Läpi kylmän sodan ja jään

Suomalaisesta jäänmurrosta kansainväliseksi teknologiaksi 1950-1989

Authors

• Saara Matala

Abstract

Finland, a northern nation, has built more than half of the icebreakers in operation today. Finland‘s strong position in the arctic maritime technology resulted not from the northern location, however, but from competitiveness based on a combination of political, economic and technological factors. In this article it is argued that bipolarization of technology markets, politicization of technology transfer and the special relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for the Finnish shipbuilding industry to concentrate on research and development in a specialized technology during the Cold War. The strategic decision of the privately owned Helsinki shipyard, Sandvikens, to invest in icebreaker development was focal, but towards the end of the Cold War other organizations and companies also got involved in the development of ice going vessels. Consequently, Finnish icebreakers were not anymore just one branch of industry inside a conglomerate, but an integrated part of Finnish infrastructure and industrial policy.The Cold War formed the framework in which the Finnish arctic maritime technology cluster – a technological system of shipyards, industrial laboratories, universities, engineering design and consulting companies – emerged, evolved and expanded. Their interconnections helped the system to gather momentum and to keep up with international competition despite the end of the Cold War and the subsequent radical change in the organizational and institutional environment of shipbuilding business.