The Academy of Finland is supporting universities in strengthening their research profiles and has now granted PROFI funding for the years 2023–2028. The University of Oulu was granted 12 million euros to support its strong research areas, which are related to sustainable materials and systems, digitalisation, and climate change in the northern environment.
The University of Oulu received PROFI funding for three research themes: Hydrogen Future as a Climate Change Solution (H2Future), Hybrid Intelligence: Human-AI Co-evolution and Learning in Multi-realities (HI) and Frontiers Arctic and Global Resilience (Front). New research themes strengthen existing research profile areas and link them to new multidisciplinary topics.
The themes that have now received funding will receive matching funding from the University of Oulu for the amount of the Academy of Finland’s funding, as has been done with previous PROFI funding. With the matching funding, this amounts to 24 million euros.
The Academy of Finland’s PROFI funding has deepened the University of Oulu’s research in the profile areas and the 6G Flagship for years.
Taina Pihlajaniemi, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Oulu, is glad for the granted funding.
“The funding demonstrates that we have succeeded in sharpening the university’s research profile and in developing the quality of Finnish research. The research topics and measures collected from our research groups are based on our established strengths, and they offer good opportunities for multidisciplinary expansion and combination of research topics. I want to thank all those involved in the preparation and in particular research theme leaders Marko Huttula, Sanna Järvelä and Jarkko Saarinen.”
The review panel praised the university for plans that promote societal impact and for national and international networks.
The purpose of the Academy of Finland’s PROFI funding is to support and speed up the strategic profiling of Finnish universities to improve the quality of research. Between 2015 and 2019, the PROFI call took place annually (PROFI1–5) for four-year funding periods. Starting from the sixth call in 2020, the call has taken place biennially for six-year periods. A profiling area is a well-selected research area or thematic research entity that the university intends to develop in accordance with its strategy.
The Academy of Finland granted a total of €100 million PROFI funding to nine universities. The granted sums range from 2.2 million euros to 30.1 million euros. The applications were reviewed by an international panel of experts, whose members consisted of heads of European universities.
The Academy of Finland’s PROFI funding enables regular high-quality recruitment in Oulu and Finland.
Read more on the University of Oulu’s website.
Source: The University of Oulu