Suddenly, 2050 seems quite a long way off. Yet it is only 25 years away. I would be 83 years old, if I am still alive. I would be one year younger than my mother and father are this year (2025). As someone who has already experienced life in years gone by, 25 years has passed quickly. The year 2000 seems like just a moment ago. In that year, there were about 370 000 inhabitants in our region, according to Statistics Finland's population statistics. At the end of last year, according to one statistic, there were about 418 350 of us. A steady increase, then. The outlook for the future does not foresee similar growth.
As regards the year 2000, I would like to highlight something that has proved significant for me. In that year, the Kerttu Saalasti Foundation was set up to promote university activities in the southern part of our province. Similarly, the Kerttu Saalasti Institute at the University of Oulu, initially under the name of the Oulu Southern Institute. Since the spring of 2002, I myself have been part of the Kerttu Saalasti Institute story at our university.
The Institute, which started as a project, has established itself as part of the university community, has worked closely with enterprizes and other organisations, and has shown that research and social impact support each other. In an international evaluation a few years ago, the Institute's research was judged to be excellent and its social impact outstanding.
Something has grown out of a small beginning that no one could put into words at the time. But enough people had a shared vision of what could happen and the courage and drive to go out and create plans and put them into action. In the context of the scenarios, I wondered which are the small beginnings that will grow over the next 25 years into something we do not yet know.
Will the future of Northern Ostrobothnia and its inhabitants be shaped by global technology, will we see a renaissance in Europe, will we move from a stagnation to a welfare economy, or will our future be defined by refugees and polarisation?
There are many uncertainties affecting the environment in which we operate. Examples include geopolitical tensions, European unity, ecological crisis, technological development, economic growth, demographic trends and social polarisation. The different ways in which uncertainties evolve are different in various scenarios, as are the more permanent trends.
In the context of global technological developments, competitive know-how and renewable energy production will enable high value-added industrial and processing activities in the region. A brighter global outlook supports higher birth rates and family formation. Challenges include regional polarisation and environmental values taking a back seat to economic growth.
A European renaissance would see the EU evolve towards a federal-like actor. Green technologies and renewable energy will make our region more attractive. Immigration for work and education has balanced the demography and made our region more multicultural. Challenges include an ageing population and regional polarisation.
According to the From decline to a welfare economy scenario, life in Northern Ostrobothnia is scarcer, but more communal. The strategic importance of the North has increased. Our region is doing well in terms of self-sufficiency and demographic development. The culture of doing well and working together will be preserved and further enhanced. For example, the ecological crisis and the resulting resource scarcity are challenging industry, food production and human health, among other things.
According to the Refugees and Polarisation scenario, the world is suffering from severe instability, the EU's capacity to act is weakening and climate change is making large areas uninhabitable. Northern Ostrobothnia is relatively peaceful, with the defence industry and agriculture playing a more important role. Nordic defence cooperation is increasing and the region is becoming the "Silicon Valley" of defence. Major challenges include falling living standards and inequality, polarisation and the availability of skilled labour.
In all scenarios (read more detailed descriptions in Finnish) there seem to be very possible developments and those that seem less likely right now. What will happen is probably some combination of what we see now and what we cannot foresee. That's how fast many changes are.
What should we learn for the future of our province if any of these scenarios, or variations of them, come to pass? What should we do once we have this insight?
In 2024, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Nivala Industrial Park. Esko Aho challenged the audience to reflect on the realities of technology, the green transition, globalisation, geopolitics and ageing. He said that he had noticed that development always follows the same pattern: questioning the status quo, insight and concept.
Finland made a significant contribution to the potential of regional development 50 years ago. Nivala seized that opportunity. In an agricultural region, technological and social change led to migration from the countryside. The decision-makers of the time questioned the situation and realised that something new had to be created in order to provide jobs and a living for the working-age population in the area - industrial jobs were needed. This realisation was followed by the creation of a concept - an industrial park. National regional development policy was a major factor in this. Work is now underway to consider how to build on that success story for the next 50 years.
The scenario work of the Northern Ostrobothnia and Uusimaa councils has really questioned the status quo, challenged many participants to air their ideas, to look forward from different perspectives.
In my own reflections, I came to the same conclusion as the authors of the scenario work. We need to see through these scenarios and realise what we need, whatever the future brings. After that realisation, we then have to make decisions and take action. What we do today will influence what the future will look like.
