The Government Proactively Implements Policy and Institution System to Encourage Innovation

1. The government proactively implements policy and institution system to encourage innovation

From the beginning of the 1990s, the role of government in the Nordic countries began to change. In the 1980s, the Nordic government's role in promoting innovation was mainly setting goals for the country's technological development. But from the early 1990s, the government deepened its involvement in innovation, taking the initiative to become a booster of innovation activities. Finland, for example, set up a special committee to coordinate a variety of scientific and technological innovation activities. Governments provided enterprises with dedicated R & D funds, paid attention to and fostered the development of SMEs, and actively promote the formation of industrial clusters. In addition, the Nordic governments have taken a series of measures to create a good business environment for start-ups. For instances, loosening some of the regulations on monetary and foreign exchange policies, encouraging development in domestic telecommunications, transportation and electricity, making efforts to remove industry barriers, monitoring the market operation, improving service functions and so on. Under the Government's active promotion, Sweden and Finland joined the European Union in the 1990s. Finland has also joined the Eurozone. These initiatives had a strong impetus to the development of science and technology industries. The government also included the major scientific and technological development projects as part of the National Development Plan and jointly invested with companies in these projects with the patents kept by companies. Finland's investment in research and development has increased about twice in 10 years. Sweden's R & D expenditure accounts for 38% of its GDP.