This report was produced by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director.
The project was funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument, and implemented by the OECD, in co-operation with the European Commission.
The project and the report were co-ordinated by Antti Moisio, Senior Economist, under the supervision of Isabelle Chatry, Head of Unit, Decentralisation, Subnational Public Finance and Infrastructure (DEFI), under the Regional Development and Multi-level Governance Division (RDG), led by Dorothée Allain-Dupré.
The report was written by Antti Moisio, with contributions from Michael Flood and José Ignacio Donoso Salas, Policy Analysts of the CFE’s Regional Attractiveness and Migrant Integration unit (covering parts of Chapters 4-6 and part of Chapter 9); Moritz Ader, Nicole Drew, and Pietro Gagliardi, Policy Analysts of the Public Governance Directorate (GOV) (contributing to Chapter 7 and part of Chapter 9).
The report includes substantial contributions from Anu Gretschel, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Finnish Youth Research Society (Chapter 7), Petri Kahila, Ph.D., Research Director, University of Eastern Finland, and Teemu Makkonen, Ph.D., Professor, University of Eastern Finland (Chapters 4 and 5). Furthermore, Timo Hirvonen, M.Sc., Researcher, University of Eastern Finland and Pekka Kuosmanen, MD, Managing Director, Fimdec Ltd provided valuable help to organise the missions and workshops with the regions.
The authors are grateful to Ms Anni Salmi, Senior Specialist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, and Johanna Slaney, Senior Specialist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, and Ms Ana Medeiros Faria, European Commission, for their support. The support and valuable contributions of the Regional Councils of the eight regions involved, and by several Finnish ministries and other stakeholders, is also gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the Finnish Youth Councils, Wellbeing Services Counties, the Union of Local Youth Councils, the Barents Regional Youth Council and the Guides and Scouts of Finland for engaging in consultations. Thanks are extended to Jack Waters (CFE) and Leslie Greenhow who prepared the manuscript of the publication.