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Doing 'More with Less': The Entrepreneurialization of Finnish Higher Education and Innovation Policy Discourses in 2015-2019

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Title: Doing 'More with Less': The Entrepreneurialization of Finnish Higher Education and Innovation Policy Discourses in 2015-2019
Language: English
Authors: Marko Ampuja (ORCID 0000-0002-4849-894X), Minna Horowitz (ORCID 0000-0003-1347-6166)
Source: Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. 2025 69(2):303-317.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 15
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Higher Education, Entrepreneurship, Foreign Countries, Innovation, Educational Policy, Discourse Analysis, Financial Support, Research and Development, Sustainability, Budgets, Retrenchment, Competition, Public Agencies, Universities
Geographic Terms: Finland
DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2023.2299988
ISSN: 0031-3831
1470-1170
Abstract: In the past decades, the development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in industrialized countries has become intertwined with innovation policy and the goal of national competitiveness. Focusing on the discourses on innovation by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), this article illustrates the transformation of Finnish higher education policy ideas in the late 2010s following the demise of the previous policy consensus built around the notion of the National Innovation System. Through a critical policy discourse analysis of 35 publications by the MEC, we demonstrate that its recent policy discourses are dominated by an increasingly market-centric strategy of entrepreneurialism in conditions of major cuts to the public funding of universities and R&D. This strategy has serious limitations and contradictions, which have generated institutional conflicts and hinder the development of a more sustainable and balanced innovation agenda for the Finnish higher education field.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1466706
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0182949489;55b01mar.25;2025Feb13.02:15;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0182949489-1">Doing "more with less": the entrepreneurialization of Finnish higher education and innovation policy discourses in 2015–2019 </title> <p>In the past decades, the development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in industrialized countries has become intertwined with innovation policy and the goal of national competitiveness. Focusing on the discourses on innovation by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), this article illustrates the transformation of Finnish higher education policy ideas in the late 2010s following the demise of the previous policy consensus built around the notion of the National Innovation System. Through a critical policy discourse analysis of 35 publications by the MEC, we demonstrate that its recent policy discourses are dominated by an increasingly market-centric strategy of entrepreneurialism in conditions of major cuts to the public funding of universities and R&D. This strategy has serious limitations and contradictions, which have generated institutional conflicts and hinder the development of a more sustainable and balanced innovation agenda for the Finnish higher education field.</p> <p>Keywords: Higher education policy; innovation policy; Finland; universities; entrepreneurialism</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Ideas concerning innovation and the National Innovation System (NIS) became central to the public policies in many industrialized countries in the 1990s (Lundvall, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref1">32</reflink>]). For two decades in Finland, the NIS provided its policymakers with a framework with which to advance policies that emphasized interactions between the government, high-tech industries, universities and other research organizations, increasing public spending in R&D and rising levels of education (Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref2">30</reflink>]; Alaja & Sorsa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref3">2</reflink>]). Higher education institutions (HEIs) were seen as integral parts of the Finnish NIS, whose successes received considerable international interest (Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref4">87</reflink>]; Häyrinen-Alestalo & Peltola, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref5">16</reflink>]; Miettinen, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref6">52</reflink>]).</p> <p>However, during the 2010s, the NIS lost its prominence in the country's competitiveness strategies, and state expenditures in R&D were cut (Kaitila, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref7">20</reflink>]). As a consequence, current science, technology and innovation (STI) policies in Finland have been criticized for losing their orientation and being in a "state of confusion" (OECD, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref8">66</reflink>]; Laasonen et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref9">29</reflink>]; Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref10">31</reflink>]). Similar concerns have been raised about the state of Finnish HEIs. For example, the European Commission has noted that the strengthening of the quality of research "remains a significant challenge" in the country, exacerbated by budget cuts to the basic funding of universities (EC, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref11">7</reflink>]).</p> <p>Due to such developments and concerns, and to the country's long-standing successes in international competitiveness and educational rankings, Finland provides an interesting case for examining the interrelationships between higher education and innovation policies. We do this by analyzing the MEC's policy documents that were published during the period from 2015 to 2019, focusing on the role played by discourses on innovation.</p> <p>Our focus is motivated by three observations. First, higher education (HE) policies have been organically connected to innovation policy formulation in Finland (Niinikoski, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref12">61</reflink>]) and it remains a crucial site for the search for new directions in Finnish STI policymaking (Laasonen et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref13">29</reflink>]; Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref14">31</reflink>]). However, recent analyses of this policy sector have not focused specifically on the MEC. Second, the perception that the Finnish innovation system is no longer working well has created pressures for the MEC and universities, in particular, to improve their performance in the interest of national competitiveness (Peltonen, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref15">70</reflink>]; Poutanen et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref16">72</reflink>]). Third, and in contrast to the previous observation, since the early 2010s there have been increasing calls for extending the innovation and HE policies beyond economic aims, so that they would be more responsive to global challenges such as climate change and increasing social inequality (e.g. Parker & Lundgren, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref17">68</reflink>]). Such attempts to reframe innovation policies around 'transformative' missions raises critical questions about the role of HEIs in current STI and HE policies in Finland (and elsewhere).</p> <p>Based on these starting points, we analyze ideas, strategies and actors that have dominated the MEC's policy formulations concerning innovation and HEIs following the demise of the NIS-driven policy consensus. Our analysis adds to previous research on Finnish HE policies and their increasing market orientation (e.g. Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref18">87</reflink>]; Häyrinen-Alestalo & Peltola, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref19">16</reflink>]; Kauko, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref20">24</reflink>]; Ranga et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref21">75</reflink>]; Björn et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref22">4</reflink>]; Tervasmäki et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref23">80</reflink>]; Poutanen et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref24">72</reflink>]) via its focus on the innovation-higher education policy nexus. Instead of merely registering the resilience of neoliberal influences in the Finnish higher education field (cf. Hardy et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref25">14</reflink>]), we aim to shed light on the limitations and contradictions of the trends that we analyze in this article, and interrogate them in light of recent challenges to innovation system approaches in which universities and other HEIs are considered as engines of innovations for industries.</p> <p>Our approach is critical. In line with previous research on Finnish HE policies that has noted how science and research are being harnessed increasingly to market forces and "academic" or "knowledge capitalism" (e.g., Kauppinen & Kaidesoja, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref26">27</reflink>]; Brunila & Hannukainen, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref27">6</reflink>]), we examine the negative consequences of this development for higher education, which were exacerbated by the right-wing government's austerity policies in the late 2010s. Taking this stance we align ourselves with so-called critical policy studies (CPS) (e.g., Molla, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref28">56</reflink>]).</p> <p>We begin by offering a synthesis of relevant policy backgrounds. We discuss the key developments in Finnish HE and STI policies in the recent decades, starting with an outline of their international context and previous research on the topic. Following this, we provide an analysis of MEC's policy documents from 2015 to 2019 under PM Juha Sipilä's centre-right cabinet. We employ the multi-disciplinary branch of critical discourse analysis (CDA) that addresses policy texts and other discourses, and is sometimes labelled critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA; Montessori et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref29">57</reflink>]). We suggest that during this period, a strategy of entrepreneurialism emerged as a hegemonic discourse for policymaking for higher education. In the concluding sections, we discuss the limitations of such a strategy and the conflicts that it has created, and reflect on the meaning of our findings in relation to recent debates concerning the state of Finnish HE and STI policies and their global contexts.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-3">Background: the intertwinement of HE and innovation policies</hd> <p>Since the 1990s, Finnish policymakers have assessed the role of universities and HE from the perspective of innovation policy and the need to increase national competitiveness (Häyrinen-Alestalo, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref30">15</reflink>]; Kauko, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref31">24</reflink>]; Niinikoski & Kuhlmann, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref32">62</reflink>]). This trend is part of a international turn in academia that conceives universities as key drivers of economic growth and global competitiveness, which has led to structural reforms and market-oriented regulations and management styles in universities (Maassen & Stensaker, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref33">34</reflink>]; Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref34">88</reflink>]; Björn et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref35">4</reflink>]). These developments have been analyzed from a variety of perspectives that emphasizes their different dimensions, including internationalization (Nokkala, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref36">63</reflink>]), entrepreneurialism (Mautner, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref37">35</reflink>]; Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref38">23</reflink>]) and managerialism (Lynch, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref39">33</reflink>]; Nokkala, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref40">64</reflink>]). Despite these differences, however, a large body of studies, including the aforementioned ones, has linked such trends to neoliberal governmentality that has guided HE policies in industrialized countries in recent times (e.g., Olssen & Peters, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref41">67</reflink>]; Hunter, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref42">18</reflink>]; Björn et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref43">4</reflink>]).</p> <p>Supranational actors, the EU and the OECD in particular, have had substantial influence on these policy transformations (Moisio, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref44">54</reflink>]; Kallo, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref45">22</reflink>]). It would be an exaggeration to say that as a consequence, HEIs have turned from social to purely commercial institutions (Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref46">23</reflink>]). However, it is important to note the megatrends and transnational processes that have affected HE policies across Western countries. The New Public Management doctrine, which has led to the emulation of private business practices and values in universities has been important in this sense (Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref47">88</reflink>]). In addition, the concept of a knowledge-based economy has been a major transnational vehicle for strengthening academic capitalism and the links between research, HE and innovation. It has been promoted by the EU – through its Lisbon and Europe 2020 strategies, for example – and by the OECD in its various reports since the 1990s (Olssen & Peters, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref48">67</reflink>]; Välimaa & Hoffman, [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref49">83</reflink>]; Saarinen, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref50">76</reflink>]; Maassen & Stensaker, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref51">34</reflink>]; Kauppinen & Kaidesoja, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref52">27</reflink>]). Discourses of a knowledge-based economy emphasize that HEIs need to contribute more to commercial innovation and national competitiveness; they also stress that this can be achieved by reducing the role of the state in their governance, promoting competition between HEIs and making them more reliant on private instead of government funding. The EU and OECD have had a major influence on Finnish HE reforms and Finland has also been proactive in disseminating the ideas of these bodies (Kauko & Diogo, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref53">25</reflink>]; Ydesen et al., [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref54">86</reflink>]).</p> <p>One visible outcome of these transformations is the increasing entrepreneurialism in HEIs' strategies. Again, OECD and the EU have actively pushed in this direction. For instance, the EU legislation for "modernizing universities" states that "incentives will be essential to ... develop entrepreneurial spirit and management, business and innovation skills" (EU, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref55">9</reflink>]). Such rhetoric, with "entrepreneurship", "enterprise" and "innovation" as its keywords, has been established as a "unifying metanarrative" in the policy and media discourses of HE internationally since the 1990s (Mautner, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref56">35</reflink>]; Nokkala, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref57">64</reflink>], p. 245).