Sustainable urban development in Northern Finland

The integrated territorial investment (ITI) strategy for sustainable urban development is based on agreements that the state concludes with 16 urban environments: the Helsinki metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa) and 15 other cities (Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Vaasa, Lappeenranta incl. Imatra, Lahti, Joensuu, Kuopio, Pori, Kajaani incl. Sotkamo, Kokkola, Seinäjoki, Rovaniemi, Mikkeli). The cities share the need to strengthen ecosystems for innovation activities. The challenges of individual cities are specified in the ecosystem agreements, from which the cities’ common ITI strategy is derived. While activities are run by the central cities, their impacts benefit the entire district.

The cities themselves choose the measures to be funded. The intermediate authority assesses the projects’ compliance with the programme and eligibility for funding. National coordination is handled by the steering group, supported by a coordination project.