The Sleep Technology and Analytics Research Group, STAR, conducts diverse and successful impact-related work on a topic of major public health importance.
The University of Eastern Finland together with the regional media outlets Savon Sanomat and Karjalainen presented, on 11 June 2026, the UEF Impact Award to the Sleep Technology and Analytics Research Group, STAR, of the Department of Technical Physics on the Kuopio Campus.
The award was presented to STAR in recognition of its diverse and successful work related to impact. The group’s research addresses a key public health concern, namely sleep apnoea, as well as sleep quantity and quality and the factors affecting them. The SmartSleep sleep laboratory on the Kuopio Campus plays a central role in the group’s research activities.
According to the award statement, STAR has opened up a new line of research at the University of Eastern Finland and established its position in a short period of time. The group engages in exceptionally broad national and international collaboration with numerous research organisations, such as hospitals and universities, as well as health technology companies.
The group actively involves citizens in its research and highlights the significance of sleep research in an engaging way. The researchers’ enthusiasm for the topic has also attracted considerable media attention.
Comprehensive research into the sleep quality of people in North Savo
Founded in 2017, the Sleep Technology and Analytics Research Group, STAR, is based at the Department of Technical Physics at the University of Eastern Finland and at the University of Queensland in Australia. The group currently comprises 35 members, 19 of whom are doctoral researchers. The researchers work in close collaboration with the Diagnostic Imaging Centre and the Clinical Research Centre at Kuopio University Hospital. The group is led by Professor Timo Leppänen.
“Good sleep is one of the fundamental pillars of life alongside exercise and nutrition. It supports both mental and physical well-being and helps the body and mind recover from the strain of the day. Many sleep disorders impair quality of life and general health. They are associated with many comorbidities, such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, as well as with traffic and occupational accidents through fatigue and sleepiness,” Leppänen says, summarising the importance of sleep research.
STAR is currently conducting two major research projects. The Finnish Sleep Cohort project seeks to recruit all 30–34-year-olds in the North Savo region for a long-term follow-up study on sleep quality. The first 2,200 individuals have already been invited to participate by post.
“Our aim is to examine how long a person may unknowingly suffer from sleep apnoea and to assess which risk factors predispose healthy individuals to it. We also aim to understand how and why the disease progresses from mild to severe,” Leppänen says.
The other major project, the Whole Body Sleep project, is developing a new approach to defining sleep stages, in which sleep stage classification based on electroencephalography is complemented by bodily factors such as autonomic nervous system activity. At the same time, the aim is to assess sleep as a continuous phenomenon without artificial, pre-set time windows.
“In practical terms, we seek to broaden our understanding of the different stages of sleep as a continuous physiological phenomenon,” says Associate Professor Samu Kainulainen, Director of the SmartSleep laboratory.
Hundreds of volunteers are contributing to a sleep databank
Central to STAR’s activities is the SmartSleep sleep laboratory, where researchers, for example, investigate the association of sleep with various diseases, develop computational tools for assessing sleep quality, carry out commissioned research and collect data for a major sleep databank with the help of volunteers.
The sleep databank already contains data on the sleep of nearly 300 participants, with hundreds of more volunteers waiting to take part.
“We have recruited healthy participants for the sleep databank, because sleep medicine has long lacked extensive data on healthy controls. This allows us to use current computational methods to study features that are typical of healthy sleep, and it also enables studies examining how sleep disorders disrupt the structure and characteristics of healthy sleep. Another key aim is to determine the prevalence of undiagnosed sleep disorders in this presumably healthy population.”
The group’s work is firmly grounded in open science and, according to Leppänen, the data in the sleep databank will be made openly accessible to all researchers to support multidisciplinary research.
“We can say, with confidence, that this will become the world’s largest openly accessible sleep databank consisting exclusively of healthy participants, with measurements conducted in a sleep laboratory using the most accurate methods available.”
The SmartSleep laboratory also provides a versatile testbed for companies developing health technology and medical devices. The laboratory makes it possible to study of the analytics of various non-invasive measurement devices, such as smart rings and sensors placed under a mattress. Collaboration with companies also benefits research, as it provides data for research use, new career paths for researchers and funding for basic research.
Savon Sanomat and Karjalainen involved in the award for the first time
This was the second time the UEF Impact Award was presented. The award amounts to 10,000 euros and includes a travelling trophy donated by the regional media outlets Savon Sanomat and Karjalainen. The trophy is called Ajatus, a wooden sculpture by the Joensuu-based sculptor Reetta Gröhn-Soininen.
The award is presented annually in recognition of a party that has contributed to the university’s impact. Impact is understood broadly, focusing on the impact of research and education, and their promotion. The criteria include, e.g., successful practices and models of interaction, successful and effective structures of collaboration, novel and innovative openings in societal debate, reliance on expertise in public decision-making and debate, and diversity of impact.
For further information, please contact:
Queries related to the STAR research group: Professor Timo Leppänen, Department of Technical Physics, University of Eastern Finland, [email protected], tel. +358 50 310 1828
Queries related to the award: Director of Strategy and Development Soili Makkonen, University of Eastern Finland, [email protected], tel. +358 50 374 8294