</p> <p>A similar tendency toward an entrepreneurial university has been observed in Finnish universities and HE policies (Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref58">23</reflink>]). A brief look to the historical formation of HEIs and HE policies in Finland helps to understand the distinctiveness of such transformations. In the nineteenth century, when Finland was part of Russian Empire, the Finnish state needed universities to provide administrative workforce, strengthen national development and promote its national identity (Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref59">23</reflink>]; Välimaa, [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref60">82</reflink>]). Although the development of Finnish universities was based on Humboldtian ideals of fostering citizenship, in practice universities had an exclusive elite character until the 1950s (Kauko & Diogo, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref61">25</reflink>]; Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref62">23</reflink>]). This began to change when Finland started to industrialize after the World War II and advance its welfare state institutions, which demanded masses of new workers for the public sector. Further, universities began to expand outside metropolitan areas and the state increased its investments in sciences, including human and social sciences (Nieminen, [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref63">59</reflink>]). In contrast to later periods, the Finnish HE policies following World War II were characterized by the so-called traditional view of science, which gave precedence to "national" sciences (meaning history and the humanities) and to nurturing Finnish culture, instead of focusing on technical sciences (Kaukonen, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref64">26</reflink>]; Välimaa, [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref65">82</reflink>]).</p> <p>A major shift in HE policy strategy occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. The view that science and technology were key factors for economic growth and the national economy became widely accepted, along with the perception that the state needed to increase its resources for them and supporting industries (Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref66">30</reflink>]). Finnish STI policy-makers began to see science funding as an investment, demanding that universities show their contribution to economic and social development (Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref67">23</reflink>]).</p> <p>The next decade witnessed a further strengthening of techno-economic orientation in HE policies. The relationships between businesses and HEIs tightened and the perceived needs of industries became more influential in directing Finnish science policy (Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref68">23</reflink>]). In the 1990s, performance-based management was introduced in HEIs, accompanied by new market-based principles of competition, assessments, entrepreneurialism and excellence (Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref69">87</reflink>]; Kauppinen & Kaidesoja, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref70">27</reflink>]). Throughout the early 2000s, ministries and the Science and Technology Policy Council (STPC) prepared changes in the management structures of universities with the goal of making them more economically efficient, more responsive to the needs of working life and more conducive to advancing innovations (Häyrinen-Alestalo & Peltola, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref71">16</reflink>]; Kankaanpää, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref72">23</reflink>]).</p> <p>These developments culminated in the new Universities Act of 2009. Following it, the universities have been required to collaborate more with the private sector and raise more private funding, which has increased features of academic capitalism, namely, the tendency of universities to become market actors (Slaughter & Rhoades, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref73">78</reflink>]; Kauppinen & Kaidesoja, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref74">27</reflink>]; Ranga et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref75">75</reflink>]). Some Finnish universities have profiled themselves explicitly as entrepreneurial universities, and even "generalist" science universities have intensified their entrepreneurial activities, while the number of business representatives has grown in university administrations (Ranga et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref76">75</reflink>]; Poutanen et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref77">72</reflink>]).</p> <p>In line with such principles, the Ministry of Education (later named the MEC), together with the former Ministry of Trade and Industry, launched a task force in 2006 whose mission was to come up with suggestions on how to advance HEI-based entrepreneurship (Ministry of Education, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref78">53</reflink>]). The now-dominant political rationality that links the future of the nation-state with education for entrepreneurialism and innovation intensified during the centre-right government in the late 2010s (Moisio & Rossi, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref79">55</reflink>]). Its programme listed the reinforcement of cooperation between HEIs and businesses and the strengthening of the commercialization of research as its top priorities, to be achieved by clarifying the responsibilities of HEIs and research institutes (Prime Minister's Office Finland, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref80">73</reflink>]; Tervasmäki et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref81">80</reflink>]). Around the same time, the organizational structure of the universities of applied sciences (UAS) – the establishment of which had coincided with the rise of innovation orientation in higher education – was tweaked to allow the MEC to have more control over their funding (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref82">45</reflink>]; MEC, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref83">51</reflink>]).</p> <p>These HE policy transformations are characterized by institutional isomorphism (Kallio et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref84">21</reflink>]), which connects them to key trends in other policy sectors, including Finnish STI policies. In 1990, STPC launched the concept of the NIS in close collaboration with the OECD, after which it began to guide Finnish STI policy (Niinikoski & Kuhlmann, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref85">62</reflink>]; Alaja & Sorsa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref86">2</reflink>]). The NIS framework emphasized the role of the state in advancing innovation activities beyond mere public R&D investment, and it was strongly attached to the promotion of ICT industries and knowledge-intensive growth (Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref87">30</reflink>]). The NIS frame provided also "a general guideline for science and higher education policies, which have become increasingly subordinated to innovation policy" (Ylijoki, [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref88">88</reflink>], p. 58)</p> <p>However, owing to a combination of factors, including the global financial crisis and the downfall of Nokia, Finland's major ICT company, the NIS began to lose its standing in the early 2010s. Universities, public research organizations and the Finnish innovation agency Tekes – long conceived as the cornerstones of the Finnish NIS – saw significant cuts to their budgets and were forced to go through difficult structural reforms (Laasonen et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref89">29</reflink>]; Alaja & Sorsa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref90">2</reflink>]). These decisions, and the overall demise of the NIS policy frame in the 2010s, were based on the claim that Finland's extensive inputs in education and R&D had not delivered the desired economic outcomes (Alaja & Sorsa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref91">2</reflink>]).