Professor Seppo Vainio is the new Kvantum institute’s Research Director

Professor Seppo Vainio has been appointed as the new Research Director for University of Oulu’s Kvantum Institute. Seppo will start in his role June 1st, 2021 and term will last until the year 2025. In his role Seppo will report to Taina Pihlajaniemi, Vice Rector of Research.

Taina Pihlajaniemi welcomes Seppo in his new role: “Seppo Vainio is an internationally highly respected developmental biologist and since several years he has strongly promoted multidisciplinary approaches involving biomedicine, IT and technological fields. He is vice director of the new GeneCellNano Flagship, led by the University of Eastern Finland, and he is partner in two highly competitive Future and Enabling Technologies Open Projects (FET OPEN MindGap and Gladiator). I hope that Seppo´s exceptional capabilities for crossing disciplinary boarders, his wide local, national and international networks, and his enthusiastic views on tackling important research topics, will expand the significance of the Kvantum Institute in promoting co-operation and excellence at the University of Oulu.”

“I would also like to take the opportunity to thank professor Björn Klöve for his active and productive work as Kvantum Institute’s first leader”, Taina Pihlajaniemi adds.

“I am very enthusiastic about this opportunity”, Seppo Vainio says. “I value the Kvantum Institute as a unique multidisciplinary, timely and globally strategically critical science center that with the newly selected projects’ PI leaders have excellent position to create high national, European and global value. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically revealed to us that human culture and nature are in a more dynamic interplay than previously anticipated and I am looking forward in finding ways to proceed with research in this frontier.“

Kvantum Institute is one of the four focus institutes at the University of Oulu. Kvantum supports high-quality research and coordinates multidisciplinary research activities and doctoral training on the University's strategic focus areas Sustainable materials and systems and Changing climate and Northern environment. The Institute promotes interdisciplinary networking of research groups as well as co-operation between groups and national and international partners (https://www.oulu.fi/kvantum).

Last updated: 23.4.2021