengthen development in Kainuu, as well as boost faith in the future through state measures, and at the same time achieve goals of regionalisation.
      Riena says that he has not yet discussed the matter with Minister of the Environment Paula Lehtomäki(Centre).


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kajaani leaders expect extensive relief package from UPM (12..9.2008)

Links:
  Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)

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