Stake­hold­ers

OuluHealth facil­i­tates close coop­er­a­tion that dri­ves inno­va­tion, boosts the healthtech busi­ness and sup­ports the imple­men­ta­tion of bet­ter health­care ser­vices.

The OuluHealth ecosys­tem has a unique cul­ture of col­lab­o­ra­tion along a broad spec­trum: acad­e­mia and researchers, social and health­care providers, busi­ness­es, local gov­ern­ment and cit­i­zens. Rein­forc­ing this spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion, the ecosys­tem pro­vides a net­work of com­mit­ted stake­hold­ers that strive to trans­form health­care on a glob­al scale and, as a result, improve people’s lives.

The OuluHealth ecosys­tem is designed to ben­e­fit all cit­i­zens by cre­at­ing bet­ter health­care ser­vices and solu­tions: per­son­alised, con­nect­ed, cost-effi­cient and agile. Bring your knowl­edge, net­works and pas­sion to our com­mu­ni­ty and make the future health­i­er.

Find out how we can sup­port you in: co-cre­at­ing health inno­va­tions, busi­ness devel­op­ment and research.

HEALTH, LIFE SCI­ENCE AND TECH­NOL­O­GY MERGE TO CRE­ATE INNO­VA­TION

OuluHealth sup­ports a research and inno­va­tion cul­ture as well as health and life sci­ence com­pa­nies to cre­ate one of the largest and most inno­v­a­tive health tech­nol­o­gy cen­tres. In the ecosystem’s net­work, you find world-class co-cre­ators from a wide range of dis­ci­plines to guide you in bring­ing to life your idea for digi­tis­ing and per­son­al­is­ing health care.

The OuluHealth ecosys­tem is a world leader in using tech­nolo­gies, such as 5G/6G, IOT, AI, VR, AR and Big­Da­ta, to devel­op health and life sci­ence inno­va­tions. Oulu’s healthtech sec­tor sets the pace for R&D invest­ment in Fin­land – and is near the top in the EU. The Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal is slat­ed to be the world’s smartest hos­pi­tal.

In short, the col­lab­o­ra­tion poten­tial in Oulu for inno­va­tion in dig­i­tal health attracts part­ners – com­pa­nies, entre­pre­neurs, and researchers – with ambi­tions to lead the world into the next gen­er­a­tion of health care.

The Oulu region is home to tech­nolo­gies that are used dai­ly by near­ly 3 bil­lion peo­ple. The Health and Life Sci­ence com­pa­nies devel­op cut­ting-edge inno­va­tions, offer world-class exper­tise and expand to inter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

View the Health and Life Sci­ence Cat­a­logue in Issuu

Busi­nes­sOulu is a pub­lic util­i­ty of the City of Oulu that pro­motes eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion, and busi­ness growth in the Oulu region.

To cre­ate a diverse busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of new solu­tions, strength­en the col­lab­o­ra­tion among local busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions, and sup­port entre­pre­neur­ship, Busi­nes­sOulu offers a vari­ety of busi­ness devel­op­ment ser­vices for com­pa­nies in the region. The ser­vices vary from pro­vid­ing the infor­ma­tion need­ed to estab­lish a com­pa­ny and start­up incu­ba­tion, through financ­ing assis­tance and invest­ment to inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion. The orga­ni­za­tion also con­nects busi­ness­es with local research insti­tu­tions, uni­ver­si­ties, and oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers in both pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

Busi­nes­sOulu con­tributes to cre­at­ing new work­places and helps job seek­ers find employ­ment and devel­op their exper­tise. To achieve this goal, the organ­i­sa­tion cre­ates direct con­tacts with cor­po­rate life in order to facil­i­tate match­mak­ing between job seek­ers and com­pa­nies with vacant posi­tions.

In addi­tion to its core ser­vices, Busi­nes­sOulu orga­nizes a vari­ety of ini­tia­tives, such as net­work­ing events, work­shops, sem­i­nars, train­ing, and con­fer­ences. These extras help to cre­ate a plat­form for learn­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and gen­er­at­ing inno­v­a­tive ideas. Busi­nes­sOulu also assists with inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­ing of Oulu and facil­i­tates the OuluHealth ecosystem’s activ­i­ties.

