The data room for municipalities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area offers a diverse selection of material by Statistics Finland, which can be combined to flexibly create individual-level analyses on topics that benefit municipalities.
Researchers both inside the city organisations and in research institutes may utilise the data room. The technical platform produced by Statistics Finland ensures that personal data is processed in a data secure manner.
”Knowledge-based decision-making in cities has been the subject of much discussion, but the data room is a giant step towards cities actually being able to understand their residents’ situation and assess the impact of their measures,” says Mayor of Helsinki Juhana Vartiainen.
Better and faster research data on a number of important topics
The register material of the data room can be used to produce better research data faster than before on topics such as population development in municipalities, population movement, the housing market, support for housing, the population structure, the labour market and business activities.
”We believe that by utilising this data, we are able to target resources to effective measures and we hope that this manner of sharing and using material will be adopted more widely in the municipal sector,” says Mayor of Espoo Kai Mykkänen.
The new data infrastructure created by Statistics Finland helps Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa to work together and take their knowledge-based decision-making to the next level.
“Developments and changes in cities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area are fast-paced. The data room provides us with tools for identifying changes in the operating environment. This will allow us to target City resources more effectively and time them better," says Mayor of Vantaa Pekka Timonen.
Practices such as the municipal data room are or will be used elsewhere, as well. The ‘Datahuone’ data room of VATT Institute for Economic Research provides the Finnish Government with data analyses. The Bank of Finland is also developing their ‘DataAkatemia’ (data academy) and the ‘SoteDataLab’ data room is being piloted for decision-making in the healthcare and social welfare sector.
“Data rooms combine research expertise and data analyses and provide decision-makers with quick and reliable information to address societal challenges,” says Ville Vertanen, Deputy Director General of Statistics Finland.