In Finland there
are about 3000 private, non-profit foundations
and funds. In comparison, in Norway there are ca. 7000, in Sweden 20.000, in the
UK approximately 160.000 and in the USA over 600.000 foundations. When the
first law on non-profit foundations was passed in Finland in 1930, the number
of this kind of registered societies was close to 20. The early foundations were
mainly societal charity organs and, for instance, home museum foundations of
local or national dignitary men.
But times changed and activities of foundations
have become more complicated especially in terms of taxation. The economic base
of foundations has been mainly donations and shares of different companies or
common fundraisings (like it was in case in the Finnish Cultural Fund in 1937-39).
The variation of foundations is very wide; most of them have been, and still
are, quite small, and only some of them are really well-off. In Finland we have
only four foundations which asset is over one milliard euro per
year (Kone Foundation, Aalto University Foundation, Finnish Cultural Fund and
Finnish-Swedish Svenska Litteratursällskapet/Svenska Kulturfonden).
To
standardize operating principles and make rules more transparent the leading
foundations established in 1970 a national co-operative organ, Delegation of Funds and Foundations to
coordinate the field. Today ca. 140 of the most important Finnish foundations
and funds are members of this organization: in 2013 they awarded 330 million
euro as grants. In spite of the variety in size, societal significance and
special focus areas, the great majority of today’s foundations is sponsoring first
of all research, arts, education and housing (like student and elderly homes).
Due to
today’s economic depression and turbulences of financing systems of universities
(the new university law in 2010) and re-evaluation the new roles of the leading
financing institution (Finland’s Academy of Sciences), the work of foundations has been especially during the last five years very
important for academic researchers and artists. All in all, foundations are an
important part of the so called third
sector and civil society. The third sector contains many non-profit
communities who underline their work on the “public good” principle. These kinds
of communities are, for instance, foundations, associations, parties and labor
unions.
The
increasing significance of private foundations is challenging the Nordic model of welfare society
which has – at least until now – emphasized the leading role of the public sector
especially in terms of education, research and social well-being. We can
witness already now to transformation of the public sector. It is, step by
step, trying to transfer more its previous duties toward the third sector. This
structural change is very painful and intimate to such a small academic
community as the Finnish university system is. Academic unemployment has
increased, nearly one thousand PhDs were without work in 2014, young brilliant
and frustrated researchers try to find some other source of living, and many
professors are exhausted. In addition to research work, teaching, supervising
and many societal duties, they should be visionaries, strategists and leaders
of future researcher as well.
The period of transition has also questioned the previous
evaluation systems of academic projects and national focus areas, and introduced
many new and various funding instruments which have got a lot of resistance, especially
the demand of “society sensitive” researches has got many critical comments. Is
there anymore such a concept as “academic freedom”. The Finnish state – the
head financier of our academic research - underlines more solid connection
between the state’s interests, investments and researchers tasks and results. There
will be more pre-defined calls or tenders for research than before.
It is clear
to all those working at Finnish universities that we are just now living in the academic jungle and only the best strategists
and most skillful players of the game will win. As I said, this is and will
be very painful and a rude operation but at the very same time absolutely necessary.
We have no other way left then to comply with the new division of resources,
and face both the intellectual, ideological and economic challenges.
From this viewpoint
the role of foundations as
financiers of academic research will be very important in the future; they
could sponsor upstream or marginalized research fields, offer platforms for dialogue
and promote interaction between society, academic world, cultural actors and
artists. Maybe they also can provide more
space also to professors who often feel themselves marginalized and overpowered
by these changes.
(More
information, see for instance, the home page of the Säätiöiden ja rahastojen
neuvottelukunta, www.saatiopalvelu.fi/smk.html
; Matti Virén, Yleishyödylliset yhteisöt Suomessa, 2014; Maarit Valo, Uusi,
uudempi, uusin yliopistolaki, 11.11.2013. See http://blogi.professoriliitto.fi/
)
