The President and CEO’s review

In line with Luke's strategy, we use research to create prosperity and a sustainable future from renewable resources. An important part of this work is to produce reliable and useful information to support decision making.

In 2024, we supported societal decision-making on natural resources and the resource economy through statements, parliamentary committee hearings, participation in working groups, and the production of policy briefs, visions and synthesis reports. Of the nearly 600 opinions we issued, more than half were given to regional authorities, municipalities and cities. As in the previous year, the majority of these were on the environmental impact and planning of wind power generation and transmission projects, and the dominant theme continued to be game and game farming. Legislative and regulatory work in ministries and parliament was supported by just under a third of the opinions we issued. Pre-market policy briefs included “Opportunities and challenges of permanent afforestation”, “Build public trust: Six factors for increasing wind power acceptance” and “Make the carbon market support climate action in the land-use sector”. Synthesis reports were produced on topics such as “Means and impacts of increasing forest growth” and “Energy consumption in Finnish agriculture”.

Another important part of our work is regional development in Finland, which we support through regional projects. We received funding for 31 projects from the EU's EAFRD. These were launched particularly in North Ostrobothnia, Kainuu and Lapland. We were also successful in the national EAFRD calls and in the EU's Fair Transition Fund calls in North Ostrobothnia, North Savo and North Karelia, among others.

In international cooperation, forest bioeconomy and plant-based solutions were strong themes last year. In these areas, we collaborated with research institutes in European forestry countries to produce a joint policy brief. In the area of plant health and plant proteins, we collaborated with Japan, Canada, the UK and South Korea.

We developed our own responsibility by publishing the ethical principles of our research on the environment and organisms. With these principles, we want to support our researchers in their ethical reflection and reduce harm to the environment and organisms. We have worked closely with The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK in developing the ethical principles and the peer review process. The TENK has also launched a project to develop ethical principles for environmental research. Luke's work is a pilot for this project.

In autumn 2024, we will also introduce the “know your partner” model. In a fast-changing geopolitical environment, the model will help us in partner selection and risk management.

In late spring 2024, we conducted a Responsibility analysis, asking our stakeholders about the most relevant sustainability issues for Luke. The most important themes were the promotion of sustainable primary production and responsible and ethical research. Strengthening biodiversity and resilience, adapting to and mitigating climate change, and developing the well-being and skills of the work community were also seen as very important.

The meaningfulness of work and values of sustainability are important factors in choosing a job in science. We were delighted to be the most sought-after workplace for science professionals and students in Finland for the sixth year in a row. This success encourages us to continue our work as an organisation of excellence in research and expertise in the sustainable use of natural resources.