VTT’s administration

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is a Finnish, fully state-owned limited liability company operating under the ownership steering of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. The obligations and responsibilities of the company’s management are defined by Finnish law. VTT’s parent company and its subsidiaries together form VTT Group.

The special duty of VTT as an independent and impartial research centre is to promote the wide-ranging utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in commerce and society. VTT is a non-profit company.

VTT’s management system is based on the provisions of the Limited Liability Companies Act and the Corporate Governance Code. The general meeting is the highest executive body of the company. The voting right of VTT’s owner, the Finnish state, is exercised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in the annual general meeting.

VTT Group

In addition to the parent company, VTT Group consists of three fully-owned subsidiaries:


In 2023, the Group’s net turnover was EUR 188 million and its operating result was EUR -1.1 million. In 2023, the parent company had a total of 1,135 customers. Its domestic revenue accounted for 55% of its turnover and foreign revenue for 45%. At the end of 2023, VTT had 2,355 employees representing 59 different nationalities. 86% of them have completed a university degree. Finland’s national metrology institute and national standards laboratory MIKES is part of VTT. You can find more information about VTT in our annual reports.

Key figures*

 

2023

2022

2021

Number of employees

2,355

2,213

2,093

doctorate or licentiate degree

32%

32%

32%

different nationalities

59

55

51

Customers

1,135

1,190

1,160

of which domestic and international 
private sector customers

 945

1,005

1,005

Total revenue, of which

284 M€

261 M€

254 M€

Net turnover

188 M€

165 M€

154.2 M€

Government grant

89.1 M€

85 M€

85.1 M€

Other operating income

7.1 M€

11 M€

14.4 M€

Operating result

-1.1  M€

4.9 M€

14 M€

Comparable operating result

-681 k€

2.3 M€

7.3 M€

Result of the financial year

5.5 M€

4.4 M€

12.1 M€

Equity ratio

74.7%

70.2%

69.5%

Turnover from abroad

45%

43%

45%

Patent families

450

~400

430

Greenhouse gas emissions
CO2 equivalent tons

6,727

5,786

4,835

See our annual reports for more information. 
*VTT Group 2023.

Corporate governance

VTT is a limited liability company that is fully owned by the Finnish state and operates under the ownership steering of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

The annual general meeting is the highest decision making body of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.

VTT Board oversees the implementation of the company’s strategy and is responsible for the profitability of operations.

Executive leadership team supports the CEO in decision-making. 

Read more about VTT’s principles of corporate governance and communications principles.

VTT's operating policy

VTT’s decision making and operations are directed by the company’s values and operating principles. Our ethical norms are:

  • Impartiality
  • Reliability
  • Integrity
  • Responsibility

We are committed to the principle of open publishing: scientific publications produced at VTT are principally open-access.

Open science principles

VTT promotes good research practices related to open science. Researchers publish results and interpretations of research in an open and transparent manner, and respect confidentiality of data or findings when legitimately required to do so.

All the scientific articles and conference papers produced at VTT should be published according to open access principles. The copyright rules and agreements with publishers and collaboration parties may cause exception to this basic rule.

Open access principles

In general, all the scientific articles and conference papers produced at VTT should be published according to open access principles. The copyright rules and agreements with publishers and collaboration parties may cause exception to this basic rule. Publications in VTT’s own publication series are publicly available. Information about these publications and articles are stored into VTT’s current research information system. There are also links to the documents when possible. The research information system is accessible at cris.vtt.fi.

The articles may be opened through external service (Gold or hybrid Open Access) or by self-archiving to a current research information system (Green Open Access). The publishing channel should always be the most relevant, taking quality, impact and openness into account. The model is adopted on the basis of the project’s, partner’s and funder’s needs, agreements and requirements.

Whenever possible VTT will retain copyright to articles and publications to enhance their reuse. Creative commons license CC BY 4.0 is recommended.

Open data

In this context, data means digital data and background material created within a research project. Data management and the data openness should when appropriate, be in line with the FAIR Principles:

  • Findable
  • Accessible
  • Interoperable
  • Reusable

VTT promotes and has a goal to open also the data related to and the data behind the scientific articles created in publicly funded projects. VTT’s target is to ensure that access to data is as open as possible and as closed as necessary.

The basic principles are the good ethical scientific principles. The balance between openness and confidentiality is determined in each research project individually. There are many aspects related to regulations, GDPR, agreements within parties, VTT’s IPR guidelines and commercial perspectives, which all have to be taken into account.

The metadata of the datasets will be stored into the VTT’s current research information system, whenever possible, which makes the findability and accessibility of the datasets easier.

The Research Data Management Plan (RDMP) includes the most relevant information of the data management: Data collection, data handling and ownership, publishing and user rights. Also the life cycle, management of confidential information, and rules of data disposal are presented in RDMP.