MFG 4.0 researchers from the University of Turku, Research professor, Research director Jari Kaivo-oja and Senior Researcher Theresa Lauraéus met the coordinators of Finland Futures Committee at the Parliament of Finland, On Thursday 22.9.2019. There was a joint meeting of the Finland Futures Research Centre, FFRC (University of Turku) and the Future Committee of Finland, which was organized in Helsinki. Co-hosts of the event were the Committee Counsel Olli Hietanen and Senior Advisor from the Committee for the Future, Parliament of Finland, Dr Maria Höyssä.
According to Senior Adviser Maria Höyssä FFRC will be invited later in the autumn to give its formal statement for the Committee for the Future on emerging future issues that the Committee should explore. But before that there will be an informal brainstorm on themes that the researchers of FFRC think would be interesting for the Committee to look into. This is a possibility to bring forward and collectively comment on the tentative ideas and weak or silly signals, from the juniors and seniors alike.
It is important for MFG4.0 project to have high-level policy dialogues on many levels. This special day in the Parliament of Finland was a very good example of this kind of constructive dialogues. The new Government of Finland was shortly informed about the MFG4.0 project. Research director and research professor Jari Kaivo-oja proposed to the Committee of the Future to pay strategic attention to the digitalization process and new industrial policy options of Finland. As a concrete initiative, he proposed to start futures-oriented co-creation and co-planning process of the Finnish industries and the Government, in which “full business potential of Manufacturing 4.0 and Industry 4.0 will be discussed with implementation programs in the Parliament of Finland”.
