Committee for the Future

The Committee for the Future is an established, standing committee in the Parliament of Finland. The Committee consists of 17 Members of the Finnish Parliament. The Committee serves as a Think Tank for futures, science and technology policy in Finland. The counterpart cabinet member is the Prime Minister. The Committee was established in 1993.

Committee's mission is to generate dialogue with the government on major future problems and opportunities.  At least once during its term of office, the Government issues a report (Government's Future Report) on long-term future prospects and the Government's targets which is submitted from the Prime Minister's Office to the Parliament. The main task of the Committee for the Future is then to prepare the Parliament's response (Parliament's Future Report) to the Government's Report on the Future. By this way Finnish Government and Parliament can recognize important political themes at such an early stage that different alternatives and policy lines are still completely open and under development. Since 2017, The Government´s implementation for Agen­da2030 for Sustainable Development is also submitted to the Commit­tee for the Future during each electoral term.

Committees other tasks are statements (draft submissions) to other committees in relation to other Government reports or budget and foresight projects and reports to examining different kind of societal issues and technological development. The most important efforts are devoted to these Committee’s own issues, its own projects. The power of decide its own agenda is one of the pillars of the strength of the Committee. 17 parliamentarians themselves stake out policy lines for the future. The time perspective is long and the scale of issues broad.

​​The World Summit of the Committees of the Future

The World Summit of the Committees of the Future brought together, for the first time, the committees responsible for dealing with future issues in different parliaments. The World Summit was held in the Parliament of Finland on 12—13 October 2022 (Little Parliament building).  

​​Homepage of the summit​