Strategy of the University of Oulu

Driven by human impact, the rise in global temperatures and a changing climate is resulting in rising sea levels, advancing desertification, and more extreme and violent weather events with disastrous outcomes. Research-based knowledge is essential to mitigating the effects of climate change and promoting the sustainable use of natural resources. Significant circular economy practices and climate-neutral adaptation of the production and use of natural resources and energy, in parallel with the activities of various sectors of society, are needed. Protecting ecosystems, halting soil degradation, and safeguarding biodiversity require actions to ensure the necessary conditions for life. Our university produces research-based solutions for sustainable development and makes them available to key decision makers and society.

Natural disasters, global conflicts, and disinformation demand resilience from individuals and societies – the ability to adapt to changes. Through the complexity of global economy and politics, interdependence between different regions of the world intensifies, challenging the foundations of democracy. In secure and functional societies, efficient and responsible institutions are built at all levels to secure supply resilience, self-sufficiency, and international trust. Our university combines an understanding of historical factors, preservation of cultural heritage, human interaction, and knowledge utilisation, enhancing community resilience and promoting a genuinely inclusive society. We provide education and research to create resilient and sustainable living environments, communities, and societies and thereby fostering people's resilience and wellbeing.

The rapid development of digital technologies is creating differentiation and inequality between people, businesses, and societies. Digitalisation is having a cross-cutting and wide-ranging impact across all sectors of industry and wider society. The amount of data collected and produced by people and devices continues to grow, bringing with it questions related to data ownership, cybersecurity, and data usage. Artificial intelligence and virtual technologies shape the future of interaction, learning, and work at both individual and societal levels. Our university researches and develops sustainable next-generation wireless communication networks, human-centred digital services, and technology for the needs of humanity and business.

Societal factors such as an ageing population, reduced physical activity, unhealthy lifestyles, and declining mental health increase the need for social and health services. Infectious diseases and lifestyle-related illnesses are on the rise, and human health is connected to the well-being of nature. Pandemics challenge societies to create new modes of operations, to strengthen foresight skills, and to re-evaluate supply and production chains. In a prosperous society, everyone can find their place, regardless of individual circumstances. The creation of digital twins, remote health services, and the development of artificial intelligence increase access to health services for everyone and promotes equality. Our university's research furthers understanding of the development and prevention of diseases. The technological solutions we develop support the emergence of novel therapeutics and promote individual health, well-being, and sustainable lifestyles.

Our ambitious and wide-ranging research is impactful.

Scientific research aims to understand, explain, and anticipate the world around us and the ways in which it is changing. Scientific research is free of preconceptions and is inherently long-term. Our aim is to strengthen research comprehensively, raise the level of ambition, and support a knowledge-based society.

The faculties and research units of the University of Oulu constitute a strong multidisciplinary scientific community. Our multidisciplinary research centres support diverse research themes across the university’s intersecting profile areas. Regional units strengthen the university’s research activities and their impact.

Autonomy in research, combined with best practice in responsible evaluation, produces high quality research-based knowledge.

We respect the freedom and autonomy of researchers to conduct research and generate research-based knowledge. We make use of best practices in responsible research and career assessment. We support excellent multidisciplinary research projects in four-year programmes, as well as high-quality doctoral education across all disciplines, enabling four years of full-time work. We aim for success in the European Research Council's research programmes and the Research Council of Finland's programmes supporting cutting-edge research.

Strengthening the visibility, and multi- and interdisciplinarity of research through profiling.

Through profiling, we enhance the research conditions and visibility of the university while promoting multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration. In building our scientific profile, we make use of the Research Council of Finland's university profiling and flagship programmes and strive for participation in the Center of Excellence programme.

We identify future research topics through foresight work.

We carry out university-wide foresight work to identify new key research topics for the future and promote multidisciplinary research on them.

Our vibrant and high-quality research community, along with our world-class research infrastructure, support the recruitment of researchers.

The tenure-track career model supports our strategic research objectives, research renewal, and the competitiveness of academic careers to attract talented researchers to the University of Oulu. Our tenure-track recruitments are always based on open and international calls, as well as external peer review. We aim to recruit top researchers to the University of Oulu by providing a vibrant and high-quality research community, along with a world-class research infrastructure.

Early-stage research careers are supported by our in-depth science leadership training programme.

