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Council of Oulu Region joined the Living-in.EU initiative in an event organised during the European Week of Regions and Cities, #EWRC this week in Brussels. Living-in.EU 's goal is to promote sustainable digital change and give boost to digital transformation in EU regions and cities. Signing the commitment enables the Council of Oulu Region to participate in Living-in.eu's working groups. The Living-in.EU initiative was initiated in Oulu in 2019. Behind the initiative is the Eurocities cooperation network of the most significant European cities. The network was founded in 1986 and includes more than 200 cities. #EURegionsWeek [caption id="attachment_45643" align="alignnone" width="300"]…

Region Norrbotten visited Council of Oulu Region on Monday and Tuesday. We hade joint meeting on current matters in Region Norrbotten and Oulu Region. We discussed especially about logistical cross-border connections, cohesion policy and industrial policy of the European Union. Starting international daily train traffic between Oulu and Haaparanta The electrification of the Laurila-Tornio-Haaparanta line will be completed at the turn of 2024–2025. The Council of Oulu region has proposed to the Finnish government that the 2025 budget should include funding to start international daily train traffic between Oulu and Haaparanta.  2.1 million euro should be allocated to the state…

The Maritime Working Group of the Baltic Sea Commission of CPMR, the cooperation organization for the European peripheral maritime regions, met on June 3-4 in Oulu. The topic of the meeting was the role of ports in the Baltic Sea. At the event, a review of the security situation in the Baltic Sea was heard by the former intelligence chief of the Defense Forces, MP Pekka Toveri, as well as presentations from the ports of Oulu and Stockholm and the Raahe Region Development. In the new TEN-T regulation, the port of Oulu has been promoted from the comprehensive network to…

The Council of Oulu Region is involved in a large project submitted to the EU's Horizon Europe program, the purpose of which is to develop the hydrogen economy on the west coast of Finland and create a functioning ecosystem for it. Energy production and consumption are in a transition phase when moving from combustion-based energy to emission-free energy. The need for clean electricity is growing all over Europe. A significant part of renewable energy investments has been realized and is planned in the BotH2nia hydrogen valley area. In this way, energy-using industry can also be created and attracted to the…

Towards a carbon neutral Northern Ostrobothnia Northern Ostrobothnia is contributing to reaching Finland’s 2035 carbon neutrality target inline with the EU targets. Northern Ostrobothnia Climate Roadmap lines seven themes and 130 measures from different sectors.

The RDI actors of the Oulu Region are continuously preparing regional, national and international RDI project applications and looking for opportunities to join project consortiums with the aim of advancing digitalisation and automation of the agri-food value chains. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to traceability and food safety in food value chains, collection and utilisation of data throughout food value chains, and digitalisation and automation of food production processes. Our region is currently a member of the following Partnerships of the EU's Smart Specialisation Platform for Agri-Food: Traceability and Big Data High Tech Farming Our project…