Sitra’s new strategy out now

At its meeting on 22 October, Sitra’s Board of Directors approved the organisation’s updated strategy. The Supervisory Board has since discussed the strategy as part of Sitra’s financial and operational plan, and which the Supervisory Board confirmed at its meeting on 17 December.

Going forward, Sitra’s work will focus on three themes: finding solutions to the ecological sustainability crisis, promoting a fair data economy, and strengthening democracy and engagement. In practice, this means that we will strengthen biodiversity and expedite ecological reconstruction, build a human-driven, fair data economy based on the European value base as an alternative to a state-driven or data monopoly-driven data economy, and strengthen democracy and influence the building of an inspiring future.

The renewal of the economy, which aims for sustainability and competitiveness, is closely linked to all our operations. Sitra’s future-oriented work will continue to be based on foresight and societal training, with which we aim to increase future knowledge, future-oriented thinking, capacity for change, and co-operation .

Sitra’s President Jyrki Katainen said: “I’m proud and excited about our strategy and the impact we can achieve. Even though we work with highly demanding themes that require national and international co-operation, I believe that these are among the developments that will strongly affect the future and in which a societal change agent like Sitra can play a key  role.”

What kind of a future do we want to move towards? Sitra’s vision (published in September) is that Finland and Finns will prosper by building a fair, sustainable and inspiring future that ensures people’s well-being within the limits of the earth’s carrying capacity. The vision emphasises sustainable well-being based on Nordic ideals and a European value base. Sustainable well-being is built with ecologically sustainable, a competitive and fair economy, and democracy and engagement. Solving major problems  globally together is also important.

“Updating the strategy during the COVID-19 crisis has been demanding, but fortunately, a large group of Sitra employees participated in the work. . On the other hand, maybe the pandemic has given prominence to several developments and choices affecting the future and has underscored Sitra’s basic task as an agent for societal change. If ever there was a need for enthusiasm about the future and the skills required for creating it desirable it’s now,” says Katri Vataja, Director, Foresight, Insight and Strategy at Sitra.

Sitra’s strategy work is based on an understanding of potential future developments and megatrends. Sitra is a future-oriented fund driven by its vision and strategy- and our strategy work is   continuous. In our more extensive update work in 2020, we crystallised and updated our vision and adapted our impact objectives and strategic focus areas. The impact objectives express the effect we want to make in society, whereas the strategic focus areas are the things we focus on in our work to realise change.

Many things will change, but the future is made together!