Director’s preface

The Kvantum Institute was established in 2017 to promote, coordinate and strengthen research in the University of Oulu’s (UOULU) strategic focus areas of ‘Sustainable materials and systems’ and ‘Changing climate and northern environment’. The Kvantum Institute coordinates and develops doctoral training in the fields of Science and Technology with the University of Oulu Graduate School (UniOGS). Kvantum’s work is conducted in collaboration with UOULU’s vice rector of research, the Tellus arena and the other three focus institutes at the UOULU. The overall aim is to promote and coordinate research on strategic focus areas of the UOULU. Kvantum also participates in research training, funding and strategy work at the UOULU.

The name “Kvantum” is derived from the Latin quantum, meaning “how much” or “how significant” and is a word that captures the nature of research in the fields of natural sciences and technology.

The backbone of Kvantum is its funded projects and its principal investigators (PIs) and research staff that are expected to take part in its activities. Kvantum allocates strategic university funding to 10–15 projects over four years involving around 15 post-doctoral researchers and 20 PhD students. In addition to these positions, research groups use their own funding and staff. Kvantum aims to promote research collaboration across projects and faculty boundaries to strengthen multidisciplinary research. The activities organised by Kvantum are open to all researchers at the university.

Kvantum’s research includes a wide diversity of research excellence at the UOULU. In the focus area of ‘Sustainable materials and systems’ the research contributes to the sustainable and responsible use of natural resources by creating smart solutions that are based on and combine our expertise in different fields. These range from fundamental materials science to the production and use of superior materials and (bio)catalytic systems, bioeconomics and circular economics, cleantech, ICT, and open data solutions. In the focus area of ‘Changing climate and northern environment’, researchers are seeking to understand near-Earth space, the Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s changing environment. Research is primarily conducted in the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Technology and Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.

I wish to warmly thank all researchers on the strategic projects for their excellent work in the period 2017–2020.

Bjørn Kløve, Professor