The research infrastructures of the University of Eastern Finland support the activities of the university’s research communities. The large-scale UEF infrastructures comprise expertise from various disciplines, they meet high international or national standards and they have a broad network of users.
UEF's Research Infrastructure Programme
The infrastructure programme for years 2021-2024 identifies the university's key infrastructures and describes the objectives for developing these research infrastructures.
Our key research infrastructures
The University of Eastern Finland on the national and European roadmaps for research infrastructures
UEF is involved in various research infrastructures selected on the national roadmap and the European ESFRI roadmap for research infrastructures.
Finland's national roadmap for research infrastructures describes the research infrastructure services that are strategically important to Finland's research, education and innovation activities and which will be needed in the next 10–15 years. Based on the roadmap, the Academy of Finland provides FIRI (Finnish Research Infrastructures) funding to research infrastructures.
Biocenter Finland
Biocenter Finland is a distributed, nationwide research infrastructure supporting frontier research, innovation and industry-academia collaboration in life sciences. Biocenter Finland is organised into 15 Technology Platforms located in Finnish universities’ biocentres. At the University of Eastern Finland, Biocenter Kuopio offers technology services as part of Biocenter Finland.
Person in charge at the UEF: Seppo Auriola
Euro-BioImaging Finland
Euro-BioImaging is a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) that provides open access to Europe’s best biological and biomedical imaging technologies, training services and data solutions for academic and industrial users. Euro-BioImaging Finland is the service organisation of Euro-BioImaging in Finland, consisting of two multi-sited nodes: the Finnish Advanced Light Microscopy node (FiALM) and the Finnish Biomedical Imaging node (FiBI). Euro-BioImaging Finland assembles together Finland’s top imaging expertise from six universities and three university hospitals, including the services of Kuopio Biomedical Imaging Unit (Kuopio-BIU).
Person in charge at the UEF: Olli Gröhn
BBMRI.fi
The Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure of Finland (BBMRI.fi) comprises all ten public and academic biobanks in Finland, including the Biobank of Eastern Finland. BBMRI.fi is the Finnish national node of the European-level BBMRI-ERIC infrastructure. The vision of BBMRI-ERIC is to build and strengthen value-added sustainable biobanking, enabling clinical translational research in academia and industry and facilitating new treatments and new innovations in personalised medicine.
Person in charge at the UEF: Veli-Matti Kosma
FINStruct
Structural Biology Finland (FINStruct) is a national, coordinated, multi-institution and open-access research infrastructure established to provide integrated structural biology services and training to support research and innovation in academia and industry. It forms a national link to the pan-European Instruct-ERIC. As part of the infrastructure, UEF provides services in native mass spectrometry, which is also one of the technology platforms of Biocenter Kuopio.
Person in charge at the UEF: Juha Rouvinen
FCCI
The Finnish Computing Competence Infrastructure (FCCI) is Finland’s Tier-2-level computing infrastructure, which coordinates the scientific computing activities of Finnish universities. FCCI strengthens the position of Finland as one of the leading countries in scientific computing. The highest-level computational Tier-0 and Tier-1 infrastructures maintained in Finland by CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd are among the best in the world, but they do not succeed without strong Tier-2 capacity, which is an essential part of the computational ecosystem. FCCI provides this service, and it also provides partner universities with computational and data storage resources as well as local scientific computing experts and competence training actions.
Person in charge at the UEF: Mikko Linnolahti
FinnLight
FinnLight is a platform of advanced infrastructure with centralised and coordinated operation offering a wide range of services for the fabrication, characterisation and integration of photonics and light-based technologies. FinnLight provides a comprehensive combination of technologies covering all classes of photonics materials as well as full-scale process lines for device fabrication and assembly. Researchers, commercial users and companies can benefit from FinnLight research and technology development capabilities within the framework of collaboration projects or through direct contracting. UEF’s Center for Photonics Sciences is part of the FinnLight infrastructure.
