Study: Digital capabilities, energy and trust key to Finland’s future
The joint research project Future of Critical Functions (Suomen yhteiskunnan kriittiset toiminnot ja tulevaisuuden trendit) was conducted on behalf of the Prime Minister’s Office.
According to the study, what is considered critical cannot be defined through a fixed list of services or infrastructure. Rather, it is a dynamic whole shaped by needs, interdependencies and the prevailing situation.
Even if societal critical functions are context-dependent, the researchers identified four factors determining societal criticality: Needs, scarcity, urgency, and access. Needs refer to the basic societal needs that need to be fulfilled, and scarcity refers to the resources available to fulfill these needs. Urgency and access point to the level of societal urgency, and if people can access the societal function.
The researchers categorise critical societal functions into eight areas of need: food and water, health and wellbeing, mobility and infrastructure, security, information and understanding, the economy and livelihoods, democracy, and equality. All of these depend on reliable energy supply and digital capabilities, making them fundamental prerequisites for all other critical societal functions.
According to Peter Ylén, lead (foresight and data economy) at VTT, society’s ability to function emerges from the interaction between its various components.
“Society’s future capacity to act will not be determined by individual investments, but by how well we understand and manage the system as a whole. The most important factors are not individual technologies, but information structures, trust and people’s ability to work,” says Ylén.
Resources that can rapidly deteriorate
The study identifies energy, digital capabilities, data resources and information flows as fundamental enablers of all critical societal functions. According to the researchers, the main energy challenge of the future is not scarcity but volatility. Weather-dependent energy production brings price fluctuations and uncertainty, with consequences for society as a whole. At the same time, a healthy environment is a prerequisite for long-term societal development, and its importance is expected to grow further over the next 15 to 20 years.
“Trust serves as a cornerstone of society. Trust, information quality and young people’s confidence in the future are long-term resources that take decades to build but can be weakened quickly. The consequences are not always immediately visible, but over time they risk undermining society’s long-term resilience on a broad scale,” says Christian Fjäder, professor of practice at Hanken School of Economics.
Researchers’ recommendations
The project puts forward eleven recommendations to make the assessment of critical societal functions more systemic and citizen-focused. Key proposals include establishing a permanent national coordination mechanism, continuously defining critical functions based on needs, introducing time-based resilience thresholds, and identifying the points within systems where disruptions would have the greatest impact.
The report delivers a clear message: resilience is strengthened through foresight, decentralisation and complementary solutions. By contrast, reactive approaches and excessive centralisation of functions increase vulnerability. Finland’s critical functions must be reviewed systematically and continuously, not only during times of crisis.
Read the whole report (in Finnish):
Suomen yhteiskunnan kriittiset toiminnot ja tulevaisuuden trendit (SYKT) : Loppuraportti