A lifelong educator, innovator, orchestrator and bridge-builder, Markku Markkula has spent five decades championing reforms for regional cooperation, smart specialisation and knowledge-driven urban transformation that’s shaping Europe’s cities from the ground up.
Combining innovation with sustainability and human-centric transformation
If you want to understand the arc of European city policy over the last 30 years, it’s hard to ignore the fingerprints of Markku Markkula.
Human Engineer. Fifty years as a City Councillor. MP. President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). President of the Helsinki Region. Lifelong Learner. Markkula has worn many hats, but his mission has always been to make Europe’s cities not just smarter, but more connected, resilient, innovative and people-first.
My dream has been to combine innovation with sustainability and human-centric transformation.
Now, after decades at the intersection of local governance, EU strategy, education and innovation ecosystems, he is being recognised as a Eurocities Awards City Hero nominee – not just for what he’s done in Espoo, Finland, but for how his ideas and leadership for inventing the future have reverberated across Europe and beyond.
“What really drives me is helping cities make better use of European partnerships and the best quality knowledge – not just to react to challenges, but to be more proactive, more forward-looking in how they shape their future,” he says.
Local action, global influence
Born in 1950 in a small Lapland village, Markkula planted over 100,000 trees in Northern Finland and studied engineering in Espoo before beginning a career that spanned business, academia, politics and international networks. He became a Member of the Finnish Parliament in the 1990s and later chaired Espoo’s City Board and City Council. But it was his European advocacy that helped shape smart city policy as we know it today.
He served as President of the CoR from 2015 to 2017 and as First Vice-President up to 2020, negotiating regularly with Commissioners and visiting every EU member state in the process.
One of the key lessons, he says, was to stay open-minded and always ask: “How can I help you? That’s the message I’ve brought from Espoo to the EU – that we should focus not only on our own transformation, but on how we can contribute to helping other EU cities and regions and the Commissioners in tackling their challenges.”
Cities and regions have become the new powerhouses for progress and societal innovation: they can and must benefit greatly from open innovation ecosystems and they need to take a new orchestrator role in this field.
Under his leadership, the CoR strengthened its focus on cities as hubs for research, innovation and transformation – to increase the impact by utilising the best global knowledge. One of his most quoted lines during this period was:
“In Europe, we need to act locally and influence globally.”
He championed multi-level governance and smart specialisation strategies, helping bridge the gap between EU policy and grassroots implementation. His work laid foundations for the place-based innovation ecosystems, the EU Mission for 100 Climate-Neutral Cities and more flexible regional funding models.
A living lab for lifelong learning
Markkula’s hometown of Espoo, the second largest city in Finland and part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Capital, has long served as a proving ground for his ideas.
In his leadership capacities as the chair of the Urban Planning Board, City Board and City Council, he helped steer Espoo to become one of Europe’s leading cities for innovation – home to Aalto University, a thriving startup scene and several living labs that test ideas for technology-assisted economy, education and wellbeing in real time.
He also played a key role in defining Espoo’s Sustainable Espoo programme, its participation in EU-funded smart city projects and its commitment to become a climate-neutral city by 2030.
For me, smartness is not about digitalisation only – it is about continuous learning and being open to change.
Espoo has earned recognition as a European Capital of Innovation finalist on four separate occasions (in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024-25), in large part due to the collaborative spirit and co-creation environment Markkula has helped shape in his many roles and responsibilities.
Based on his experience as Director of Lifelong Learning at the Institute Dipoli in Espoo – one of the leading universities globally for professional development at the time – Markkula sees learning, innovation and collaboration as inseparable forces.
“Learning, especially organisational learning, is the key to transformation. But it only works when you’re networking with people bringing in fresh ideas – not just the latest knowledge, but concepts that don’t even exist yet. It’s not about predicting the future – it’s about inventing it,” he explains.
Connecting education and innovation
Markkula’s passion for learning runs deep. He spent much of his career as a Director at the Helsinki University of Technology and at Aalto University – one of Europe’s leading centres for multidisciplinary innovation. Even before Finland joined the EU in 1995, he was actively involved in co-creating EU-level initiatives in education and lifelong learning.
Regional innovation ecosystems – the theme of this book – is one of the key concepts of our time. This book is a snapshot of developments in Espoo Innovation Garden… The work accomplished here is exemplary and has much to offer to other regions in Europe.
In particular, he has championed the use of problem-based learning, entrepreneurial discovery and interdisciplinary collaboration as key to regional innovation.
