Dear members of the University community, dear excellencies,
Universities are not supposed to adapt to temporary uncertainties, but to seek the truth and foster hope precisely when it is at its most elusive.
This is why I wish to begin with an idea that I will come back to later: we are all here making breakthroughs on behalf of the world.
When I say “everyone”, I mean all of us – students, researchers, teachers, specialists and advisors at University Services, alumni and partners.
In other words, an entire community that works for science, teaching and the future.
Research is a force for change that will turn Finland towards a path to growth. Research helps treat diseases, save the climate, develop novel technologies and transform societies.
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These changes and breakthroughs in research do not come about in isolation. They emerge when science is unfettered and when researchers are allowed to tackle difficult questions and challenge the prevailing ideas. Only then will our society advance, enabling us to prepare for an unknown future.
Academic freedom is not only a beautiful ideal. It is required for seeking truth at all. It is required for getting closer to the truth, study by study.
In Finland, this freedom is enshrined in the Constitution. And yet, we see how the desire to politically steer funding increases year after year. Politicians even single out individual research projects, criticising their topics and targeting the researchers.
Such criticism is often directed at the social sciences and the humanities, calling their productivity into question. We see things differently: all research is productive. Art brings inspiration to life, psychology promotes coping and wellbeing, the educational sciences help educate children and adults in the best possible way, while the social sciences build better societies by increasing understanding of what goes on around us, to give just a few examples.
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We in Finland have been accustomed to taking academic freedom for granted. Yet around the world, this freedom is now under growing threat.
In the United States, the government is increasingly using research funding as a political instrument.
Government agendas are dictating which research topics may be pursued and which must be avoided.
This trend strikes at the heart of what universities are meant to be: spaces for independent thought.
Top universities, such as Harvard and Columbia, have been forced to choose whether to give in or stand their ground.
Columbia gave in, fearing the loss of funding. Harvard has so far stood its ground.
This is not simply a question of money, but of values, principles and freedom.
When researchers are not allowed to investigate climate change, because it is politically unpopular – or when questions of equality are censored – it is not just about the defeat of science and research. It is a defeat for all of humanity, endangering future development.
The situation has led American scholars to turn their gaze towards Europe.
Now, Europe and Finland can demonstrate that we stand by our values and defend the freedom of science.
For several years, we have campaigned to attract the international researcher community, for example, on social media, using the slogan ‘Freedom to think’.
The global circumstances – combined with our determined efforts to boost our attractiveness – are already manifesting in concrete results:
The number of applicants from the United States applying for academic positions is expected to increase by more than 50% this year. This means a total of approximately 600 applicants from the United States.
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This alone is not enough. We have to ensure that Finland is genuinely an attractive location for conducting research.
We need sufficient core funding, flexible practices for entry into the country and top-level research infrastructures. In addition to attraction, we need traction.
This is a message we have also actively communicated to the decision-makers who are currently conducting the government’s autumn budget negotiations. We vehemently oppose the cuts, amounting to hundreds of millions of euros, planned by the Ministry of Finance to the funding of universities and research.
In the spring, the government's own growth working group stated that, to ensure economic growth and competitiveness, the educational level should be increased and funding for research and development at Finnish universities strengthened, as we have fallen far behind our benchmark countries. And now they want to do the exact opposite by cutting the funding for universities and scrapping the historic parliamentary agreement on investing in research and development.
Productivity requires new and better ideas, which is why investing in research, development, innovation and skills is crucial for Finland.
It is regrettably easy to destroy things through an overly short-term perspective, but it takes decades to build and restore them. For a university founded 385 years ago, a four-year government term is a brief period, but its impact can unfortunately be felt long after.
We hope that the government is capable of assuming a long-term approach and making decisions with a view beyond the next parliamentary election.
As a university, we also have to have the courage to make more choices. We host fields where we are global leaders and in which we should invest even more. These research spearheads relate to interaction between technology and people, learning and societal development, the promotion of health and a sustainable future.
In these areas, we wish not only to produce even stronger top-level research, teaching and scientific breakthroughs, but also to build hope.
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In this day and age, there is a real demand for hope. At an increasing frequency, we read through studies and news of how young people’s faith in the future is faltering. Uncertainty overshadows future prospects, and tomorrow appears to many as obscure, even threatening.
This is not surprising.
The freshers arriving at the University of Helsinki this autumn have grown up in a world entirely different from the world of my adolescence and that of other University leadership.
In our youth, world events were transmitted to homes on the evening news hosted by the newscaster Arvi Lind. Today, events take place right before young people’s eyes, in the real-time social media stream – filtered through peers and the experiences of their generation.
The world, for good and bad, runs across their eyes relentlessly. It brings with it an enormous – but also burdensome – amount of information.
To better understand how young people perceive their lives in 2025, we wish to hear it from them in their own words and learn from them. We wish to know their dreams and their attitudes towards their future and potential university studies.
This is why we have launched a mentoring programme where students of the Helsingin Yhteislyseo general upper secondary school in Kontula mentor us, the University’s leaders. These young people will give us new ideas on, for example, how to make university education more familiar and accessible to young people from all kinds of backgrounds.
I hope that the general upper secondary school students will in turn see that university education and research can also be their path to building a better world.
We have already learned a lesson in the early stages of this mentoring: different generations are united by the desire to look to the future with new eyes – and make it better.
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Finally, I wish to return to where I started:
We all make breakthroughs – every day.
Someone here made one in the summer when the Studyinfo service welcomed them to the University of Helsinki.
Someone else secured funding for their research project after years of quiet groundwork.
A third person published a new scholarly finding that will change our way of understanding the world – be it small or large in scale.
A fourth person made an important everyday observation that solved a sore point in teaching.
And a fifth person saw the first doctoral researcher they supervised attain their degree.
And a breakthrough for the sixth was having the courage to ask for help and receiving it.
Not all breakthroughs end up in the headlines, but each of them advances this society. We are building a better world with the help of scholarship.
We do not waver or slow down, even though the world around us is changing and challenging us in unprecedented ways.
The greatest strength of our University community stems from our support for one another and our united front. I hope each of us will foster this strength this year in particular.
I wish you a good academic year!