The mission of Hanasaari

Hanasaari works to promote co-operation between Finland and Sweden in the fields of culture, society and business.

Vision: Hanasaari 2014

Hanasaari will be the leading operator and forum of interest in Finnish-Swedish co-operation.

Hanasaari will have developed and reinforced its status as the principal vehicle of partnership in bilateral affairs.

Programme declaration of Hanasaari

To ensure effective operations, we continually analyse our environment with a view to prioritising a limited number of fields of work. Following the successful Landmark Year project, we are seeking to ensure greater dialogue between the younger generations and key individuals in important operating sectors. Our priorities in future years will be:

• creating a sustainable network of new stakeholders in Finnish-Swedish co-operation

• promoting Finnish-Swedish information exchanges in the fields of education, research and teaching

• activating cultural sector contacts, dialogue and co-operation in Finland and Sweden

• raising future-focused issues in the spheres of welfare and social progress

Our work at Hanasaari

WHAT DO WE DO? Hanasaari is a Finnish-Swedish networking organisation that brings together various partners to achieve mutual objectives. The various projects and processes in which we are involved may include:

• in-house initiatives
• ideas conceived by other organisations, groups or individuals
• responses to the needs and aspirations of important stakeholders in the sector

HOW DO WE WORK? Because many processes require patience and long-term application, sometimes preceded by studies and time-consuming preliminaries, we create opportunities for sustained co-operation, and we seek to incorporate individual events into overall processes with the potential to bring added Finnish-Swedish value and to result in other activities that further our mission. We always adjust, focus and proportion our work to assessments of current conditions. We are happy to engage in interdisciplinary activities that enable us to improve communications between sectors. We refer to ourselves as Hanaholmen Sverige when arranging activities in Sweden.

FINANCE We take part in financially realistic projects and processes, and we can apply our expertise in locating basic funding of the right kind. For example, this contribution may take the form of assigning staff for management, planning or implementation, providing premises in our building, or (on a smaller scale) allocating funds from our programme budget.

PUBLIC RELATIONS Our public relations work is characterised by openness and clarity of expression. We develop new conditions for Finnish-Swedish co-operation by applying new media and instruments. We add impact to our work through effective collaboration with the press and mass media. We actively support lobbying work that seeks to promote co-operation and good neighbourly relations.

LANGUAGES The principal working languages of Hanasaari are Finnish and Swedish. This policy supports our objective of improving contacts between Finland and Sweden. Languages form a fundamental element of our work.

THE BUILDING Our building is the heart of our operations, and we continually improve it as an encounter point. We seek to promote use of the Hanasaari building for conference, hotel and restaurant services, as these are among our principal instruments and serve to reinforce the financial basis of our work.

BILATERAL CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS To reinforce our operations, we cooperate with the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Foundation and implement its assignments. We also administer three bilateral cultural organisations: the Icelandic-Finnish, Finnish-Norwegian and Finnish-Danish cultural foundations.

TANDEM We co-ordinate our work through the Tandem project office of the cultural foundation in Stockholm in order to ensure effective and optimal use of our combined resources and maximise the synergy benefits of our efforts.

Hanasaari’s legal set-up

Hanasaari is part of the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Foundation. The Foundation has an office (secretariat) in both countries, and its Finnish secretariat is physically located in Hanasaari. The Cultural Foundation is a legal person with sui generis under public law.

The legal basis for the Cultural Foundation was laid out in the agreement of 16 October 1958 between the Finnish and Swedish governments regarding the setting up of a joint fund to promote cultural relations between the two countries.

The Finnish government decided to set up a cultural centre when the Swedish government remised a large amount of Finnish war-time debts in 1967. Hanasaari’s tasks are the same as other Cultural Foundations, and are laid out in the bilateral agreement between the Finnish and Swedish governments.

Hanasaari operates in a building that was custom built for it and inaugurated in 1975, and whose use the Finnish government has granted without charge. The Foundation holds the right to use the property for as long as it is used as a Swedish-Finnish cultural centre. The Finnish government is responsible for the maintenance of the property and its adjoining buildings, for annual reparations and renovations, and property management services.

Since 1998, Hanasaari has managed the following three bilateral cultural foundations on behalf of the Finnish government and against separate remuneration: the Icelandic-Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Foundation and the Finnish-Danish Cultural Foundation.

Download Hanasaari's Strategy here >>> Hanasaari's strategy 2011-2014