He believes cities must act as “learning organisations” – constantly adapting through reflection, dialogue and experimentation. And it’s not just a theory. Under his influence, Espoo has integrated these ideas into its urban planning, societal progress policy and stakeholder engagement frameworks.
“As Director for Lifelong Learning, our role was to create the study programmes for working life professionals. That helped me understand what we can reach by systematic transformation and knowledge management,” he adds.
Shaping EU missions from vision to reality
Markkula’s fingerprints can be found in many of the EU’s flagship urban programmes.
He was an early advocate of Digital Europe, the Horizon 2020 Smart Cities and Communities programme, and later played a role in shaping the 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission.
As a CoR delegate, he supported pilot projects and drafted official opinions calling for stronger links between municipal innovation strategies and European research funding.
“We need to go deeper than benchmarking,” he says. “We need to move to bench-learning, even bench-acting. That’s how cities with their industries and universities can truly lead change.”
This belief underpins his support for co-creation, involving citizens not just as users but as designers and producers of services, infrastructure and all forms of societal innovation.
A city with collaboration, courage and connectivity in its DNA
Markkula is quick to emphasise that none of these successes belong to him alone.
He often credits Espoo’s long-standing collaborative culture – including the “Espoo Story” (the city’s guiding strategic vision) – for enabling ambitious experiments.
In Europe, we need to act locally and influence globally.
“You can’t achieve much alone. That’s why we now say: Espoo is a community. It’s not just civil servants or councillors – everyone here is part of shaping the city,” he explains. “Mindset is the key.”
That bridge-building has delivered tangible results. Inspired by his commitment to visionary innovation and shared responsibility, the Espoo community has:
- Initiated dozens of EU innovation projects
- Hosted initiatives based on international delegations and societal networks
- Co-created models for climate governance, education reform and circular economy pilots
- Launched citizen engagement platforms for implementing sustainable development goals and storytelling
- Pioneered public-private partnerships with industry, universities and residents.
These are all part of Markkula’s larger mission to embed learning, creativity and trust into the daily work of local government.
Ville Taajamaa, Sustainable Development Goals Project Manager for the City of Espoo, adds: “Markku has truly excelled in Espoo’s dynamic and competitive environment. He’s been a bridge-builder, translator, educator, systems change-maker, even a mastermind in driving innovation and shared effort.”
A European legacy rooted in place
I see my role as a facilitator, someone who builds bridges – between disciplines, between institutions, and between generations.
Although much of his impact has been international, Markkula has always returned to local roots. He continues to work with City of Espoo staff, Aalto University students and European city leaders, sharing knowledge and mentoring the next generation.
His work has earned wide recognition, including:
- Honorary titles from several universities and professional societies
- Presidency of the European Alliance for Innovation and other similar global networks
- Invitations to advise on EU research and innovation frameworks
- Written and co-edited books and other publications on learning, knowledge management, technology transfer, innovation ecosystems and foresight.
But he remains focused on what’s next, and as ever, his long-term thinking drives his leadership and strategic planning.
“I have to think about where Espoo will be in mentality in ten years and in urban planning in 20-50 years, not just five, to inspire people to make that transformation,” he says.
Championing transformation rooted in innovation
For Markkula, smart cities aren’t about apps or gadgets, they’re about transformative capacity – the ability of cities and regions to reinvent themselves in ways that are inclusive, evidence-based and mission-driven.
We must be bold and inclusive – use the potential of all people and especially the young ones.
“Life is full of opportunities,” he says. “But you need a dream, a sense of direction. You have to know, more or less, where you want to go. You also need to react fast. I always try to follow different parallel paths. That’s how I bring in fresh ideas from diverse communities. And whatever you want to achieve, you can only do it by working and learning together.”
A City Hero who sees the city as a learning space
Markku Markkula is not a flashy leader. He favours chalkboards over microphones, and meaningful dialogue over grandstanding.
But his influence – from shaping Espoo’s collaborative innovation culture to guiding European urban policy – has redefined what cities can achieve.
He has placed lifelong learning at the heart of city-building, making innovation something every citizen can contribute to.
And perhaps most powerfully, he has lived his principles of helping cities not only become smarter, but learn how to learn, adapt and act together.
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Markku Markkula is one of the shortlisted ‘City Heroes’ at the Eurocities Awards 2025. This year, for the first time, Eurocities member cities are involved in selecting the winners of the awards. Our members can now vote to choose the best city hero and the best city initiative.
You can view the full awards shortlist here.
Results will be announced on Thursday 5 June at Eurocities 2025 Braga.