</p> <p>Together with major cuts to the public funding of universities and R&D, these perceptions translated into the policy demand that "more effective use will be made of the resources of science and research" (Prime Minister's Office Finland, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref92">73</reflink>], p. 19). PM Sipilä himself officially stated that "we must accomplish more with less" with regard to innovation (Parliament of Finland, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref93">69</reflink>]). Caused by the demotion of former ideas concerning the importance of state-guided R&D efforts, former ties to NIS thinking have become more rhetorical and less influential overall (Alaja & Sorsa, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref94">2</reflink>]). As we will argue, a more market-centered and entrepreneurial innovation perspective has increasingly dominated what remains of STI policies in Finland. This has important implications for how HE policies have been formulated recently and what kinds of institutional tensions they have created in Finnish universities.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-4">Methods and data</hd> <p>Our close reading of MEC's policy texts under PM Sipilä's government is inspired by the methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the field of critical policy studies (CPS). The combination of the two has been labelled critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA; Montessori et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref95">57</reflink>]). CDA offers a general method for analyzing how social power relations are expressed, reproduced and/or resisted textually in specific social and political contexts (e.g. Fairclough, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref96">10</reflink>]) and has been increasingly used in research on HEIs (for an overview, see Nokkala & Saarinen, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref97">65</reflink>]). CPS is similarly concerned with power relations and, unlike more traditional strands of policy analysis that see policy problems as given, it focuses on issues and solutions as sites of power struggles, including the social settings in which policies are enacted and interpreted (Mulderrig et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref98">58</reflink>]).</p> <p>Similar to CDA and CPS, CPDA examines how hegemonies and dominance are brought forth in policy disocurses. Hence, CPDA is specifically interested in policy problems and their solutions (e.g., Poutanen, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref99">71</reflink>]). By doing that, CPDA also addresses the "discursive silences" (e.g., Heilbrunn & Iannone, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref100">17</reflink>]), in our case in Finnish educational policies. Whose interests are driving problem definitions and proposed solutions; which problems are ignored and whose views are not considered and consulted?</p> <p>In addition, CPDA is not only inspired by societal and production contexts of texts but also informed by the central concepts of policy studies: e.g., what kinds of policy processes create and are created by specific discourses, or how do discourses relate to agenda setting and policy legitimation? It connects individual texts to their production contexts (created by policy actors) and the broader societal environment in which they are created. By doing so, it merges the three-tier methodological approach of CDA (see below) with the specific fields and aims of CPS. Ultimately, CPDA is a strategic tool to combat the rhetoric of inevitability in policy-making (Mulderrig et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref101">58</reflink>]).</p> <p>Following the above premises, our textual analysis highlights the political interests that the MEC's policy discourses express and legitimate. Furthermore, it seeks to deconstruct how entrepreneurial discourse is manifested in Finnish HE policy documents in the Sipilä government. As noted in the introduction, the connection between Finnish HE and innovation policies has inspired numerous analyses; however, only a few have approached the topic from the perspective of how policy discourses create a certain policy climate and reflect broader political discourses and actions.</p> <p>To collect a systematic and specific corpus of policy texts for this analysis, we chose the keyword innov* to identify the most relevant documents from the open-access database of the MEC (https://okm.fi/en/publications). The search returned 97 strategy statements, white papers, policy evaluations, and background reports. We narrowed our data to texts that addressed innovation in HEIs in a substantive manner, and these amounted to 35 texts from Prime Minister (PM) Sipilä's government in 2015–2019. This first round of qualitative close reading further defined our research questions for the subsequent three-tier critical close reading as follows:</p> <p>Textual level analysis – RQ1: How is the concept of innovation defined in the policy documents, how are the related problems and solutions depcted, and how does the language reflect various power relations?</p> <p>Analysis of institutional policy contexts – RQ2: Who are the institutional actors given responsibilities for the definitions, support and promotion of innovation and what kinds of institutional relationships emerge?</p> <p>Reflections on the broader societal context – RQ3: How do these discourses reflect the broader national and global dominant discourses and discursive power struggles around innovation?</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-5">Findings</hd> <p>The following close reading of the MEC's policy documents assesses these different discursive layers in succession. Even so, the layers should be conceived of as interrelated and partly overlapping. This is because the documents reveal a strikingly uniform understanding of what drives innovation in HEIs, namely, entrepreneurialism.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-6">Textual layer: innovation and the language of "new capitalism"</hd> <p>Throughout the data, the concept of innovation is central for the MEC's vision of the role of HEIs in Finland. It declares that "the ability to meet the future needs for know-how requires more skilled labour and high-class higher education, research and innovation activity" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref102">47</reflink>], p. 16), and it names the strengthening of cooperation between HEIs and business life for commercializing innovations as one of its "common objectives" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref103">50</reflink>], p. 9). All the MEC's policy documents express a "pro-innovation bias" (Gripenberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref104">13</reflink>]), meaning that they take for granted that innovation is always a good thing and do not discuss negative or harmful innovations. The "silencing" of critical voices that do not see HEIs from the perspective of economic utility and commercialization of research is evident; instead, innovation is presented as a solution to a multitude of challenges. As one document puts it, innovation activities "support economic growth and the positive development of national economy, the renewal of social structures and the well-being of the citizens" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref105">38</reflink>], p. 18).</p> <p>A second feature that binds together the MEC's innovation policy discourses is their consistent market orientation. In the policy texts, innovation refers to new products, new technologies, new organizational forms, new kinds of services or new pedagogical or social innovations that can be brought to the market and monetized or that, alternatively, make public services more efficient. This market-based focus is closely connected to the rhetoric of national competitiveness and success.