The conclusions presented here contain nine main elements:
Each of these includes concrete proposals on where we should act. I will highlight three themes.
Education and continuous skills development is a great opportunity for a small country. Our wealth has been equality of opportunity in education. The University of Oulu, almost 70 years old, is still truly central to our whole region and to Oulu.
In the debate on education and skills, I would like to emphasise the importance of entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial attitude. Together we could do even more to encourage the creation of new businesses, since the success of business is the basis for employment. New skills are also needed to ensure that the investments in the green transition bring new productive activity and added value to our region, so that our region does not become an energy reserve.
In the use and exploitation of AI, we need to strengthen and expand our skills. Finland has a lot to gain in the AI field, but there is no time to waste, write Sitra's experts in their greetings from the AI Action Summit in Paris, which brought together the world's leading experts, decision-makers and business leaders to discuss the future of AI.
The summit had highlighted the need for Europe to become more self-sufficient in AI development. AI has great potential to drive sustainable economic growth, but there is a need for less regulation. We need to be aware of the next steps in technological development and ensure that we have the necessary skills. What is our situation in North Ostrobothnia? How do we ensure that our potential is used?
Prosperity, prosperous citizens, cultural wisdom and internationalism are also reflected in the conclusions of the scenarios. So is supporting people's life management, their sense of future and their sense of security. An inhabited area is a safe area. Functioning communities are the basis for all activities.
In thinking about the scenarios, I considered, among other things, the promotion of well-being and all the organisations involved in it. There are also many new business opportunities in this sector. I also wondered whether the scenario work could be used as a basis for elements of cooperation between the Pohde, the Oulu Region Council and 30 municipalities.
As a member of the Regional Board of the Pohde, the past few years have challenged my own skills and forced me to delve deeper into the world of social, health and emergency services - the issues that affect practically all of us in our daily lives. As a member of the Regional Council, my perspective was a little different in terms of the future of our region. The difference in scale in euros also challenges understanding.
With an annual budget of around EUR 5.5 million for the Regional Council and EUR 2.2 billion for the Pohde. The latter is 400 times larger than the former. What can the Council of Oulu Region and the Pohde do together for the future of our region? How can we make a real impact for the future we want?
In addition to Oulu, the capital of our region, the regional cities are also key to our vitality and future. Last year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment published a reflection by Jenni Airaksinen, CEO of the Foundation for Municipal Development (KAKS), and Mari Vaattovaara, Professor at the University of Helsinki, on sub-regional cities as forerunners of renewal and vitality. The role of the municipality in regional towns is to act as a builder of faith in the future, rootedness and trust, and as a recogniser of local living conditions.
We have long been accustomed to using population as a measure of future and growth. Airaksinen and Vaattovaara challenge the one-sided approach of monitoring population decline to a more nuanced analysis that emphasises resources. They suggest that sub-regional cities should work with the state to build new kinds of indicators that identify vitality and regeneration capacity. They argue that vitality does not require growth, but it does require renewal.
To quote them, I think that it is not enough to monitor only the population, the number of graduates, the number of companies, etc. We should have a series of statistics on quality of life, measures of the good life, cost of housing, etc.
Could we in the Northern Ostrobothnia catch up this idea? As we start to create future actions based on the scenario work, we could develop new types of indicators of vitality and regenerative capacity that would describe the direction of development of our region alongside traditional indicators of growth. I think this would also make it easier to assess the qualitative issues raised in the scenarios.
When these scenarios are used to make choices for the future regional programme and the various plans, it would be really interesting to meet in five years' time to evaluate the implementation of the scenarios and the choices we make in the various contexts during this year.
The debate will continue. To quote Kerttu Saalasti: There is nothing in the world that moves forward without strong emotion and willpower. We need them to build the paths we want for the future.
This blog is based on Eija-Riitta Niinikoski´s comments at the launch event of the Future Scenarios of the Northern Ostrobothnia organized by the Council of Oulu region. (News story in Finnish.)
Author: Eija-Riitta Niinikoski, M.Th., Development Manager, University of Oulu, Kerttu Saalasti Institute
Photo: Minna Kilpeläinen
In Kerttu Saalasti Institute's blog we write about the topics of the Institute's research groups, micro entrepreneurship education and the Institute's general topics. The authors are researchers, experts and members of networks.
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