Business Finland|About 87 percent of Business Finland’s innovation grants were awarded to projects represented by men. Only a fifth of the applications came from women.
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87% of Business Finland’s innovation funding goes to projects led by men.
The proportion of applications signed by women has been around 20% in recent years.
The smaller share of women in innovation activities is a problem for economic growth and productivity development.
We have lagged behind, for example, Sweden in the digitalization of service sectors.
The greater part The innovation grants distributed by Business Finland go to projects led by men, according to the state’s innovation financier’s own statistics.
Business Finland’s CEO Nina Coppola I think the statistic should be a wake-up call.
“When the national economy stagnates and productivity is weak, it would be important for women to focus more on reforming business life,” she says.
In years About 87 percent of Business Finland’s 2016–2022 innovation funding was awarded to projects led by men.
The same phenomenon can be seen in the financing received from private equity investors. The share of women is small.
Business Finland’s statistics also show that the proportion of applications signed by women has been around 20 percent in recent years. However, their share of the received support amount is only about 13 percent.
“The application success rate is the same, but women apply for smaller amounts. Maybe women are more modest here,” says Kopola.
Also The State Economic Research Center (VATT) has drawn attention to the phenomenon. In a study published at the end of last year, VATT considered the statistics to be a problem: innovation funding is particularly aimed at industrial and technological development.
Innovations in service industries, the public sector and other fields typical for women are left out. According to VATT’s research, the social background guides innovators to develop inventions that are important to their own peer group.
The situation leads, among other things, to the fact that the vast majority of new products are developed for men, and men’s standard of living can be higher as a result.
The smaller share of women in innovation activity and its financing is also a problem for economic growth and productivity development. When a large proportion of talented women do not end up in the industry, the best talents are not used for innovation. According to VATT, this slows down productivity growth.
Coppola according to Business Finland, the proportion of women is the highest in health and education sector applications. 45 percent of applications in the health sector came from women.
Especially in services, it would be possible to drastically improve productivity with new innovations.
“We have lagged behind, for example, Sweden in the digitalization of service sectors,” says Kopola.
Coppola doesn’t have any single recipe or pop art to change the situation either. It’s partly a mystery why there is such a strong gender divide in the fields of education in Finland, even though society, at least in theory, creates fairly equal conditions for education.
The new parental leave system is a step towards greater equality in childcare as well.
“Still women still do not even apply for management positions to the same extent. Or put yourself in a position to commercialize your inventions and start a new company. Is there something in the structures that holds women back?”
Could it be that innovations in Finland have traditionally been thought of as related to technology? An ingenious new digital service concept is not as sensitively understood as an invention that could have great commercial potential?
“It can be like this. We are used to the fact that the invention is some kind of bull. It is certainly the case that women’s inventions and success stories should be brought out more in the public eye,” says Kopola.
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