</p> <p>In this register, the documents refer to the importance of "innovation clusters" or "innovation ecosystems" as crucial factors that enhance national competitiveness. For example, a text envisions Finland as a country that will witness "the birth of internationally attractive research and innovation clusters that will combine together different actors to generate ideas which will yield products and services" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref106">43</reflink>], p. 22). For the MEC, the antithesis of innovation is the image of an institution, such as a university, as a "silo," hermetically sealed from the networks that produce commercialized innovations: "we need to get rid of sector-wise, cramped silos in decision-making, research and in labour markets, and make room for creativity and innovation" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref107">38</reflink>], p. 55).</p> <p>Overall, the MEC has adopted a great deal of the vocabulary of "new capitalism" (Fairclough, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref108">10</reflink>]), including such terms as "flexibility", "entrepreneurship", "digitalization", "scalability", "competence centres", "trendsetters", "flagship programs", "interfaces" and "best practices". These are "textual triggers for positive valuation" and represent the colonization of public institutions such as universities by the language of management (Fairclough, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref109">10</reflink>], pp. 283–289; Nokkala, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref110">64</reflink>]).</p> <p>Entrepreneurship, in particular, is a concept seamlessly connected to innovation in the MEC's documents, which advocate it unreservedly. For the ministry, being an entrepreneur is not a role reserved for those who train to become entrepreneurs. Instead, it is rearticulated as a basic civic virtue towards which everyone should be naturally oriented: "entrepreneurial skills ... are needed not only in businesses but across all spheres of life" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref111">39</reflink>], p. 10). Similarly, the concept of entrepreneurship is embedded in the model of innovation for all Finnish universities and UASs; they are supposed to work together with businesses to commercialize innovations as well as foster entrepreneurial approaches (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref112">49</reflink>]). As examples of what such approaches refer to, a report lists HEI projects and courses with such names as Amazing Business Train, Business Club and Innovation Bootcamp (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref113">42</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-7">Institutional layer: HEIs as entrepreneurs</hd> <p>From an institutional perspective, the texts position the MEC as the controller or manager: its role is to measure, evaluate and coordinate the ways in which HEIs operate so that they may more efficiently serve the basic economic goals. The numerous discussions of funding models and their indicators, as well as funding as an instrument for the MEC to steer HEI strategies, depict a hierarchical institutional order between the MEC and HEIs that does not resonate well with the traditional principle of academic independence (e.g. MEC, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref114">46</reflink>]). This feature also contradicts the stated goals of the new Universities Act, which was supposed to increase the autonomy of universities but which "actually tied the universities to the conditions of state funding and political guidance more strongly than before" (Kuusela et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref115">28</reflink>], p. 159). Discursive silencing is at work here: Not a single MEC policy paper or report addresses the clash between the legal remit of HEI in Finland and the outspoken policy views of the government, not even to reconcile this contradiction.</p> <p>Interestingly, one type of managerial role is assigned to universities. They are asked to better monitor their successes and market trends (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref116">39</reflink>]) as a kind of subcontractor for the state. They are ultimately responsible for concrete outputs, quality control and accountability for the funding they receive. This is in line with the fact that in 2015, the minister of education and culture publicly reprimanded Finnish universities for "inefficient utilization" of resources and called for "reforms that increase quality, efficiency and impact" (Grahn-Laasonen, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref117">12</reflink>]). That the MEC exhorted universities to be more efficient and closely monitor the economic impact of their performance resonates with the turn towards austerity and public budget cuts following the 2008 global financial crisis, but it also represents longer-standing new public management approaches to higher education (e.g., Broucker et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref118">5</reflink>]).</p> <p>A central and more proactive motivational feature in the MEC's policy documents is how they educate HEIs about correct approaches to innovation. Here, the MEC refers to "best practices", such as using entrepreneurs in higher education as teachers and organizing pitching events, business incubators, start-up accelerators and other entrepreneurship-friendly activities (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref119">42</reflink>]). These include the promotion of an "entrepreneurial mindset" and ways to enhance positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship in HEIs (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref120">42</reflink>]).</p> <p>Such motivational themes merge with critical remarks on the deficiencies of HEIs. A report on a survey of them complains that "the understanding of what entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial studies are, is very narrow in HEIs" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref121">39</reflink>], p. 22). The report also notes that "the climate of attitude and culture" in universities "stands in the way of promoting entrepreneurship" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref122">39</reflink>], pp. 22–23, 31–32; MEC, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref123">42</reflink>]). In this regard, another discourse emerges, juxtaposing research universities and UASs: the latter are depicted as being ahead of the former in advancing entrepreneurial practices (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref124">39</reflink>]).</p> <p>The data include only a few counterexamples to the main entrepreneurial narrative. A rare glimpse of contradictions in the official policy line occurs in an evaluative report on the effects of the new Universities Act (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref125">41</reflink>]). It observes that following the reform, the time spent making applications and administrative reports has increased at the expense of doing research, which "may be detrimental to the development of know-how and competitiveness in the long run" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref126">41</reflink>], p. 74). The same report also notes complaints by university leadership and staff that the effectiveness of academic institutions is too often reduced to innovation and entrepreneurial activities without acknowledging the versatility of the social effects of universities. Such concessions are of little consequence to the main policy narrative, however and do not reference the policies that de facto limit academic independence.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-8">Societal layer: market dynamism vs. "excessive regulation"</hd> <p>As noted, the overall status of innovation as a policy theme was downgraded in the 2010s. The MEC expressed concern over this trend by observing that "we are losing the competitive advantage based on our know-how" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref127">44</reflink>], p. 9) and that R&D spending relative to GDP has decreased (e.g. MEC, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref128">46</reflink>]). In its vision of how to develop research and HEIs by 2030, the MEC proposes that R&D expenditure should be raised to 4 per cent of GDP (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref129">43</reflink>]) – regardless of the fact that the government made simultaneous cuts to the funding of HEIs and without specifying where the resources for reaching this target would come from.