Tampereen Kaupunki
Finland
Tampere is the largest inland city in the Nordic countries and third largest city in Finland with a population of app. 205 000 inhabitants. Today, the city is best known for its high tech and extensive know-how in various fields. For example, the first NMT phone call and later the first GSM calls were performed in Tampere. Also the world’s first communicator and second-generation communicator were developed in the city. Sophisticated high tech applications characterise not only the more expertise-intensive industries but also so-called traditional industries and products. Expertise-intensive sectors provide employment to educated people, in particular. Among Finnish people, Tampere has a positive and attractive image and is one of the three most rapidly developing regions in Finland.
However, at some degree, Tampere faces the social challenges that are typical for urban environments in general. The city must deal with the problems of long-term unemployment, social exclusion and high rate of unemployment in average yet simultaneously struggling with the shortage of educated work force in growing industrial fields e.g. metal industry. It also acknowledges the need of new social and technical innovations as well as renewed service structures in order to meet the future challenges e.g. the aging of population, inadequacy of public transport, new energy solutions and increasing international competition.
At the regional level, the overall coordination of the structural funds belongs to the Council of Tampere Region, a joint municipal authority for regional planning and development. Regional management Committee (RMC) approves the detailed selection criteria of projects and fits the objectives into bigger regional development strategies. RMC is composed of representatives from Regional council, municipalities, managing authorities and other governmental organisations as well as from main labour organisations. Regional state authorities, that are managing EU funds, do final approvals for projects. The control and guidance is henceforth divided between these authorities mainly by thematic sphere of operations.
In Tampere region, structural funds came from Objective 2 and - 3 programmes. In Tampere city, a suburban district Hervanta, burdened by unemployment and social problems but being also a centre of high technology and expertise, participated in Western Finland Objective 2 –Programme. In addition to this, the whole city was eligible for Objective 3. The main task of Hervanta EU Programme was to improve the employment situation and further to utilize and develop the strong know how in the area for example by activating the innovation businesses and enterprises. As regards to the ESF funding from Objective 3, the city has contributed to broader employment strategies and cooperation with surrounding municipalities and further with the whole Tampere region. In the programming period of 2007-2013, the whole city is eligible for the Employment and competitiveness –objective especially through its special focus on urban issues.
Tampere city participates in the delivery of the projects and also manages the municipal match funding reaching approximately up to 25 % share in average from the project budgets. During the past and present programming periods, the coordination of structural fund delivery is done by the Business and development center of the city organisation. This facilitates the work that is required to build thematically integrated and balanced project groups and programmes. In addition to the structural fund projects, Tampere participates in several other projects funded from EU special funds like Equal, Life, Leonardo, Socrates, Framework Programme, SAVE, Interreg IIIC and IIIB, etc. There does not exist an overall coordination of these projects. Instead they are run independently by several different units of city organisation (especially educational sector) in accordance with the field’s development objectives and within the resources they have. However, the city has got a common database for all EU projects and the maintenance of that is done by the Business and development centre.
Partner contact details
Jukka Jarvinen
Project Director, Hervanta EU Programme
jukka.alasentie@pirkanmaa.fi
Minna Jalonen
Office Manager, Hervanta EU Programme
minna.jalonen@tampere.fi
Project examples
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