Curriculum Vitae

Timo Tahvanainen (b. 1961), MS (Forestry), University of Joensuu.

Managing Director, Sordino Information Systems Ltd.

Timo Tahvanainen has been involved in CRISes and project reporting since 1994. His first experiences were gained while working for Forestry Development Centre Tapio in the "Open databanks in research and development programs in the timber sector" project. A result of this project was the creation of a PC-operated databank involving a research and development project in the mechanical forestry industry. In 1995 along with Antti Mauranen and Jan Sandholm he founded Sordino Information Systems Ltd to produce know-how acquired from project databanks. The enterprise has concentrated on databank applications which make use of the Internet - the implementation and updating of CRISes, in particular. It has created client-server-based research databank applications for universities as well as a research databank for the Finnish forest cluster (http://www.forestcluster.fi/research/). The company is also responsible for updating this sectoral Internet retrieval service.

Tahvanainen has previously served as a researcher and a course leader (1987-89) and during the period 1989-94 was responsible for the training of personnel and forest owners at the Forestry Centre of North Carelia. He has also produced training materials for adult education in the field of forestry.

CRIS improves effectivity and cost-efficiency of the public R&D funding.

Parallel session A.1

Every year the public sector spends billions of ECUs funding R&D projects. Much on this information is of great value to enterprises. While public R&D budgets have been increasing, there is a growing desire to resolve the problems involved with disseminating results and improve the utilization rate of the accumulated information. Supplementary resources can be better employed in promoting information systems than by boosting public project allocations.

Meta-CRIS: This overall project data system - Meta-CRIS - consists of the data systems of universities and organizations funding the project, the sectoral R&D information services and broadly speaking, the decision-making system responsible for underwriting the project as well as the information service which clarifies the project funding. The functioning of the entire project data system is dependent on how efficiently the resources allocated to the production of the project data are utilized, ie, how cost-effective, efficient and quick this production information chain is or how fully-defined and rapidly this information is implemented. Before establishing additional new sources of funding or the significant infusion of more public resources the operation of the project data system should be concidered as a whole.

Benefits: Comprehensive and efficient project information improves the quality of the projects by increasing competition, exposing the projets to public examination and enhancing cooperation and use of expert services. It also reduces data-collection costs for both administration and data users, decreases overlapping between projects and speeds up the realization of the project. In long-term in gives better possibilities to steer development activity in the desired direction. The increased ease of achieving information also leads to significant savings to the user. The advantages of improving the efficiency of reporting outweigh the costs many times over. Among those benefitting most from the development of data-collection are SMEs, not have not the resources to employ specialized personnel to collect R&D information systematically.

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Managing a sectoral CRIS in Web: The CRIS for the Finnish Forest Cluster.

Demonstration (Parallel Session C)

Background: In developing business life and the examination of its operations in Finland a cluster-based perspective is generally employed. The term cluster refers to a entity generated by closely-related fields employing common informational and economic resources and possessing the ability to collaborate. It is comprised of a network of enterprises of varying size, universities, research institutions and public authorities. The largest Finnish clusters are found in the forest, metal, construction, transportation and telematics industries. The nucleus of the forest cluster is made up of the sawmill, cellulose and paper industries, all of which are significant export sectors.

The Finnish Forest Cluster Databank - the guiding principle: From the perspective of enterprises with remarkably little time to await the publication of research results in academic journals, ongoing projects provide a fascinating source of information. Information as such has become even more significant as a competitive factor. Through existing projects it is possible to locate recent information and the foremost experts in the field.

Decentralized R&D information is, however, a problem which has worsened in the last few years. Information is produced in hundreds of projects related to the forest cluster, but locating this information is chaotic. The guiding principle of the Forest Cluster Databank is to collect information about public R&D projects into an easy-to-use Internet-based information service. The objective of the service is to identify those projects which are currently in progress or have recently been completed as well as provide ways of contacting the organizations implementing the project and other necessary information. Subject areas range from the biodiversity of the forests to markets for paper products, from the environmental effects of the cellulose industry to the most recent techniques of producing wood-based energy. The objective of the databank is to: 1) facilitate access to information and further its utilization, 2) promote cooperation inside the forest cluster, 3) improve the quality of existing projects.

The greatest benefit of more efficient cooperation? The number of ongoing public R&D projects involving the forest cluster has been estimated to exceed 1,000; these projects have "total annual sales" of 420 - 500 million FIM. The research databank is not, however, solely an information service reporting on projects but also contains a far-reaching register of experts and organizations. The current data register, which also includes information on projects which were concluded in the past two years, contains information on a total of 1,150 projects. In addition, the data also covers 1,650 experts and more than 900 organizations. This selection of experts represents the core of R&D potential in the forest cluster. By making cooperation inside the cluster more effective, projects can become more cost-efficient, their quality and division of labor enhanced and expert services utilized to a greater extent.