Person in charge at the UEF: Jyrki Saarinen
FIN-CLARIAH
The Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure FIN-CLARIAH makes available large collections of textual and multimodal resources and tools via the Language Bank of Finland, which is an online service centre. The research infrastructure features several online collaboration platforms as well as meta data platforms. The main user communities are in social sciences and the humanities. FIN-CLARIAH comprises two components, FIN-CLARIN, which functions as a national node of the European CLARIN ERIC, and DARIAH-FI.
Person in charge at the UEF: Mikko Laitinen
FIRI-PBS
The Finnish Research Infrastructure on Population Based Surveys (FIRI-PBS) is a distributed research infrastructure owned jointly by the partners of the consortium and focusing on information from population-based health surveys. The goal of the research infrastructure is to enhance the active use of population-based survey data in both national and international research initiatives and multidisciplinary collaborations, to increase knowledge and use of common standardised tools for collection of new survey data, and to enhance data quality and cost-effective collection of new data. The services will be established in a stepwise approach, and the focal point for the services will be an information portal.
Person in charge at the UEF: Reijo Sund
INAR RI
The Integrated Atmospheric and Earth System Research Infrastructure (INAR RI) coordinates the Finnish national contributions to four ESFRI research infrastructures: ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System), ACTRIS (Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure), eLTER (Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, Critical Zone & Socio-Ecological Research Infrastructure) and AnaEE (Infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems). INAR RI services include open access to comprehensive multidisciplinary long-term atmosphere-ecosystem observation data, quality-controlled data products and data-model interfaces. User groups include local and global scientific communities, policymakers, public authorities, the private sector, students, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society.
Person in charge at the UEF: Annele Virtanen
Scan4est
The knowledge and experience gained using the Measuring Spatiotemporal Changes in Forest Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (Scan4est) will help to understand spatiotemporal forest structure and functions as well as tree growth. The foundations of the research infrastructure consist of the following elements: laser-scanning change monitoring infrastructure; experimental and automated laser-scanning infrastructure for tree characterization; X-ray microdensitometer for measuring wood properties; test site and key characteristics of trees.
Person in charge at the UEF: Mikko Vastaranta
The ESFRI Roadmap drawn up by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) identifies the research facilities of pan-European importance that correspond to the long-term needs of the European research communities.
Euro-BioImaging
The European Research Infrastructure for Imaging Technologies in Biological and Biomedical Sciences (Euro-BioImaging, EuBI) provides life scientists with an access to state-of-the-art biological and biomedical imaging technologies, data support and training.
The Kuopio Biomedical Imaging Unit at the University of Eastern Finland is part of EuBi trough the Finnish Biomedical Imaging node (FiBI). Its main international-level expertise area is preclinical MRI, but it also provides multimodal in vivo imaging services. The distinct expertise areas at the European level are awake fMRI studies, hyperpolarized MRI and PET/MRI.
UEF contact person: Olli Gröhn
INSTRUCT-ERIC
The Integrated Structural Biology Infrastructure (INSTRUCT-ERIC) is a distributed research infrastructure that provides peer-reviewed access to a broad palette of state-of-the-art technology and expertise as well as training and technique development in the area of integrated structural and cell biology.
As a member of the Instruct-ERIC Centre Finland and the FINStruct network, the University of Eastern Finland provides native mass spectrometry services via access to three state-of-the-art high-resolution mass spectrometry instruments for both academia and industry, nationally and internationally. The top-end instrumentation allows atomic-level characterization of large proteins and their complexes as well as interaction studies with other molecules such as other proteins or drugs.
UEF contact person: Janne Jänis
EATRIS ERIC
The European Advanced Translational Research Infrastructure in Medicine (EATRIS) is a distributed research infrastructure that provides access to the combined expertise and high-end technologies required to develop new products for translational medicine, from target validation to early clinical trials.
The University of Eastern Finland is the coordinator of EATRIS Finland services and technology hubs. UEF’s National Virus Vector Laboratory provides high-quality virus vector manufacturing and QC/QA testing services together with small and large animal biodistribution, safety and efficacy studies for the entire EATRIS-ERIC network.
