Partners
City of Helsinki
Helsinki is the largest city in Finland, with
over 500,000 inhabitants. The Helsinki region has a population of 1.2
million. Helsinki is the centre of government, business, culture and
science in Finland. The City of Helsinki employs approximately 40 000
people. The Innovation Strategy of the City is based on strategic
collaboration as a knowledge hub, with strong international connections
and expertise clusters based on research and high educational standards.
The City of Helsinki has its own research department, called the City of Helsinki Urban Facts, which has 70 employees. It is the largest municipal organisation for urban research and statistics in Finland. City of Helsinki Urban Facts was created in 1990 through the merging of the City Statistical Office and the City Archives. City of Helsinki Urban Facts consists of four divisions: archives, statistic, library and the Urban Research Unit, which employs 18 researchers.
The Urban Research Unit conducts applied urban research for the administration of the City of Helsinki, for the citizens and for enterprises located in Helsinki. The aim of the research activities is to analyse contemporary urban phenomena from various perspectives. Research areas include studies on population and housing, living conditions, regional and municipal economy, city administration, urban governance and civic participation, urban culture and urban environment. There is an increasing demand for comparative and evaluative analyses, including also international comparisons. Such studies are often conducted in co-operation with other research organisations. The Urban Research Unit collaborates with universities and research institutions in the Helsinki region. The Urban Research Unit also co-ordinates and promotes urban research on Helsinki conducted by other departments of the City of Helsinki.
The City of Helsinki Urban Facts has four publication series: Research Series, Study Reports, Discussion Papers, and a series for Web-publications. In addition to the publication series there are special publications and a quarterly journal called Kvartti issued also with English-language numbers called Helsinki Quarterly. In 2004 over 60 publications were issued.
Other departments within the City of Helsinki will support the project, and these include the Helsinki City Real Estate Department, which is organized in eight divisions and has about 450 employees.
The Department is in charge of developing the administration of dwellings owned by the City. Other tasks include geotechnical expert services, map and real estate information services, and the official duties performed by the real estate engineer. The City Survey Division is in charge of geographical information system of the City and maps and technical services and the duties performed by the real estate engineer. The Map Office of the City Survey Division has been developing a prototype of a GIS service for citizen use, which will combine geographical information and other data sets, such as real estate information, and utility infrastructure maps in an Internet based service.
Helsinki’s budgeted effort in ICING amounts to 50 person-months, nearly 2 FTE research staff, and their effort will be closely co-ordinated with TAIK.
