A person holding a sign urging the government not to make further cuts in culture funding at a demonstration at Railway Square in Helsinki on Monday, 15 April 2024. Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday reported that the supplementary funding the government promised last week for research and development in creative fields appears to come at the expense of traditional funding for arts and culture. (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)
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THE GOVERNMENT of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) announced last week after its framework session that it has earmarked supplementary funding for creative fields.
The government outlines in related documents that the supplementary funding is intended to promote research and development in creative fields and the commercialisation of research-based innovations in arts and culture.
The funding is to be allocated by Business Finland.
Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday reported, though, that the documents neglect to specify that effectively the government is shifting funding away from existing companies in the culture space toward technology-driven research and development activity – toward channels that traditionally have benefited a limited number of creative companies.
Petra Tarjanne, an official at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, confirmed to the newspaper that the government did not allocate additional funding for creative fields.
The government process for funding creative fields is so complicated that not even all policy makers understand it, she said. What is key is that the government has committed to raising research and development spending to four per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the decade, a commitment it reaffirmed at the framework session with a decision to increase research and development funding by 280 million euros a year in 2025–2028.
Few projects in the culture space qualify for the funding.
Business Finland is presently providing about one million euros a year in research-and-innovation funding for the creative fields, whereas other funding for the fields has added up to about 30 million euros. Decisions made at the framework session indicate that the former is set to increase, the latter to decrease by 20 million euros in 2025, Tarjanne told Helsingin Sanomat.
Kari Komulainen, a senior director of grants at Business Finland, outlined to the newspaper that the research and development-oriented funding can be allocated to innovations that, for example, take advantage of artificial intelligence or augmented reality technologies.
Although the public organisation channels the funding, it does not dictate how it should be used, he added, stressing that the funding is not synonymous with funding for technology-driven innovations.
Sakarias Sokka, a special researcher at the Centre for Cultural Policy Research (Cupore), said Business Finland is already applying funding criteria that channel state support only to a small group of operators in the culture space.
“The creation of artistic content falls largely outside the scope of business subsidies,” he summed up.
Even if artists are engaged in business-like operations, the operations tend to either be too small to satisfy the criteria or lack the international aspirations required from projects launched by start-ups, for example.
“The gamut of business subsidies doesn’t presently provide any respite from the kind of cultural policy that has been carried out in recent years,” stated Sokka.
The Ministry of Education and Culture and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Helsinki, he added, should sit down to review their efforts to develop operations in the culture space. He is concerned, though, whether the officials devising the funding mechanisms have a sufficient understanding of the space in future.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