UEF contact persons: Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, Karin Koivisto and Petri Mäkinen
BBMRI-ERIC
The European Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC) provides researchers and industry with a gateway for access to biobanks and biomolecular resources coordinated by the national nodes, facilitating biomedical and clinical discovery. The Biobank of Eastern Finland is part of BBMRI ERIC via the Finnish national node, BBMRI.fi.
UEF contact person: Veli-Matti Kosma
ICOS ERIC
The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS-ERIC) is a distributed European Research Infrastructure to generate high-precision data and integrate knowledge on the carbon cycle and greenhouse gas budgets and of their perturbations.
The University of Eastern Finland is responsible for two ICOS measuring stations as part of both ICOS Finland and ICOS ERIC. UEF is responsible for both the ecosystem and the atmosphere measuring stations. The Siikaneva station in Ruovesi (SMEAR II, FI-Sii) near the Hyytiälä forestry station measures the exchange of carbon dioxide and methane between the peatland ecosystem and the atmosphere as well as axillary factors following standardized protocols. The measurements, which have continued since 2004, form a valuable and internationally exceptionally long-term series of observations that enables top-level research on the ecosystem's response to the changing climate. The Puijo SMEAR IV station in Kuopio continuously measures the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. The location of the station at the top of Puijo makes it possible to assess the impact of the city's point sources. The material produced by these two stations is actively used by the international research community.
UEF contact person: Eeva-Stiina Tuittila
AnaEE ERIC
The sustainability of agricultural, forested, freshwater and other managed and natural ecosystems is critical for the future of mankind. The Infrastructure for Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems (AnaEE) is a distributed research infrastructure designed to provide the knowledge needed to support a sustainable future. This infrastructure aims, through state-of-the-art experimental facilities, to support forecasting the impacts of climate and land-use changes on ecosystems.
The University of Eastern Finland has an open-air experimental platform, the Lakkasuo-Siikaneva peatland experiment (BorPeat,) located near the Hyyytiälä forestry field station in Juupajoki and in Ruovesi. Through AnaEE Finland, our platform is part of AnaEE ERIC. The experimental platform makes it possible to study peatland biodiversity and functions, e.g., climate regulation, how peatlands respond to climate change impacts and how they are maintained. The BorPeat platform has a unique, long-term experiment of water level drawdown (since year 2000) and warming (since year 2007). The unique experimental platform enables internationally high-quality research and international cooperation through researcher visits.
UEF contact person: Eeva-Stiina Tuittila
ACTRIS
The Aerosols, Clouds and Trace gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) is a pan-European distributed infrastructure dedicated to high-quality observation of aerosols, clouds, trace gases and exploration of their interactions. ACTRIS supports society in responding to global challenges such as poor air quality and climate change.
The University of Eastern Finland has both Observational and Exploratory ACTRIS platforms which belong to the ACTRIS National Facility (NF) list. Puijo SMEAR IV measurement station has two Observational NFs: Aerosol In-situ and Cloud In-situ stations, which offer first-class long-term measurements on aerosols and clouds. The Kuopio Atmospheric Simulation Chambers (KASC) facility is an ACTRIS Exploratory NF. KASC offers outstanding opportunities for investigating atmospheric processes, e.g., of biomass burning and traffic emissions, and is equipped with cutting-edge measurement instrumentation both for aerosols and gases. NFs will be open for transnational access (TNA) for international universities and companies.
UEF contact person: Annele Virtanen
CLARIN ERIC
The Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN) is a distributed research infrastructure that provides easy and sustainable access for scholars in the humanities and social sciences to digital language data and tools.
The CLARIN activities at UEF are hosted in the School of Humanities that acts as a local node in the national FIN-CLARIN consortium that is currently funded by the Academy of Finland FIRI funding (2022–23). We are active in the board, and our researchers actively develop digital language materials and computational tools for analysing a range of language data. UEF scholars specialise in digital language collections that are closely related to our strategic areas of minority languages, parallel corpora from translation, and various born-digital social media materials. The materials and tools developed in CLARIN are actively used in teaching and research, including researcher training.
UEF contact person: Mikko Laitinen
UEF Research Infrastructure Portal
The portal presents the most important research equipment at the University of Eastern Finland and the research units managing them.
