Aalto University Magazine 37, February 2026

Tracing hope

Juho Huttunen

12 Theme

Searching for hope with Aaltonians.

Cover

Juho Huttunen photographed fashion designer Enni Lähderinne, researcher Ali Salloum, and Academy Research Fellow Johanna Ahola-Launonen (adjacent image). They are featured in the magazine’s theme article, as well as in the exhibition Laboratory of Hope currently on display on the Aalto University campus.

In the exhibition, members of the Aalto community from different fields share what hope means to them and how they help build a more hopeful society.

The exhibition is on display at Marsio (Otakaari 2, Espoo) until 27 March 2026.

Read more: aalto.fi/marsio

34 Entrepreneurship

Aalto Founder Sprint accelerates students’ business ideas.

Contents

5 Openings Brynna Justice and a student reflect on hope.

6 Now Small news, big matters.

10 Oops! Sakari Ropponen and a trainee’s classic moment of horror.

Theme / Tracing hope

12 Theme Searching for hope with Aaltonians.

19 On science briefly Changing sea ice requires new kinds of icebreakers; Wood outperforms concrete.

20 Who Yuri Kroyan is searching for solutions for the energy sector through statistical modelling.

24 On the go Living inside rock: a tour from tunnels to parking halls.

32 Meet-up Ashish Thapliyal teaches the science of happiness.

34 Entrepreneurship Aalto Founder Sprint accelerates students’ business ideas.

37 On science briefly A new treatment in development for age-related macular degeneration; A materials breakthrough for solar cell technology.

38 Partnership ABB and Aalto develop next-generation solutions for industry.

40 On science Artificial intelligence makes us overestimate our abilities.

42 In-house The Glitch sculpture rose at the heart of the campus.

44 5 things Creativity is an untapped superpower.

46 Doctoral theses Pekka Kyrenius and Finland’s civil defence shelter system; Tuomas Markkula and waiting times in oral healthcare; Bahareh Nasiri and the new life of demolition waste.

48 Everyday choices Frank Martela, is happiness a serious matter?

50 Key figures University results and rankings.

48

Everyday choices

Frank Martela, is happiness a serious matter?

Terhi Hautamäki

Terhi Hautamäki wrote this issue’s On the go article. Hautamäki is a freelance journalist based in Helsinki and is interested in topics such as climate and environmental issues, scientific research, and its impact on society.

’I connect hope to people’s desire to learn and to understand each other and the world. In journalism, hope is a rather tricky concept: our task is not to create unfounded optimism but to look at the world critically and highlight problems – as well as solutions and positive developments. Yet if we remain open to new knowledge, it becomes possible to work toward a better future.’

Alexander Komenda

Aalto University alum Alexander Komenda photographed the On the go story of this issue. Komenda is a Polish-Canadian artistphotographer based in Helsinki. His practice reflects on identity and belonging through everyday encounters and community engagement.

‘To me, hope means returning to the tangible by stepping back from a fragmented hyper-digital existence. Technology is meant to ease our lives, yet its saturation pulls us away from lived experience. Through my work, my aim is to dignify those around me and rethink what it means to be present in our current age.’

Publisher Aalto University, Communications

Editor-in-chief Communications Manager

Anitta Pirnes

Managing editor Paula Haikarainen

Layout/photo editor Dog Design

Cover Juho Huttunen

Contributors in this issue

Matti Ahlgren, Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne, Aava Eronen, Johanna Fagerström, Tiina Forsberg, Riikka Haikarainen, Terhi Hautamäki, Ville Heirola, Sarah Hudson, Mika Huisman, Minna Hölttä, Katrina Jurva, Jaakko Kahilaniemi, Kalle Kataila, Anna Kerttula-Fonseca, Alexander Komenda, Anne Kosola, Tuomas Kärkkäinen, Katja Lahti, Juuli Miettilä, Touko Miikkulainen, Mikael Niemi, Jolle Onnismaa, Liivia Pallas, Ilona Partanen, Aino Pekkarinen, Tiiu Pohjolainen, Kristian Presnal, Marjukka Puolakka, Mikko Raskinen, Mikko Ryhänen, Panu Sainio, Pauliina Seppälä, Sedeer el-Showk, Noora Stapleton, Kasper Suomalainen, Tiina Toivola, Outi Turpeinen, Outi Törmälä, Laura Vaherkoski, Akseli Valmunen, Nita Vera, Sara Vertanen

