Finland’s R&D model and its role in the electronics industry
In a recent analysis, Evertiq explored which countries dominate global R&D spending. Viewed through the lens of absolute investment volumes, the picture is largely shaped by the United States and China, followed by established industrial powerhouses such as Germany, Japan and France. Shifting that lens away from global heavyweights and toward a smaller, highly R&D-intensive economy reveals a different dynamic — one where the relationship between research investment and industrial capability becomes more clearly defined. Finland provides a useful case for understanding how research investment translates into industrial capability.
Ahead of Evertiq Expo Tampere, 26 March 2026
Finland consistently ranks high in global innovation rankings, often grouped together with its Nordic neighbours as part of a strong regional cluster. However, when headline rankings are replaced by side-by-side figures, a more nuanced picture emerges — one that is particularly relevant for companies operating in electronics, embedded systems and advanced manufacturing.
Finland in the Nordic R&D landscape
Measured by R&D intensity, Finland clearly belongs to Europe’s upper tier. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development in Finland is currently around 3.2% of GDP, placing the country well above the EU average of roughly 2.3%. In absolute terms, this corresponds to just under EUR 10 billion annually.
Within the Nordic region, Sweden sits higher at around 3.5–3.6% of GDP, translating into more than EUR 20 billion in annual R&D spending due to its larger economy and strong corporate research base. Denmark operates at a similar relative level to Finland — just above 3% of GDP, or roughly EUR 8 billion per year. Norway follows a different path, with R&D intensity closer to 1.5–1.7% of GDP, reflecting an economy still strongly shaped by energy and resource sectors rather than broad industrial R&D systems.
This comparison shows that Finland competes closely with its Nordic peers in relative terms, but differs in overall scale. Sweden’s larger corporate sector gives it a heavier R&D footprint, while Finland’s system is more compact and concentrated.
A high-intensity R&D economy in the European context
When widening the lens beyond the Nordics, Finland is part of a small European group of highly R&D-intensive mid-sized economies. In terms of economic scale, two useful reference points are Belgium and Austria. Both countries report R&D intensity above 3% of GDP — approximately 3.3–3.4% in recent years. Because their GDPs are comparable in size to Finland’s, this translates into annual R&D spending in a similar range: Belgium at roughly EUR 18–19 billion, and Austria at around EUR 14–15 billion.
These figures highlight an important distinction: while Finland is often framed as a Nordic outlier, in European terms it sits among a cluster of smaller but research-dense economies that invest heavily in knowledge creation relative to their size.
However, similar percentages do not imply similar industrial profiles. Belgium’s R&D system is strongly shaped by pharmaceuticals, biotech and chemical industries, with large multinational R&D centres playing a central role. Austria combines advanced manufacturing with strong applied engineering traditions and a dense network of mid-sized industrial firms. Finland’s R&D landscape, by contrast, has a more visible orientation toward ICT, industrial electronics, sensing technologies, power systems and digitalised manufacturing. The percentages may look alike, but the sectoral composition — and therefore the implications for the electronics value chain — differ substantially.
Who performs R&D? And why it matters?
Another structural difference lies in who performs and funds R&D. In Finland, the business sector accounts for roughly two-thirds of total R&D expenditure, a high share by European standards. This indicates that research is closely tied to corporate technology roadmaps and product development cycles rather than being concentrated primarily in universities or public institutes.
Austria shows a similarly strong enterprise role, while Belgium’s system reflects a heavier presence of large corporate and multinational R&D hubs. These distinctions affect how easily research flows into industrial applications, how strongly domestic supply chains are anchored in local innovation activity, and how directly R&D spending translates into engineering capability within companies.
For the electronics industry, this enterprise-led R&D structure is particularly relevant. It tends to favour applied development, system-level innovation and long-term product platforms over purely academic research outputs.
Electronics segments where Finland stands out
For the electronics sector, Finland’s configuration plays out in a tangible and segment-specific way. Rather than being dominated by large consumer technology brands, the Finnish ecosystem is structured around industrial, infrastructure and professional electronics, where long product lifecycles, system reliability and close engineering collaboration matter more than rapid consumer turnover.
One of the clearest areas of strength is industrial and embedded systems. Finnish companies are deeply involved in control electronics, ruggedised computing, and embedded platforms used in machinery, energy systems and transport infrastructure. This aligns with the country’s broader industrial profile, where advanced manufacturing, automation and energy technologies form a substantial part of export activity. Here, R&D is less about breakthrough consumer interfaces and more about incremental but high-impact improvements in performance, safety and lifecycle management.
Another prominent segment is sensing and measurement technologies, often linked to environmental monitoring, industrial process control and smart infrastructure. Companies such as Vaisala illustrate how sustained R&D intensity supports the development of proprietary sensor platforms and data-driven systems deployed globally in weather monitoring, aviation and industrial environments. This kind of activity sits at the intersection of electronics, software and domain-specific engineering, and depends heavily on a stable national R&D base.
Finland also retains a visible footprint in power electronics and energy-related systems, reflecting both its industrial base and the Nordic region’s focus on electrification and grid modernisation. Electronics used in energy conversion, grid management and electrified transport systems increasingly rely on advanced semiconductors, control systems and high-reliability PCB design — areas where Finland’s combination of engineering competence and specialised manufacturing supports participation in wider European value chains.
Upstream, the presence of specialised manufacturing capabilities reinforces these segments. PCB production at Aspocomp and silicon wafer manufacturing at Okmetic connect Finnish R&D not only to design and software, but also to materials and hardware building blocks. These capabilities are particularly relevant as European industry reassesses supply chain resilience in critical components such as advanced substrates, RF devices and power semiconductors.
EMS providers like Scanfil and Incap form the downstream counterpart to this upstream base. Their role in prototyping, industrialisation and series production for demanding sectors — including medical, industrial automation and infrastructure — shows how Finland’s electronics landscape links R&D environments with manufacturable, certifiable end products. In this sense, the country’s strength lies less in isolated technology breakthroughs and more in system integration across the electronics value chain.
Taken together, these segments suggest that Finland’s electronics profile is anchored in industrial IoT, sensing, power and control systems, and high-reliability embedded platforms. This differs from countries where R&D intensity is channelled primarily into pharmaceuticals, consumer digital services or automotive mass production. Finland’s model is narrower in scale but deep in technical specialisation, with R&D closely tied to sectors where electronics function as enabling infrastructure rather than end-user spectacle.
R&D intensity and the structure of industry dialogue
These structural characteristics shape the kinds of issues that repeatedly surface in regional industry dialogue: how effectively enterprise R&D spending translates into scalable products, how domestic research infrastructure supports mid-sized manufacturers, and how specialised European production capabilities can be maintained in globally distributed supply chains.
Finland’s numbers, when placed alongside those of Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Austria, show that high R&D intensity is not a guarantee of uniform industrial outcomes — but it does create the preconditions for sustained technological depth. Understanding those differences helps explain why the Nordic and wider European electronics landscape is best viewed not as a single innovation model, but as a set of closely related yet structurally distinct systems.
It is within this broader technological and industrial context that Evertiq Expo Tampere takes place. Rather than standing apart from the ecosystem, the event reflects it: a meeting point where questions about R&D intensity, industrial scaling, supply chain resilience and applied research repeatedly surface in practical, company-level discussions. In a market like Finland — research-dense, export-oriented and anchored in industrial electronics — these conversations are less about abstract innovation positioning and more about the mechanisms that turn engineering depth into deployable systems.
