The University of Helsinki will reform its operations with additional investments of over EUR 4 million in innovation, entrepreneurship, and business cooperation. 

Innovation platform for each campus   

By 2024, all four campuses of the University of Helsinki will have innovation platforms based on their own fields of research. The university is investing EUR 2 million in the platforms, and other funders are being sought from both Finland and the EU.

The campuses accelerate the creation of university-based companies: All campuses start running 6–8-week pre-incubator programmes and business incubators. These will be developed in cooperation with the City of Helsinki.  

The investments made by the University of Helsinki include, among other things, EUR 0.5 million in proof-of-concept funding. More advanced business teams can apply for it to polish their ideas in actual incubator programmes, which are applied for either directly or after the pre-incubator.

Researchers and students are at the centre of developing the innovation ecosystem of each campus, and tailoring it, in accordance with the research profile of the campus. At the beginning of 2022, a number of faculties at the University of Helsinki will also have vice deans, responsible for innovation activities, starting their work. 

Promising teams for the incubators are coming from the entrepreneurial society Helsinki Think Company, for instance.  

Innovation ecosystems also enable versatile business cooperation, through which the funding received by the university will be increased to EUR 30 million. 

The HIS service offering will be developed  

The university's own commercialisation company, HIS, will continue to play an important role in innovation activities, by assisting spinouts, such as Nanoform, into the market. 

Read more at: 

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/university/university-helsinki-makes-significant-investments-innovation-activities-and-entrepreneurship#:~:text=By%202024%2C%20all%20four%20campuses,both%20Finland%20and%20the%20EU.