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Dr. Mika Aaltonen, Chairman of the Board of the Finnish Node, Juha Kaskinen, Secretary General, and Sirkka Heinonen, Node Co-Chair, represented the Finland Node at the April 2005 Planning Committee Meeting.

Juha Kaskinen presented the report on behalf of the Helsinki Node:

Finland Futures Academy (FFA)    
Helsinki Node report
Period: July 2004 - March 2005

Helsinki node 2004:
Dr. Mika Aaltonen (chair)
Dr. Sirkka Heinonen
Dr. Osmo Kuusi
M. Sc. Sari Söderlund
General secretary: Dr. Juha Kaskinen

Helsinki Node 2005
• Chair: Dr. Osmo Kuusi
• Dr. Mika Aaltonen
• Dr. Sirkka Heinonen
• M. Sc. Sari Söderlund
• General secretary: Dr. Juha Kaskinen (FFA and FFRC)

Meetings: During the period there were three Helsinki Node meetings, September 23 2004, December 2 2004 and March 2 2005:
• Mika Aaltonen and Juha Kaskinen participated MP meeting in Washington D.C. July 2004
• Juha Kaskinen participated the first Prague workshop of future studies methodologies in September 2004
• Jerome C. Glenn, Mika Aaltonen and Juha Kaskinen visited Prof. Vappu Taipale in Helsinki on October 11. (The head of UNU Council.)

MP Questionnaires
• Futures of Global Ethics Delphi – Questionnaire was delivered to approximately 100 recipients on September 22 2004
• Nanotechnology interviews – Dr. Osmo Kuusi interviewed Finnish experts on nanotechnology in December 2004
• Global Ethics Round 2 – Questionnaire was delivered to approximately 200 recipients in February 2005

New project proposals
• European Futures Academy (EFA) – A network of European futures studies scientists and experts
– Coordinative action funding application to European Science Foundation (November 1 2004). The network is based on the EUMPI-network
• Under preparation: Regions of Knowledge 2
– EU’sFP 6 call
– Coordinative action
– Interested partners so far: FFA, Z_punkt, The Destree Institute, Olomoc Region (Pavel Novacek), Russian Institute for Economy, Policy and Law (Nadezhda Gaponenko)
– Deadline May 19 2005
– Possibility to continue SPIDER-project’s mission

Activities of the FFA in relation to MP:
- The Finnish Ministry of Education granted a master program on futures studies to the FFRC and FFA in May 2004. The master program will start in September 2005.
(More information on http://www.tukkk.fi/tutu/tva)
- FFA is part of ALFA-project which is an academic cooperation project between European Union and Latin America (funded by EU Commission) which will start in May 2005. It deals with foresight training in Latin America.
- FFA is a partner in European Master’s Programme Proposal together Malta University and Teeside University (UK). EU’s Socrates Programme proposal was delivered at the end of February 2005.

Activities:
• FFA’s International Advisory Board meeting was in Helsinki October 10 2004 in the context of Club of Rome conference
– Among participants were Eleanora Masini, Erzebet Novaky, Jerome G. Glenn, Karlheinz Steinmueller (new chair), Pentti Malaska, Sari Söderlund and Juha Kaskinen
• Theodore J. Gordon will visit Finland between April 16 to 20 2005
– Meeting with Futures Sparring Forum (Discussion forum for directors of large Finnish companies)
– Guest lecture in Turku School of Economics and Business Administration

Node plans for 2005-2006
• More increased co-operation with other EUMPI-nodes
– New funding applications under preparation
• More cooperation with nodes in Latin-America, Asia and South-Africa
– FFA’s ALFA-project in Latin America
– FFRC’s cooperation in South-Africa supported by Finnish
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
– Mapping the possibilities of joint projects with partners in South-East Asia
• Active information exchange with the Committee of the Future of Finnish Parliament
• Promoting the Millennium Project in overall

Millennium Project’s functional idea
• MP is an umbrella organization for various research, development and education projects
• MP acts both with public and private sectors organizations
• MP increases international cooperation between nodes

The report presented by Dr. Juha Kaskinen is available at: http://www.acunu.org/millennium/mppc-0405/Helsinki-0405.pdf

Dr. Juha Kaskinen also presented the new developments on the SPIDER programme of the EuMPI. The presentation is available at: http://www.acunu.org/millennium/mppc-0405/SPIDER-0404.pdf

Contact:
Dr. Juha Kaskinen
Secretary General
Helsinki Node
Finland Futures Research Centre
Turku School of Economics and Business Administration
P.O. Box 110, 20521 Turku
FINLAND
Tel. +358 2 3383 525 or mobile +358 40 820 9801
Fax. +358 2 2330 755
Email <Juha.Kaskinen@tukkk.fi>
http://www.tukkk.fi/tutu/english.htm