 Direktor of the UNU wider FinTARP distinguished experts and colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great honor to welcome you all to the UNU wider conference in Helsinki. In this conference we will be witnessing world leading experts providing views and results on the themes that UNU wider research has focused on for more than 30 years. I'm convinced these will be valuable days in many ways. For the last 10 years Professor FinTARP has worked as the director of UNU wider. This has been a period of very active and productive research. UNU wider has recently been ranked as one of the top most think-thanks and research institutions in the field of development. What happens? I did something wrong here. I don't touch that anymore. UNU wider has recently been ranked as one of the top most think-thanks and research institutions in the field of development in the whole world. This is a major achievement. Congratulations Fin for the inspiring and forward-looking leadership. This success is also an achievement of various networks of experts that are truly global. As we can see here today, when we look around, UNU wider has gathered the most distinguished and academically honored researchers on development in the same room. We are now harvesting, so to speak, the fruits of your work. Ladies and gentlemen, what is UNU wider? For more than 30 years, the institute has been associated with some of the most advanced thinking in development economics. Since the institute starts in 1985, UNU wider has undertaken research on all the principal themes of development economics. It has created a global network of thousands of researchers from all over the globe. Helsinki has become the hub of this network, producing knowledge of real value to policymakers and practitioners in the developing world across the UN and to the international community more broadly. The institute has undertaken cutting-edge research on topics such as poverty, inequality, economic transformation, development finance, climate change, gender and food security to mention just a few. However, I looked at UNU wider from a particular perspective. Top quality research is important, but even more important is that the research results are valuable for the development community. As a minister responsible for development policy and development cooperation, I want to see that results can be used for the benefit of the developing countries. I think that this vision has been very much shared by UNU wider. First research is more useful when the publications are available free of charge to experts in developing countries and developed countries alike. Institute publication policy has been very open, which is one reasons why they are so well read and cited. Second providing opportunities for young researchers to present their initial work in the same networks with very prominent researchers is a special accomplishment. It is noteworthy that UNU wider has been able to recruit many young female economists into its research teams. This is remarkable considering how much the field of development economics is dominated by men. Third research cooperation is useful when it creates databases like databases on inequality and on government revenues. These databases can be used by both researchers and administrators in the developing countries. Distinguished experts and colleagues, Finland has had the honor to host UNU wider for 30 years. We think that institute has grown during this period to a remarkable institution. It has also shown its relevance for the future. UNU wider is very well positioned to undertake policy relevant research on key themes of the sustainable development goals agenda. Finland has over the years supported UNU wider's thematic research, including the most pressing concerns of our time. Alongside like-minded donor countries such as Denmark, Sweden and United Kingdom. More recently, we have noticed the institute's engagements in the series of Finland's bilateral partner countries. To illustrate, UNU wider has become a key partner in Finland's engagement with Mozambique and Tanzania, where UNU wider works with the respective governments to implement policies focused on achieving series of the goals and targets of agenda 2030. Most recently, Finland and UNU wider have intensified the collaboration in the area of taxation and development, where we support the institute's research and capacity building activities on innovative tax systems in developing countries. In this way, Finland and UNU wider are working together to help convert the 2030 agenda's many goals and targets into operational priorities at country level. Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by providing a very warm welcome to the Professor Kunal Sen. As the beginning of next year, Professor Sen will be taking over as a new director of UNU wider. I'm very much looking forward to continuing our close cooperation with you and the whole institute. I wish all of you a fruitful conference and discussions, not forgetting the most valuable coffee prey. Thank you for your attention.