Finland is to set up a new economics research and education centre in Helsinki. Prime Minister Juha Sipilä told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday the Helsinki Graduate School of Economics will initially offer at least 15 new professorships with the goal of creating a leading institute at the international level by the year 2022.
There are plans to increase the number of professorial posts to 35, allowing the new institute to meet international competency requirements. The school will be a research and educational institute for doctorate-level study in all areas of economics.
Sipilä said that Aalto University, Helsinki University and Hanken School of Economics have been charged with establishing the new school.
Sipilä: Expert opinion needed for political decisions
The project will be funded and supported by the VATT Institute for Economic Research, the Bank of Finland as well as the Ministry of Education and Culture. The school will also be partially bankrolled by the private sector.
Bank of Finland Governor Erkki Liikanen told reporters on Tuesday that the country needs more Finnish-speaking, top-level economics experts, saying the new school would fulfil that role.
Sipilä said that political decisions should be made based on experts' assessments of their impact on the economy and society.
His comments Tuesday marked a departure from his stance early in his premiership, when in 2015 he lamented the fact that economic advisers tended to pick holes in proposed policy -- such as his attempt to drum up support for a so-called social contract aimed at restoring economic competitiveness.
At the time, opposition leaders condemned what they saw as the PM's contempt for expert advice and university education.
Work on establishing the project is to begin immediately and the unit is expected to be operational by 2022 at the latest.
Standing alongside Sipilä at the press briefing held in Helsinki Tuesday morning was Nobel Prize-winning Finnish economist Bengt Holmström and Minister of Education and Culture Sanni Grahn-Laasonen.
Holmström: AI and machine learning research possible
Holmström praised the plans and said the establishment of similar institutes in other parts of Europe like Barcelona and Stockholm had been successful.
He said the new school could play an important role in artificial intelligence research, adding that economics and new AI and machine learning methods complement each other.
Holmström noted that the study of AI has become increasingly popular among students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, where he works as a professor of economics.