Busi­nes­sOulu plays an impor­tant role as a hub of indus­tries sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of busi­ness­es and pro­mot­ing the region as a dynam­ic and inno­v­a­tive busi­ness loca­tion on the inter­na­tion­al lev­el.

www.businessoulu.com

Oulu is one of the old­est cities in Fin­land and the fifth largest in terms of pop­u­la­tion, which is approx­i­mate­ly 210,000 inhab­i­tants includ­ing about 100 nation­al­i­ty groups. The city suc­cess­ful­ly com­bines hos­pi­tal­i­ty, beau­ti­ful nature, and cul­ture with mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy. Oulu boasts a strong rep­u­ta­tion of a tech­nol­o­gy hub that has a spe­cial focus on the devel­op­ment of the infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions (ICT) and dig­i­tal health sec­tors. The city is home to numer­ous tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies that devel­op inno­v­a­tive solu­tions, research cen­ters, and uni­ver­si­ties. Oulu is espe­cial­ly known for sup­port­ing long-term coop­er­a­tion between dif­fer­ent sec­tors, open-mind­ed peo­ple, ver­sa­tile busi­ness struc­tures, advanced tech­nol­o­gy, rich his­to­ry, and beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings.

www.ouka.fi

The Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences is a strong mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary unit that edu­cates approx­i­mate­ly 9000 stu­dents. The uni­ver­si­ty fea­tures 460 staff mem­bers, excel­lent teach­ing facil­i­ties and learn­ing envi­ron­ments, a great vari­ety of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary RDI projects and fields of study pro­grammes as well as study projects. The Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences also pro­vides the Oamk Sim­Lab, a sim­u­la­tion envi­ron­ment for test­ing health prod­ucts and ser­vices.

www.oamk.fi/en

VTT is a vision­ary research, devel­op­ment, and inno­va­tion part­ner and one of the lead­ing research orga­ni­za­tions in Europe with over 2000 employ­ees. In the area of health tech­nolo­gies, VTT offers research and devel­op­ment ser­vices for med­ical device man­u­fac­tur­ers, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, SMEs, and health­care orga­ni­za­tions.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with cus­tomers and part­ners, VTT devel­ops com­pre­hen­sive data-dri­ven health solu­tions includ­ing new sci­ence-based ser­vice and prod­uct con­cepts, hard­ware and soft­ware design for wear­able sen­sors and diag­nos­tic devices, mul­ti­modal data col­lec­tion, inte­gra­tion and ana­lyt­ics, and con­cept and device val­i­da­tion.

www.vttresearch.com

MRC Oulu is a strate­gic research orga­ni­za­tion of the Well­be­ing ser­vices coun­ty of North Ostro­both­nia and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. MRC Oulu offers a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary research envi­ron­ment for clin­i­cal, trans­la­tion­al and health­care socioe­co­nom­ic research. MRC Oulu focus­es its clin­i­cal research on diag­no­sis, treat­ment, and pre­ven­tion of nation­al­ly impor­tant chron­ic dis­eases. Cur­rent­ly, MRC Oulu con­sists of approx­i­mate­ly 80 research groups from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, and North­ern Fin­land col­lab­o­ra­tive area. The clin­i­cal Research Cen­ter (CRC), which is a part of MRC Oulu infra­struc­ture, is a sup­port­ive and effi­cient lab­o­ra­to­ry envi­ron­ment for researchers of MRC Oulu. MRC Oulu co-oper­ates local­ly, nation­al­ly, and inter­na­tion­al­ly with sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties, research insti­tutes, as well as enter­pris­es.

https://oys.fi/mrc-oulu/
www.oulu.fi/mrc/

Bio­cen­ter Oulu (BCO) is a focus insti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu that sup­ports high-qual­i­ty research and coor­di­nates mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary research activ­i­ties on the University´s “Life-long health” strate­gic focus area. BCO pro­vides aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al cus­tomers with open access to research infra­struc­ture and ser­vices in life sci­ences with state-of-the-art tech­nolo­gies and trained experts. BCO research ser­vices are part of the nation­al Bio­cen­ter Fin­land research infra­struc­ture net­work.

www.oulu.fi/biocenter/

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu is an inter­na­tion­al sci­ence uni­ver­si­ty, which cre­ates new knowl­edge, well-being and inno­va­tion for the future through mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary research and edu­ca­tion. Close coop­er­a­tion with research insti­tutes, com­pa­nies and the pub­lic sec­tor has cre­at­ed an inter­na­tion­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant research and inno­va­tion hub that has changed the world. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu is wide­ly respect­ed for its research on new tech­nol­o­gy, peo­ple and cul­ture in a chang­ing liv­ing envi­ron­ment and as a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary expert in Arc­tic issues.

