Finland's provisional budget for 2013, published on 8 August, includes a €300 million growth package that includes tax incentives for companies to hire more R&D staff.
The government outlined the growth package in April as a response to mobile phone giant Nokia’s recent spate of redundancies. The growth plan now includes tax and venture capital incentives that are planned to attract more companies into R&D and encourage them to hire researchers.
The full employment and innovation budget for 2013 is proposed to be €1.8 billion—€520m more than in the 2012 budget.
The budget proposal also includes more funding for innovation. Research funding at the education and culture ministry will target research infrastructure and boost for centres of research excellence.
The budget proposal will be discussed by the government on 29 and 30 August and presented to the parliament on 17 September.