The Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland was founded in 1991. It is a non-profit, private foundation funded by The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. The Institute is one of the 16 Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes.
The Institute is also a proud member of EUNIC London, network of the EU national cultural institutes in London.
Purpose
We exist to enable progressive personal and societal change through art and culture. By carrying out ambitious, transdisciplinary projects that have a positive impact we enrich and diversify connections and collaborations between cultural professionals in Finland, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Vision
We aim for a fair and equal future for everybody. We reach this by fostering professionals and organisations working in the arts, culture and society to share and learn from each other’s best practices, through mutual learning, capacity building and inspiring societal dialogue.
Values
Our work is based on:
Equity – Being fair, inclusive and accessible.
Principles – We adhere to the principles of fair work: Fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair representation, and in addition we make sure that less abled persons can acquire the same information and engage in the same interactions as everybody else.
Sustainability – We strive towards social, economic and environmental sustainability.
Principles – We value and include people of diverse backgrounds, gender, ethnicity, ability, sexual identity and orientation in our work. We strive towards energy efficiency, waste reduction, and we support models based on the circular economy. We pledge to preserve and protect the natural environment by actively looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and compensating for our travel emissions.
Transparency –We base our operations on good governance
Principles – We promise full accounting of facts, information, and context essential to ensuring an informed and equitable decision-making process in easily accessible and easy to understand form, in clear and plain language.
Our Position
We have been advocating for cultural and progressive societal exchange between Finland, the UK and Ireland for over 30 years. As experts on Finnish culture and society in the UK and Ireland, we are here to foster, increase and develop meaningful relationships between our stakeholders.
We recognise the integrity, independence and freedom of art. We also see art in a broader context as an enabler for:
-Fostering creativity and innovation
-Expressing and exploring complex emotions
-Emotional resilience, healing and mental well-being
-Reflecting the societies we operate in, their values, beliefs and challenges
-Making sense of our uncertain world
-Dialogue, empathy and communication in times of division and polarisation
-Creating a more sustainable future
How We Work
Building on our values,
-We nurture international collaborations, strengthen international networks and encourage sharing of best practices in arts, culture and society. We champion dialogue and exchange of ideas between artists, creators and societal changemakers. In practice we do this in all our daily conversations and dialogue with our partners, in order to accelerate the creation of more impactful and highly valued work.
-We work to ease social tensions. To do this, we support projects that combine artistic expertise and quality with social relevance and importance. We promote anti-racist culture.
-We work in a pragmatic and forward-thinking manner. We analyse signals of change in the
fields of art, culture, and society in order to adjust our operations to stay relevant in changing circumstances. Our operations are guided by our values and we choose to work with partners who align with our values in order to build impactful collaborations.
-We work independently, but in collaboration with Team Finland in London and Dublin, EUNIC as well as the Nordic embassies and the Faroese Representation in London.
Operational Plan
Working towards our vision, our concrete goals for the strategy period 2024–2026 are:
1.Programme focus areas – Creating a sharper focus in our programming in order to make better use of our limited resources and to make a greater impact.
In the coming three years we will prioritise working with performing arts, contemporary arts and progressive societal matters within arts, culture and design. We emphasise international capacity building, professional mentoring and network management. In particular we work with artists who are emerging on the international stage, and who benefit most from the support structures we are able to offer. We choose to focus on fewer but larger projects.
2. Strategic partnerships – Building mutually beneficial strategic partnerships to widen our reach and impact.
To amplify our work, we engage in long-term strategic partnerships with organisations that we identify as best suited collaborators. We secure and allocate resources jointly together with our strategic partners to create meaningful impact for our stakeholders.
We will announce our strategic partners for 2024–2026 later in the spring.
3. Stakeholder dialogue – Deepening the dialogue with our main stakeholders in order for them to gain a deeper understanding of our priorities and values, and for us to maintain a proactive stance in understanding our rapidly changing operational environment.
Our main stakeholders are:
Finnish and Finland based artists and creators
Finnish and Finland-based experts and academics
UK and Irish decisionmakers and cultural actors
Finnish funders and potential sponsors
Malin Groop, Chair
Leif Jakobsson
Mari K Niemi
Marianne Saarikko Janson
Jeremiah Tesolin
Rebecca Walton
