The Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) is the only governmental research and development institute located within the administration of the Finnish Ministry of Environment. Part of the research funding at SYKE comes directly from the State budget, part from the Ministry of Environment, and the remainder from various other national and international sources, all as separate research contracts. SYKE is responsible for carrying out environmental research and monitoring, publishing and disseminating the results, and maintaining appropriate information systems. All SYKE’s research is carried out in seven research programmes on themes varying from global environmental issues, like climate change and biodiversity, to more national and regional issues, like controlling eutrophication and hazardous substances. There is a strong emphasis at SYKE on providing support to the decisionmaking process, including scientific and technical advice and through the development of methods to combat harmful environmental changes. SYKE employs nearly 600 people, more than 370 of whom are university educated scientists.
SYKE has participated in several European Life/Environment projects, e.g. Development of Assessment and Monitoring Techniques at Integrated Monitoring Sites in Europe, as well as 4. and 5. Framework programme projects, e.g. SALMON / Satellite Remote Sensing for Lake Monitoring, COMWEB / Comparative Analysis of Food Webs on Flow Networks: Effects of Nutrient Supply on Structure and Function of Coastal Plant and Systems approach to environmentally acceptable farming. SYKE and several other institutions jointly publish a scientific series entitled Boreal Environmental Research.

RESEARCH TEAM: Timothy Carter, Stefan Fronzek, Risto Heikkinen, Mikko Kuussaari, Miska Luoto, Raimo Virkkala