</p> <p>Ignoring such contradictions, the ministry emphasizes the need to attack state regulation to make room for vigorous entrepreneurship. It claims that, according to international evaluations, the Finnish innovation system is weakened by its fragmentariness, reactivity and the "silo-like" nature of its research and innovation activities (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref130">43</reflink>], p. 17). The programme of Sipilä's government stated that "entrepreneurship and creativity are inhibited" especially by "excessive regulation and administration" due to which "Finland has lost its agility" (Prime Minister's Office Finland, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref131">73</reflink>], p. 8). Such policy language is part and parcel of a long-standing neoliberal frame that pits market dynamism against the inefficiency of state bureaucracies.</p> <p>Adhering to this frame, the MEC attempts to legitimize its policies by directing attention to the assumed inefficiencies of Finnish HEIs. From this viewpoint, the key institutions responsible for innovation need to work together better, tap into unused potential and, through this, improve their innovation capacities, even in conditions of diminishing state support. Such proposed solutions are highly problematic for reasons that are discussed in the next section. Yet, despite these challenges, the MEC optimistically envisions Finland as "the most attractive and competent innovation environment in the world by 2030 ... based on high know-how, education, creativity, openness, trust, high productivity, capacity for transformation and open-mindedness for renewal through experimentation" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref132">47</reflink>], p. 11).</p> <p>The MEC aims to realize this vision, again, by demanding that Finnish institutions, professionals and citizens need to become more entrepreneurial. For example, a policy report discussing the career opportunities of newly minted doctorates includes suggestions to create simple guidelines for entrepreneurship for PhDs and foster attitudinal "demand-orientation" that focuses on the needs of the market (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref133">40</reflink>]). Underlying such discourses is the conviction that Finland "can take off only through entrepreneurship and hard work" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref134">39</reflink>], p. 7; see Prime Minister's Office Finland, [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref135">73</reflink>], p. 10).</p> <p>The entrepreneurialism of the MEC's policy formulations is further demonstrated by how the formerly powerful policy concept of the NIS, associated with the state and big industrial corporations, is supplanted by the notion of "innovation ecosystems" within them. This notion is attached especially to Silicon Valley and start-up companies, which are seen to represent the pinnacle of innovation that occurs without state intervention in networks of creative entrepreneurs, start-up companies and HEIs (Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref136">30</reflink>]). For the MEC, innovation or entrepreneurial ecosystems express a drive to intensify ties between businesses and HEIs (e.g. MEC, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref137">48</reflink>]). Overall, the MEC's innovation discourses reduce higher education to an economic driver and offer entrepreneurship as a catchall solution to the perceived efficiency problems of Finnish HEIs.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-9">Silencing as a discursive strategy</hd> <p>Our three-layered analysis has revealed a practically uniform reverence to entrepreneurialism and innovation as the guiding principles of Finnish HE policy planning. With their one-dimensional core message, the documents analyzed point to the underlying discursive silences that may be seen as ways to support "government-sponsored entrepreneurial policies, in spite of very mixed research results on the matter" (Heilbrunn & Iannone, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref138">17</reflink>], p. 157). In light of the studies on innovation and entrepreneurship, and when assessed from the viewpoint of the broad societal functions of science and HEIs, the MEC policy discourse is clearly problematic and can be seen to entail three major areas in which silencing is at work:</p> <p>First, the economic impact of entrepreneurship is overestimated, especially in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to which entrepreneurship is commonly reduced in policymaking (Audretsch, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref139">3</reflink>]). Research on entrepreneurship and the performance of SMEs tends to use data regarding successful and growing companies and leaves out firms that die shortly after their market entry (Nightingale & Coad, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref140">60</reflink>]). This bias has led to overoptimistic perceptions concerning SMEs' contribution to job creation, which forms a key justification for Finnish HE and innovation policies as well. Because of the high levels of fast market exit for new firms, most of the jobs created by them quickly disappear, and they usually only create jobs for the entrepreneurs themselves (Nightingale & Coad, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref141">60</reflink>]; Acs et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref142">1</reflink>]). Due to such issues, two Finnish labour unions representing teachers and researchers noted disapprovingly in one of the MEC's funding proposals that it is "ethically questionable" to force HEIs to train more and more students to become entrepreneurs since this "interferes with the contents of [their] teaching and encourages students to take risks to further HEIs' funding" (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref143">46</reflink>], p. 69).</p> <p>Second, despite official assumptions concerning the major contribution of start-up companies to innovation, innovative small firms are actually atypical, since they lack the capacities and market power to generate innovations and thus often concentrate on imitating products that are already on the market (e.g. Mazzucato, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref144">36</reflink>]; Acs et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref145">1</reflink>]). The point here is not to say that there should be no entrepreneurial initiatives in HEIs, as these can generate positive economic effects but to refer to the importance of context when discussing them. It is not uncommon for academic research to lead to successful commercialized innovations, but this is not due to entrepreneurship and SMEs in and of themselves. Long-term public R&D and support programmes form a central foundation for the later commercialization of path-breaking innovations by the private sector and university-business collaborations (Mazzucato, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref146">37</reflink>]).</p> <p>Instead of reflecting such realities, the MEC's policy discourses rely on a market-centric orientation that is contrasted with the rigidities of the public sector and a supposedly backwards academic culture that values scientific autonomy. This, however, runs the risk of focusing on things other than those that serve a healthy innovation system. Combined with recent budget cuts to universities and a move to managerialist governance, they devote themselves more and more to performance evaluations, seeking external funding and attempts to generate innovations, patents and start-up companies. Such economic short-termism can be productive for certain scientific fields, but it takes resources away from basic research and education, which ultimately form the main contribution of HEIs to innovation.