Sunny start to September from Statistics Finland's Research Services! In this first newsletter after the summer, we talk about topical issues, such as the functioning of FIONA and changes in ready-made datasets and pseudonymisation.
Pricing for 2027 is being prepared in the autumn. The Research Services must be fully cost-reflective next year, so we have warned researchers about considerable price increase pressures.
In the budget proposal of the administrative sector of the Ministry of Finance, an appropriation of EUR three million was proposed for supporting research use of register data in 2027. That could cover part of the costs of the Research Services and reduce the need to raise the payments charged from researchers. However, the proposal did not advance to the next stage of the budget proposal, so the funding intended to support prices will remain on the level of 2026 next year.
Although the cost-reflectivity of the Research Services has improved in the early part of the year, considerable price rises have to be made next year. The exact amount or allocation of the rises is not yet known. Preparatory work will continue in autumn together with the Ministry of Finance in consultation with researchers. The prices of datasets and remote access use will be confirmed by the end of November and the prices of user licences will be confirmed by the end of the year.
We would also like to remind you about the change of pseudo identifiers. The change requires actions by research projects in which datasets delivered with old pseudo identifiers need to be combined with data protected with new identifiers. The pseudo identifiers of the datasets to be combined in these projects must be updated by 31 December 2026.
Much more is happening in the Research Services this autumn, and we will return to these topics in the next newsletters.
Kind regards,