In the academic world, development of the management skills often occurs alongside research activities. Our in-depth and multidisciplinary science leadership programme offers early-stage researchers support to grow as leaders. Our Strategic Emerging Projects programme supports projects led by emerging group leaders, building connections between their novel research and established projects.

Open and responsible science is an essential part of our research and the work of every researcher.

We promote the impact of science in society through a determined programme of openness and responsibility. The university’s principles of responsible science are research quality, transparency, open access to research results and produced knowledge, equality and sustainability.

Citizen science aims to increase interaction and participation broadly.

A growing area of our open scientific research is citizen science. Scientific research carried out partly or entirely by citizens is utilised in particular in the natural and human sciences. Citizen science does not only mean crowdsourcing data collection but also aims at increasing interaction and participation more broadly.

We seek solutions to sustainability challenges.

We strive to identify solutions to the ecological, social, economic, and cultural sustainability challenges facing the planet. Our goal is that every member of the University of Oulu community makes responsible choices – both now and in the future.

We are the best partner both domestically and internationally.

We are an active player in building and collaborating on competitive partnership models and joint research projects. We foster collaboration with businesses, the public sector, and national research institutions in a diverse manner. International collaboration, partnerships, and networks are an inherent part of everything we do.

High-quality infrastructures are a prerequisite for our high-quality research. Research infrastructures are the tools, equipment, networks, data, and services that enable research, foster collaborative research and strengthen research and innovation capacity and knowledge. Research infrastructures also play a significant role in connecting research and development ecosystems.

We offer a wide range of research infrastructure services to researchers across a range of disciplines and to external users, too. Our research infrastructures have cutting edge equipment, unique datasets, and expert staff. We ensure the open accessibility, continuous development, and renewal of our research infrastructures. Our research infrastructures also contribute to the attractiveness of our university.

Our attractive degree programmes are renowned and based on our research.

Our portfolio of degree programmes forms the core of our education. We offer an increasingly attractive range of degree programmes that appeal to learners worldwide. An effective link with cutting-edge research ensures the renewal and high quality of our educational offering. Our programmes produce expertise for future work-related challenges and are based on principles of global sustainability and responsibility.

We develop doctoral education and its working life relevance.

We will improve the structure, guidance, and quality of our doctoral education to increase the number of doctoral graduates and ​​the overarching impact of doctoral education. The national piloting of doctoral education aims to accelerate the pace of doctoral ​​education and strengthen ​​its relevance to working life.​​ Our university will take advantage of the emerging reforms and extend them ​​throughout our doctoral education.

We provide high-quality education that generates field-specific and interdisciplinary skills.

Our ​​multidisciplinarity enables us to offer education that builds strong, field-specific skills and creates new multifaceted competencies​​ through interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and inter-university cooperation. We develop education through systematic curricular work and use modern teaching methods to ensure accessibility and high quality of education, as well as the high level of competence and excellent learning outcomes it generates.

All learners have smooth study paths and an excellent learning experience at the University of Oulu.

We will improve our ​​study paths to ensure an excellent learning experience. We place particular emphasis on early guidance and the learning experience to ensure student retention. We will strengthen the competencies of our personnel and provide tools to identify students’ support needs and provide support effectively throughout their studies.

Our appreciation for teaching is reflected in our leadership, pedagogical support, and career development opportunities.

We demonstrate our appreciation of teaching by providing a wide range of pedagogical support, advancing educational leadership, and acknowledging teaching roles within career paths. Valuing teaching also encourages people to take time to develop and excel in education.

Students and staff have a strong sense of belonging to the academic community of University of Oulu.

The University of Oulu is a scientific community that everyone can feel part of from their first day of study or work. A sense of community and working together strengthens commitment and progress in the studies. We understand the interdependence of student and staff wellbeing and recognise that staff competence and wellbeing support student wellbeing.

Our students receive high quality and relevant guidance at all stages of their studies.

Each learner receives a wide range of guidance throughout their studies to enable them to progress on their learning pathway. We are developing different forms of guidance and creating new ways of guiding academic learners. We will ensure that learning is accessible so that each learner can progress towards their own goals.

A needs-based approach is the basis for the development of educational provision for continuous learning.

The provision of continuous learning is an important showcase and gateway to education and research at our university. Needs-based learning and the identification of target groups are the bases for the development of our capacity to offer different forms of lifelong learning and to encourage the development of learner-oriented education.

We produce learning content of varying scope and flexibility for continuous learning provision.

