Good practice:

Situational picture of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Tampere region

The practice is a detailed data-based snapshot on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Tampere region. The main focus is on startups and other growth-oriented companies. The situational picture is used to monitor the regional ecosystem. Public and private actors working with growth-oriented companies as well as regional developers may gain new insights into the development of the ecosystem, which helps them to prepare more apt policies and enhance their decision making. The practice can be used in other regions although there might be differences in the availability of data. The situational picture will be used as a template to develop an automated tool that will be used to monitor the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Tampere region.

The problem addressed is the lack of data on startups, other growth-oriented companies and their development. The shortage of relevant and timely data has been recognized by regional developers and other professionals. Higher quality data and visualizations are needed to get a better view of the development of the ecosystem. This will in turn make it easier to implement better policies and enhance decision making.

The practice will only reach its goals if the information produced is useful for the end users. To ensure that the data that is going to be used is relevant it is important to ask about the needs of the end users. When the situational picture is ready it is also important to communicate about the practice.

Personnel: 6 months of work done by a data analyst. Good skills in data analytics and visualizations. Basic knowledge about entrepreneurial ecosystems helpful.

Technical: The visualizations can be done with freeware such as Tableau Public. Statistics software such Microsoft Excel are useful.

The situational picture has raised discussion about the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Tampere region. It has been viewed over 600 times in the first month. The situational picture will be used to develop an automated tool. The development of the tool will start in the beginning of the year 2020.

The biggest challenge has been the availability of data. Some data that would be needed does not exist or cannot be used due to strict privacy policies. In Finland, adequate data about private funding of startup companies does not exist.

This practice can also be interesting for other regions. Many regions across the EU are trying to implement policies aimed to develop startup ecosystems. Monitoring these systems is difficult and this practice may give ideas and tools that can be utilised to develop monitoring practices.

At the moment, only a Finnish version exists, but an English version will be available later on. For more information, please contact Mr Lari Jaakkola lari.jaakkola(@)pirkanmaa.fi.