LIIKENNE- JA VIESTINTAVIRASTO

Their core work

Liikenne- ja viestintävirasto (Traficom) is the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, a government regulator overseeing transport safety, communications networks, and market surveillance across Finland. In H2020, they contributed regulatory expertise and public sector implementation capacity — participating in tyre market surveillance enforcement, digital government interoperability (the once-only principle for cross-border data exchange), and organizing the Transport Research Arena 2020 conference in Helsinki. Their value in EU projects lies in being a real-world regulatory end-user who can validate and deploy solutions within an active government authority.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

With only three projects spanning 2016–2018, the evolution is limited but suggestive. The earliest project (MSTYR15, 2016) was purely regulatory — enforcing product standards for tyres — while the later projects shifted toward digital government innovation and research coordination. The TOOP project (2017) introduced keywords like agile development, federated architecture, and co-creation between public administrations, signaling a move from traditional regulatory enforcement toward digital transformation of public services.

Traficom appears to be shifting from traditional regulatory enforcement toward digital government interoperability and cross-border public service innovation — a direction aligned with the EU's broader digital single market agenda.

How they like to work

Traficom joins projects exclusively as a participant, never as coordinator — consistent with a government agency contributing domain expertise and implementation capacity rather than driving research agendas. Despite only three projects, they have worked with 81 unique partners across 26 countries, reflecting the large consortium sizes typical of CSA and IA funding schemes. This broad but shallow network suggests they are valued as a credible public sector end-user rather than a repeat technical partner.

Remarkably broad for their project count: 81 partners across 26 countries, driven by participation in large coordination and innovation actions. Their network spans most of the EU, with no obvious geographic concentration beyond the Nordic context.

What sets them apart

As a national regulatory agency, Traficom brings something most research organizations cannot: direct authority to implement and enforce regulations in transport and communications. For consortium builders, this means a partner who can provide real-world validation in a live government environment — not just a pilot, but actual deployment within Finnish public administration. Their dual mandate over both transport and communications makes them especially relevant for projects bridging physical mobility with digital infrastructure.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TOOP
  Largest funding (EUR 129K) and most technically ambitious — implementing cross-border once-only data exchange across multiple EU public administrations using federated architecture.
• TRA2020
  Hosted the Transport Research Arena 2020 in Helsinki, one of Europe's largest transport research conferences, demonstrating Traficom's role as a convener in the transport policy ecosystem.