The Experimental Finland project of the Prime Minister’s Office and Motiva Oy looked for small-scale projects on artificial intelligence through an open application process that ended on 3 June 2018. A total of 37 proposals were send to the Place to Experiment platform, of which 21 were selected.

What is the relationship between research and policy-making in Finland and elsewhere in the world? Collaboration between the two has improved, but what else should we be doing? These and other issues were discussed in the seminar Strategic Science with Policy Impact on 12 June. More than a hundred researchers, public officials and others interested in the issue attended the event.

The Experimental Finland project, a key project of the Prime Minister’s Office, has awarded the commendation Experiment of the Month to the City of Lappeenranta. Lappeenranta has started to experiment with hiring shared electric cars for the city’s own use during office hours, in addition to which the service provider offers the cars to city residents for hire on evenings and weekends. The experiment is intended to enhance the efficiency of the city’s use of cars during office hours while at the same time lowering the threshold for using electric cars.

Finland wants to boost its position as a frontrunner in artificial intelligence (AI). The Prime Minister's Office’s key project known as ‘Experimental Finland’ is now looking for challenges which could be responded to using AI to foster wellbeing. The topics that will be chosen from the application for challenges will later generate an application for pilot projects.