Implementing missions at the national level in Nordic countries

The adoption of MOIPs at the national level varies significantly in their stage of implementation and in approach. In this brief, we elaborate on the cases of Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Nordic countries represent interesting cases, as they all are high-income and known for prioritising innovation, yet innovation policy traditions and strategies are strikingly distinct. As follows, we provide a snapshot of the state of adoption of MOIPs in Denmark, Sweden and Finland based on an in-depth policy overview published in collaboration with professors Teis Hansen, Markku Sotarauta, and Markus Grillitsch (see Giacometti & Jessen, 2024).

Denmark is the only one of three countries in this policy brief that has developed national missions to steer their innovation efforts. MOIPs can be seen to complement the existing research, development and innovation (RDI) instruments (Hansen, 2024). Scholars have argued that the innovation landscape of Denmark tends to be rather fragmented and that the MOIPs were a way to pull together Danish innovation efforts (e.g., Hansen, 2024). At the same time, different national institutions in Denmark have made various attempts to introduce mission-oriented approaches, e.g., the InnoMissions by the Innovation Fund (Innovation Fund, 2025) and the eight regional Erhvervsfyrtårne (“Business beacons”) by the Danish Business Authorities (Danish Business Authorities, 2025). While these two initiatives often overlap in themes and actors, there is limited coordination between them. According to Hansen (2024), the selection of broad priorities and missions is predominantly conducted top-down from the national to the regional and local levels. On the other hand, the follow-up and the selection of the more specific goals and targets, as well as designing action plans for implementation, tends to be a more bottom-up process facilitated by and involving relevant stakeholders. Generally, MOIPs selected at the national level in Denmark tend to lack specific geographic considerations. However, Hansen (2024) notes that depending on existing regional capabilities, implementing Danish MOIPs could add regionally specific benefits to certain areas, as seen with the InnoMissions. Furthermore, despite not having a direct geographical perspective, some of the InnoMissions might be more relevant for certain regions than others. The Regional Business Beacons from the Danish Business Authorities have an explicit place-based focus. However, they mainly focus on stimulating economic growth and regional competitiveness, and not all of them can be categorised as MOIPs (Hansen, 2024).

*NOTE: See in-depth chapter titled ‘Denmark: On a mission towards mission-oriented innovation policy’ by Professor Teis Hansen, University of Copenhagen & SINTEF (in Giacometti & Jessen, 2024).

Setting directionality to innovation policy is not new in Finland. On the contrary thematic and challenge-orientation have been present since the 1980s. Furthermore, the now common use of related concepts, i.e., ‘mission’, ‘transformative’ and ‘challenge’ in policy documents, denote an increasing focus on innovation efforts as a means to address societal challenges. According to Sotarauta (2024), mission and challenge-oriented approaches are directly and indirectly embedded in many innovation policy and research programmes. However, the process of policy exploration and experimentation in the 2020s has not yet landed in an integrated and coherent policy strategy, nor is there an explicit comprehensive mission-oriented approach (Sotarauta, 2024).

Sotarauta (2024) describes how, although it appears top-down from the outset, in practice, the Finnish innovation system has a stakeholder-centric approach. The embedded nature of innovation policy enables more flexible processes where the content and themes discussed continuously evolve via consultation with academia, businesses, and the public sector at different levels. Moreover, despite the place-less nature of innovation policy, a great deal of reinterpretation is possible at regional and local levels as well as influence from universities and companies. In this vein, public authorities adopt the role of facilitators of the innovation ecosystem, instigating various developmental processes and providing resources but leaving it to the business and the market to determine directionality (Sotarauta, 2024).

Sotarauta (2024) notes that the contradictory trends of emphasising the need for the state to take a firm role in setting directionality while reinforcing the business-driven innovation system show the lack of a shared vision. Therefore, instead of transforming policy frameworks, the pragmatic Finnish approach has focused on embedding sustainability-related missions into existing programmes and instruments (Sotarauta, 2024).

*NOTE: See in-depth chapter titled ‘Finland: Mission-orientated innovation policy?’ by Professor Markku Sotarauta, Tampere University (in Giacometti & Jessen, 2024).

Historically, Sweden has adopted several transformative innovation policy frameworks. Sweden’s EU presidency in 2009 resulted in the Lund Declaration emphasising the role of R&I as a means to address societal challenges. Since then, Sweden has stepped up its efforts to a range of transformative, challenge- or mission-oriented research and innovation programmes explicitly targeting societal challenges and system change. Most importantly: Challenge-Driven Innovation (UDI, 2011), the Strategic Innovation Programmes (SIP, 2012), and Impact Innovation (2023). Based on these experiences, Vinnova, the Swedish innovation agency, released a handbook outlining a practical guideline for “Designing Missions” (Hill et al., 2022). However, besides the Impact Innovation framework, the mission-oriented approach is not widely diffused throughout the rather fragmented governance system. Nevertheless, Grillitsch (2024) argues that Sweden is still a frontrunner in transformative policies, with several government agencies mandated to implement transformative innovation policies.

According to Grillitsch (2024), Mazzucato’s (2018) approach clearly reflects the understanding of missions in Sweden. However, rather than government-driven initiatives, the Swedish application is more cautious and embedded within the consensus-oriented approach to policymaking. Hence, rather than top-down directionality, missions function as a tool for stakeholder mobilisation. While the government sets broad goals, missions are predominantly stakeholder-driven. National research programmes are more top-down, as topics and challenges are outlined in research bills. However, these bills are often the product of intense consultation processes and, thus, are more inclusive than they formally appear (Grillitsch, 2024). Furthermore, transformative innovation policies are generally aspatial, benefiting mostly the strongest actors. In the later mission-oriented pilots, however, place-based considerations have begun to appear through community engagement. Overall, Sweden’s experience with MOIPs has delivered mixed results with a high degree of fragmentation at project level. 

*NOTE: See in-depth chapter titled ‘Sweden: Journey towards a mission-oriented approach – ‘made in Sweden’ by Professor Markus Grillitsch, Lund University (in Giacometti & Jessen, 2024).