In Pirkanmaa, the development of the start-up ecosystem aims to diversify the region’s business structure and new business activities, as well as promoting internationalisation, improved vitality and increased tax revenues. At the same time, the need to bring together the services, funding, networks and platforms of public actors to promote start-up policies has been recognised as fundamental in relation to achieving these goals. An alliance of public actors was created in 2017 by Pirkanmaa Regional Council, the City of Tampere, and what was then Tampere University of Applied Sciences, the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology (now T3), as well as the Pirkanmaa TE Office, Pirkanmaa ELY Centre and the Pirkanmaa Hospital District. The aim was to create a model of cooperation between different actors.
We facilitated the preliminary impact assessment process for the Pirkanmaa Start-up Alliance and prepared an evaluation report to support decision-making in the development and implementation phases of the Alliance. The purpose of the preliminary impact assessment was to structure and clarify the goals and implementation options of the start-up alliance. The work was carried out as an interactive process with the start-up alliance actors. During the process, a proactive impact assessment model was developed to illustrate the development and impact of the start-up ecosystem. In addition, the work assessed the various impacts of forming an alliance from the perspective of alliance organisations and their decision-making, as well as from the various associated human, economic and environmental aspects involved.