Read about researchers and their research top­ics.

www.oulu.fi/en 

The Biobank Bore­alis was estab­lished by the North­ern Ostro­both­nia Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Nord­Lab, the hospital/healthcare dis­tricts of Lap­land, Län­si-Poh­ja, Cen­tral Ostro­both­nia and Kain­uu. The Biobank Bore­alis offers var­i­ous sam­ple types and research ser­vices:

  • The pathol­o­gy archives (Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal and four cen­tral hos­pi­tals) include 1.8M tis­sue and cell sam­ples
  • A rapid­ly grow­ing col­lec­tion of blood sam­ples (serum, plas­ma, DNA)
  • The Finnish Mater­ni­ty Cohort (FMC) col­lec­tion con­tains over 2M serum sam­ples, col­lect­ed from moth­ers dur­ing their preg­nan­cies
  • Infra­struc­ture and tools relat­ed to the stor­age and man­age­ment of sam­ples
  • Oppor­tu­ni­ties for R&D col­lab­o­ra­tion, e.g. tai­lored sam­ple col­lec­tions
  • Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of tis­sue sam­ples, and plan­ning and pro­duc­tion of tis­sue microar­ray (TMA) blocks
  • Pro­cess­ing and analy­sis of sam­ples

How to obtain sam­ples, ser­vices and data from Biobank Bore­alis?

A sci­en­tif­ic com­mit­tee will eval­u­ate all sam­ple and data requests. Con­tact Biobank Bore­alis with a pre­lim­i­nary plan to find out whether we have suit­able mate­r­i­al. Fur­ther instruc­tion on how to make a Biobank Request.

Fin­ge­nious – Your Dig­i­tal Gate­way to Finnish Biobanks and Bio­med­ical Research.

North­ern Fin­land Birth Cohorts NFBC1966 and NFBC1986 are prospec­tive, lon­gi­tu­di­nal data col­lec­tions with more than 20 000 cohort mem­bers who have been stud­ied on a reg­u­lar basis since the ante­na­tal peri­od using health care records, ques­tion­naires, and clin­i­cal exam­i­na­tions. Togeth­er with two cohorts of elder­ly indi­vid­u­als, Oulu1935 and Oulu1945, they form the North­ern Fin­land Birth Cohorts – Research pro­gram for health and well-being.

Arc­tic Biobank – Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu was estab­lished in 2020 to host the bio­log­i­cal sam­ple col­lec­tions of these large pop­u­la­tion-based stud­ies. Sev­er­al types of bio­log­i­cal sam­ples are avail­able for research such as blood, cells, fecal, urine, and sali­va. Alto­geth­er sam­ple col­lec­tion con­tains c. 400 000 sam­ples from 16 000 cohort mem­bers.

More about North­ern Fin­land Birth Cohorts’ data and sam­ple col­lec­tions, and how to request:  https://www.oulu.fi/en/university/faculties-and-units/faculty-medicine/northern-finland-birth-cohorts-and-arctic-biobank.

The well-being ser­vices coun­ty of North Ostro­bot­h­ia (Pohde) pro­vides a wide range of pub­lic health, social, and res­cue ser­vices for all North Ostro­both­nia res­i­dents. Our aim is to offer diverse, func­tion­al, and high-qual­i­ty ser­vices in a time­ly and equi­table man­ner for every­one, regard­less of the place of res­i­dence. Our per­son­nel sup­ports our res­i­dents in issues relat­ed to health, safe­ty, and well-being. The empha­sis is on basic ser­vices and ear­ly prob­lem pre­ven­tion. Pohde employs near­ly 18 500 high­ly-skilled peo­ple, to whom we con­stant­ly pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment.

www.pohde.fi

Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal, one of the five uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tals in Fin­land, pro­vides high-qual­i­ty health­care ser­vices to the entire north­ern Fin­land region. This hos­pi­tal utilis­es cut­ting-edge equip­ment in all spe­cialised branch­es of med­i­cine and employs sev­er­al thou­sand high­ly trained pro­fes­sion­als. OYS is the first hos­pi­tal to test the 5G-tech­nol­o­gy. The hos­pi­tal has been under­go­ing total mod­erni­sa­tion as a part of the Future Hos­pi­tal 2030 pro­gramme.

www.ppshp.fi