Helsinki Graduate School of Economics to be established
The goal is to establish up to 15 new professorships by 2022, and thus to safeguard doctoral education in all key fields of economics. VATT supports the Helsinki GSE by committing long-term resources, like shared professorships, to its activities.
Professors Bengt Holmström and Juuso Välimäki. Photo: Jussi Toivanen / Prime Minister's Office
A new centre of expertise in economics will be set up in Finland.
Preparation of the Helsinki GSE project will begin as a cooperative effort of three Helsinki Metropolitan Area universities. Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and the Hanken School of Economics will start the work immediately.
VATT Institute for Economic Research, the Bank of Finland and the Ministry of Education and Culture will support the establishment of the unit and commit long-term resources to the activities of the Helsinki GSE. Private funding will also be sought for the project.
According to Prime Minister Juha Sipilä, there is growing demand for economics expertise in the planning and impact assessment of policy measures, for example. The growing volume of consumer data and digitalisation are also increasing the need for knowledge-based decision-making expertise in the business world.
“Political decision-making requires high-quality assessments of impacts on the economy and society. In making impact assessments, we must always be able to do better. The new economics unit will have a significant role in research and high-level legislative preparation”, Prime Minister Sipilä said on September 19.
The Helsinki GSE will seek to become an internationally top-level economics research and teaching unit, aimed at safeguarding doctoral education, for example, in all the key fields of economics. The particular research areas to be strengthened are macroeconomics, public finance, applied microeconomics and knowledge-based decision-making.
The goal is to establish up to 15 new professorships in the Helsinki GSE by 2022. Including existing vacancies, the number of economics professors will rise to 35, which will constitute a centre of expertise of international dimensions. Junior- and senior-level researchers will be recruited to become professors.
The intention is also to increase the number of doctoral and master’s degrees in economics. The Helsinki GSE will cooperate with external stakeholders, such as universities active outside the Helsinki Metropolitan Area as well as other social sciences and business economics researchers and students.
“I am very satisfied that an economics centre will be established in Helsinki. It is coming at the right time. Finnish economics is experiencing a strong upswing just as economics is increasingly needed to analyse and interpret the rapidly growing volume of information”, Nobel laureate and Professor Bengt Holmström said upon the announcement of the Helsinki GSE.
“Economics and new methods based on artificial intelligence and machine learning will complement each other. Good experiences of corresponding units have been obtained from Barcelona, Toulouse and Stockholm, for example. The Helsinki GSE has all the prerequisites to join these leading European centres.”
More information: Professor Juuso Välimäki, Aalto University, tel. +358 40 3538 182
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