News
| 07.04.2025

Foundations important funders of research at Hanken

Stiftelser och fonder på besök på Hanken
Over the past three years, researchers at the Hanken School of Economics have received over 1.8 MEUR in support from Finnish foundations for different research projects. Representatives from eleven foundations and funds met with researchers and the university management at Hanken on 4 April 2025, and got a glimpse of current research at the School.

In her welcome speech, Charlotta Collén, Director of Research and International Affairs, introduced the programme that showed a wide variety of research topics currently at Hanken. She especially highlighted the quality of Hanken's research, and the perhaps not so widely known fact that the School's research actually ranks at the top nationally.

- According to the latest overview by the Research Council of Finland, State of scientific research in Finland, Hanken actually has the highest scientific impact of the Finnish universities in economic sciences.

One of Hanken's research projects supported by the Finnish Research Impact Foundation is Anna Aminoff's and Helleke Heikkinen's project Sustainable Innovation for Growth: Exploring circular business models for a logistics service provider. The project involves a logistics company Posti as an active partner in developing circular economy business models.

Petro Poutanen

Petro Poutanen, CEO at the Finnish Research Impact Foundation, was positively surprised by the variety of economic research being done at Hanken.

- I did not know how versatile economic research is carried out here. So far, a large share of applications to the Finnish Research Impact Foundation have come from fields such as technology and medicine, so we were very pleased to be able to support a project also in social sciences. I believe that good examples of impactful and relevant ways for companies to use economic research can inspire more companies to engage in closer collaboration, Poutanen stated.

The Finnish Research Impact Foundation supports on average ten different research projects with 2 MEUR per year. Overall, Finnish foundations and funds support research with about 300 MEUR per year. Each year, the foundations and funds meet at different universities in Finland to increase the exchange of knowledge between universities and foundation professionals.

Representatives from the following foundations participated in the event at Hanken: Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Foundation for Economic Education, Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare Research Foundation, Sigrid Jusélius Foundation, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Tietotekniikan tutkimussäätiö, The Finnish Research Impact Foundation, Wilhelm och Else Stockmanns stiftelse, and Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation.