The vision guiding the economic activity of the Tampere City Region until 2025 is “Superior capacity for renewal – sustainable growth”.
The competitiveness of the city region and its business life in the long term is based on the capacity for renewal and sustainable growth. Maintaining the capacity and desire for renewal and innovation will help to stay at the forefront of competition as the operating environment changes. The city region has always been capable of renewal, but concerns about the declining RDI investments of companies have made the capacity for renewal a key element in the business strategy. The capacity for renewal requires a willingness to innovate and renewal. The advantage of being the first on the market is significant, but the capacity for renewal means more than radical, disruptive innovations or completely new solutions and products; it means continuous improvement in small steps every day.
”Investing in education, research, competence and people will be critical. For example, companies’ investment in RDI activities and their ability to innovate in the region are not currently sufficiently in line with the vision. It is necessary for the emergence of new enterprises, and in particular for growth and internationalisation.”
There is an excellent basis for developing the capacity for renewal: strong actors, a vibrant startup field, a university community that is taking shape and a regenerating field of education as well as cross-organisational business cooperation. Leadership and global visibility are sought in selected focal themes that span different sectors and are key to the future, such as signal processing, mobile hydraulics and computer vision.
In addition to capacity for renewal, sustainability is a prerequisite for competitiveness in global markets in the long term. Sustainable growth of the city region will be strengthened by mobilising companies to seek growth in more climate-friendly products and policies, and by supporting the building of climate-smart ecosystems in everyday life and the emergence and strengthening of clusters in the circular economy. Public procurement promotes market access for new, more sustainable solutions. Sustainable business means climate-smart everyday solutions and cleaner technology.
Figure 10. Alternative vision concepts featured in the vision workshop on 28 May 2019. Picture: Linda Saukko-Rauta, RedanRedan Oy.
Sustainable growth also extends globally to the well-being of entrepreneurs and workers – improving the capacity for work also increases the capacity for renewal in the long term. For example, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence create new opportunities as the nature of work is changing. The sustainable business of the city region is framed by green and comfortable cities and municipalities that make relocating to the city region attractive not only to companies, entrepreneurs and experts, but also to the whole family.