</p> <p>This leads to a third critical observation: the MEC's entrepreneurial innovation discourses tend to mix scientific research with commercialization in a carefree way. They take for granted that increasing reliance on corporate financing and cooperation with companies does not pose a threat to basic research and academic independence. However, there are reasons to doubt this. Basic research is based on producing new, publicly evaluated knowledge that does not seek immediate practical usefulness, and for this reason, it can be used by different actors to widely different ends (Kaidesoja & Kauppinen, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref147">19</reflink>]). The increasing penetration of commercial logic into science contradicts these ideals in multiple ways, for example, owing to the commercial confidentiality of research findings, pressure to interpret data in ways that do not damage business interests and the setting of market-friendly research agendas (Tyfield, [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref148">81</reflink>]).</p> <p>Finally, the key rationale behind the MEC's policy focus, namely, the assumption that the Finnish HEI system suffers from serious inefficiencies, seems to lack proper research-based justifications (Raatikainen, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref149">74</reflink>]; Kaidesoja & Kauppinen, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref150">19</reflink>]). For example, in the Universitas 21 assessment from 2018, Finland was ranked as having the sixth-best national HEI system in a comparison of 50 countries, and when it was evaluated by controlling the levels of GDP per capita, the Finnish HEI system was the most efficient, leaving behind other industrialized nations, including other Nordic countries, the Netherlands and the UK (Williams & Leahy, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref151">85</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-10">Conclusion</hd> <p>Our analysis depicts how Finnish HEIs were strongly entrusted with the task of being innovative and entrepreneurial in the late 2010s. This was done precisely at the time when the overall status of innovation as a policy theme was downgraded. Following the euro crisis in the 2010s, Finnish policymakers began to emphasize the importance of cost competitiveness, measured in unit labour costs, as the central factor that determined the country's competitiveness, instead of innovation and technology (Kaitila, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref152">20</reflink>]). Sipilä's government made cuts to R&D investments a key priority, which spelled the end of the long-standing strengthening of the science and technology push policy.</p> <p>Keeping this context in mind, our analysis of discursive layers of the MEC's policy documents suggests that entrepreneurship acts in them as a substitute for the demise of the NIS frame in Finnish STI and HE policies. As a policy idea, the role of entrepreneurialism is to compensate for the programmatic emptiness of "innovation" in the recent policy context, justify lower levels of R&D spending and facilitate managerial governance of HEIs. Furthermore, from the language used to actors and their roles, to the contextual framing of the MEC's policy texts, entrepreneurialism as a HEI mantra is used to demonstrate the value of entrepreneurs to the economy "to rationalize political decisions that had already been taken" (Nightingale & Coad, [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref153">60</reflink>], p. 119).</p> <p>The trend towards the entrepreneurialization of Finnish HE and STI policies in the latter half of the 2010s is not an isolated phenomenon. Instead, it reflects a widespread zeitgeist across the core industrialized countries that emphasizes the need to celebrate entrepreneurship and cultivate entrepreneurial subjects, especially start-up entrepreneurs, as educational role models (e.g. Heilbrunn & Iannone, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref154">17</reflink>]; Moisio & Rossi, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref155">55</reflink>]). The exhaustion of the formerly prevalent NIS frame and the rise to power of PM Sipilä's centre-right government in 2015 acted as catalysts, which led to the intensification of the discourses of entrepreneurship, ecosystems and start-up companies in the country's higher education and innovation policy strategies.</p> <p>As noted, the formation of these policies cannot be properly understood without taking into account the impacts of supranational organizations and policy ideas, such as the discourses on knowledge-based economy and entrepreneurial universities, both of which the OECD and the EU have promoted (Hunter, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref156">18</reflink>]; Moisio, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref157">54</reflink>]; Kallo, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref158">22</reflink>]). This trend has been strengthened recently by the EU commission and the OECD, which have launched a self-assessment tool called HeInnovate that encourages universities to increase entrepreneurship incentives for academics and graduates for starting businesses (MEC, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref159">39</reflink>]; Ranga et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref160">75</reflink>]). The MEC has been a central institution for introducing and advancing such ideas in the Finnish policy context.</p> <p>However, there are also countertendencies to the main trends. Not all universities in Finland have been enthusiastic supporters of entrepreneurialism, to say nothing of the opinions of many members of the academic community (Kuusela et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref161">28</reflink>]). A key reason for this is that entrepreneurialism hands questions of the common good over to the market, and this undermines the legitimacy of universities as academic institutions, because they have responsibilities beyond turning knowledge into marketed products (Häyrinen-Alestalo, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref162">15</reflink>]).</p> <p>As we discussed, the MEC's economic short-termism is detrimental even for market-oriented innovation activities in the long term. Furthermore, since entrepreneurial policies lead to the privileging of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at the expense of the humanities and social sciences (Tervasmäki et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref163">80</reflink>]), they run the risk of generating broader negative societal consequences. Social sciences provide practical knowledge for administrative ends, but they also cultivate intellectual competences that citizens need in a meaningful democracy. Thus, innovation in the social sciences means, for example, the ability to generate new critical ideas on how to develop societies in a sustainable way. This is different from cultivating entrepreneurial abilities (Häyrinen-Alestalo & Peltola, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref164">16</reflink>]), and it may (and often does) contradict market-based judgements. A more balanced policy approach would appreciate the manifoldness of the functions of universities instead of focusing on one function at the expense of others (Raatikainen, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref165">74</reflink>]).