We will develop ways of delivering credit and non-credit continuing learning provision, from which learners can assemble learning packages that are relevant to them and their future. Continuous learning provision is linked to our research and degree programmes. We are at the forefront of developing micro-credentials.

Together with partners, we produce pedagogically high-quality, effective, and flexible education and guidance for different groups of learners.

We develop flexible online and on-campus education with a pedagogical approach. We are streamlining learner-oriented education by utilising the potential of digitalisation. We will also develop educational cooperation with other higher education institutions and actively participate in the broader higher education ecosystem to diversify our educational offering for learners.

We use digital tools, learning analytics, and feedback data to develop, deliver, and manage learner-oriented education.

We support and develop the versatile, secure, and research-based use of digital tools and AI. We use learning analytics and feedback data ethically as a tool for teaching, guidance, and educational management. In this way, we support individual learning pathways, provide timely guidance, and develop learner-oriented teaching and its quality.

Our degree programmes are international, encouraging mobility and the development of students’ international competences.

Studying at the University of Oulu is an international experience. Promoting international opportunities and the development of a global outlook are an integral part of our degree programmes. We will develop the provision for internationalisation at home and through student exchanges, and we enable mobility in each degree programme.

​​​Our international degree programmes achieve 100% intake and offer an excellent student experience.

We will develop our international degree programmes and focus student recruitment to selected target markets. We will also increase the number of exchange and degree students through European cooperation. Internships and other stakeholder cooperation will provide pathways for international students to find employment in Finland.

We are a valued and active partner in the ​​UNIC alliance and other international networks.

We will increase the number of joint and double degrees, student and staff exchanges globally, especially with our UNIC partners. We will support the emergence of collaborative research within the UNIC network, whose partnership extends to Oulu’s regional actors. Our students and staff take full advantage of the opportunities offered by these networks. Educational exports and on-demand training are carried out in a needs-driven and sustainable way.

We build strategic partnerships with universities and research institutes.

We strengthen the university's systematic networking and visibility in selected target markets and develop strategic partnerships to further strengthen the university's research, education, and global impact. We participate in and proactively influence national and international research and technology programmes and expert networks. We follow the principles of global responsibility, sustainability, and shared value base in all our collaborations.

We have a targeted influence on EU research and innovation policies and funding programmes.

We will systematise the planning of our EU engagement and identify key priorities to support our research and innovation sectors annually. We will strengthen our position in the EU research and innovation arena by lobbying the EU in close cooperation with other actors through various networks and by maintaining an active presence in Brussels. We will enhance the university’s culture of EU engagement, create structures, and develop internal cooperation and impact through thematic partnership fora. We aim to achieve a significant increase in EU revenue.

We are a sought-after partner in international projects.

We are a valued partner for international universities, research institutes, and companies, providing high-quality education, research, and innovation projects. We are strengthening our role in leading international projects in our ​​strategic research areas. We will further expand and develop our support services for Horizon Europe coordinators. We will increase the visibility of our research priorities internationally through active participation in selected events and partner visits.

We develop partnerships with companies and stakeholders.

We will continue to develop company and stakeholder collaboration throughout our faculties in a proactive, comprehensive, and centrally coordinated manner in cooperation with Oulu University of Applied Sciences. We will focus on increasing research collaboration and Business Finland projects across our research units and on developing related guidance processes. Our goal is for revenues from company and stakeholder collaborations to cover ​​10% of the university’s total budget.

We are reaching out to new domestic and foreign customers for research and education.

In addition to strengthening our existing ​​customer relationships, we aim to open new ones, especially with large domestic companies and in selected international ​​market areas. We will improve our customer acquisition and management processes, taking into account the special characteristics of our faculties and fields of science. We will start investing in marketing our research and education offerings to companies and continue to improve our collaboration agreement processes. We will develop our education sales processes and support the permanent integration of the commercialisation of continuous learning into faculty activities. Our goal is significant growth in our education business.

Our university generates effective innovations.

We want our research results and expertise to be used effectively by society and to create international impact. Our research activities generate innovations for domestic and foreign stakeholders through the commercialisation of research results and expertise. We support innovative student entrepreneurship and participate in start-up activities for university students led by Oulu University of Applied Sciences.

Our innovation process is economically productive.

We develop further our processes for commercialization of research results, focusing on transforming inventions and other immaterial properties into innovations. Our technology transfer to new businesses and existing companies is versatile and professional. Our aim is that the revenues from the exploitation of immaterial assets cover the costs of innovation activities.