</p> <p>Given this, it is not surprising that the MEC's entrepreneurial policy has led to tensions in Finnish HEIs (Tervasmäki et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref166">80</reflink>]; Kuusela et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref167">28</reflink>]). This is exemplified by the recent case of Tampere University. The university's new management has developed its brand in an entrepreneurial fashion, which raised public criticism and even ridicule, and provoked a collective outcry from the university's teachers and researchers, who are worried that such tendencies represent a fundamental threat to the university's autonomy (Väliverronen et al., [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref168">84</reflink>]). Such tensions have become more acute in Finland recently because of the combined effects of the entrepreneurialization of HE policies, the managerial reformation of universities and the ideas that have dominated the country's economic policies following the global financial crisis in the 2010s, which show remarkable resilience regardless of changes in governments (Hardy et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref169">14</reflink>]).</p> <p>During the depression of the 1990s, Finnish policymakers chose not to make cuts to public R&D funding, which was supportive of both the NIS and basic research (Lemola, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref170">31</reflink>]). By contrast, in the late 2010s, the economic crisis became a reason for the government to cut HEIs' budgets while also demanding that they make market-friendly structural reforms and increase their commitments to innovation and entrepreneurialism. Such a policy approach can only last for a limited time without running into structural problems. Combined with lower levels of financial support and the de-democratization of the university sector (Poutanen et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref171">72</reflink>]), the pursuit of entrepreneurialism and the commodification of science that clashes with academic independence increase the likelihood of further conflicts that will undermine the ability of HEIs to fulfil their various roles properly.</p> <p>Of the different possible rationales for developing Finnish higher education and innovation policies, the MEC's discourses overwhelmingly represent an "entrepreneurial approach" that emphasizes market-oriented steering of HEIs (Laasonen et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref172">29</reflink>]). Our analysis of the MEC's policy discourses demonstrates the limitations of their social imaginary and the conflicts this imaginary has provoked. Future studies should explore what kind of concrete effects dominant entrepreneurial policies have had in Finnish HEIs. These studies should focus both on their current priorities (enhancing the contribution of HEIs to commercial innovation) and on the other functions of HEIs, especially their capacity to support, through research and education, policies that work for socially and ecologically sustainable social development (see e.g., Schot & Steinmueller, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref173">77</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-11">Acknowledgement</hd> <p>The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and Tuomas Tervasmäki and Antti Alaja for their suggestions on the previous version of this article.</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-12">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <hd id="AN0182949489-13">Data availability statement</hd> <p>The data used in this article is publicly available in the website of the MEC (okm.fi). 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PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Doing 'More with Less': The Entrepreneurialization of Finnish Higher Education and Innovation Policy Discourses in 2015-2019
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Marko+Ampuja%22">Marko Ampuja</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4849-894X">0000-0002-4849-894X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Minna+Horowitz%22">Minna Horowitz</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1347-6166">0000-0003-1347-6166</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Scandinavian+Journal+of+Educational+Research%22"><i>Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research</i></searchLink>. 2025 69(2):303-317.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 15
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Entrepreneurship%22">Entrepreneurship</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Innovation%22">Innovation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Policy%22">Educational Policy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Discourse+Analysis%22">Discourse Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Financial+Support%22">Financial Support</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Research+and+Development%22">Research and Development</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sustainability%22">Sustainability</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Budgets%22">Budgets</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Retrenchment%22">Retrenchment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Competition%22">Competition</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Public+Agencies%22">Public Agencies</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Universities%22">Universities</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Finland%22">Finland</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/00313831.2023.2299988
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0031-3831<br />1470-1170
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: In the past decades, the development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in industrialized countries has become intertwined with innovation policy and the goal of national competitiveness. Focusing on the discourses on innovation by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), this article illustrates the transformation of Finnish higher education policy ideas in the late 2010s following the demise of the previous policy consensus built around the notion of the National Innovation System. Through a critical policy discourse analysis of 35 publications by the MEC, we demonstrate that its recent policy discourses are dominated by an increasingly market-centric strategy of entrepreneurialism in conditions of major cuts to the public funding of universities and R&D. This strategy has serious limitations and contradictions, which have generated institutional conflicts and hinder the development of a more sustainable and balanced innovation agenda for the Finnish higher education field.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1466706
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1466706
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/00313831.2023.2299988
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 15
        StartPage: 303
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Higher Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Entrepreneurship
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Innovation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Educational Policy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Discourse Analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Financial Support
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Research and Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Sustainability
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Budgets
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Retrenchment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Competition
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Public Agencies
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Universities
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Finland
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Doing 'More with Less': The Entrepreneurialization of Finnish Higher Education and Innovation Policy Discourses in 2015-2019
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Marko Ampuja
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Minna Horowitz
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0031-3831
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1470-1170
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 69
            – Type: issue
              Value: 2
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
              Type: main
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