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Alexander Komenda

Terhi Hautamäki

Why our shared hope matters

Eyes still drowsy, I dragged myself to a morning class this fall. We had a guest: Johanna Ahola-Launonen was lecturing about hope. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t exactly in the mood. The coffee cup (that I was melting into) had somehow already stained my notebook under it, a mark of my existential dread.

I was unexpectedly fascinated. She described situated hope: finding that there’s inequality in the ability to hope, allowing for grief and uncertainty. Hope is often locked up in politics and power, and some things we hope for can hold us back. Yet, there is hope that still pushes us forward.

Hope, to me, is continuing to study sustainability and fight for our collective future despite climate change accelerating biodiversity loss. Hope is an American dream so big that it outgrew the country, eclipsed itself in panic, and still found Finland. The fluctuating hope of international students, including myself, is still believing there is opportunity here despite increasing systemic pressure.

Our diverse hopes and dreams are all together in Otaniemi. It is the engine that keeps this campus alive, but it needs the most talented people from all walks of life to survive. Finland deserves continued investment in its best talents and fully reaping the rewards after graduation. This country cannot afford to lose its brightest minds.

We are ‘a leading university in the happiest country in the world’ and ‘makers of the impossible,’ yet we don’t perform magic tricks. In a sea of 18,000 students, many stand on the shoulders of giants in academia, rely on precarious funding paths, wait anxiously for residency permits, and work while studying. To be in a community within and beyond disciplines, interests, and identity: reality is more astounding due to our sheer effort.

Here, hope embeds itself into our secret and not-so-secret community traditions.

Things we hope for as individuals, bound together, is why our community is so special. My hope for interdisciplinary studies found a place where it isn’t odd for a designer to study engineering and business. The Aalto Foodsharing initiative bakes hope into free banana bread, despite the brown spots not meeting a grocery store’s standards for sale. Here, hope embeds itself into our secret and not-so-secret community traditions. Even if our ability to hope may be unequal, the community here fills the voids with their hope. I hope for them, too. While there isn’t consensus in what we hope for, this hope makes us resilient, brave, and creative, together.

Brynna Justice Aalto University Student Union AYY, Board member

Kalle Kataila

Espoo’s model delivers strong employment results

Espoo’s Competence Centre for Highly Educated Immigrants (KOSKE) has helped 52 percent of its clients find employment in positions matching their qualifications, even though this group is internationally among the most difficult to employ. In 2023, around 500 clients used the service, and 196 of them found jobs. Established in 2021, KOSKE is Finland’s first municipal employment service targeted at unemployed, highly educated jobseekers whose first language is neither Finnish nor Swedish.

The results are based on close cooperation between the City of Espoo and Aalto University, with service design playing a central role. Design methods have been used to develop the service’s content, usability, and client-oriented operating models, improving both effectiveness and internal city processes.

KOSKE supports jobseekers in identifying their strengths and clarifying their career goals, which has significantly contributed to successful employment outcomes. The results have strengthened Espoo’s confidence in human-centred service design, and the city has decided to make KOSKE a permanent service following the pilot period from 2021 to 2025. Cooperation with Aalto University will continue in new development projects.

Sara Vertanen

A new BA programme gives students time to find their field

Aalto University is preparing a new interdisciplinary bachelor’s programme in which students choose their field only after starting their studies. The English-language programme combines content from technology, business, and arts & design, and it offers the possibility to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Technology or Economics. After completing the programme, students may apply to master’s programmes across all Aalto fields.

The goal is to provide a broad foundation for learning and to support young people who are still exploring their interests or feel pressured to make the ‘right’ choice immediately after upper secondary school. ‘This programme helps ease that pressure. More broadly, all initiatives that raise the educational level of young adults in Finland are welcome,’ says Petri Suomala, Vice President for Education.

The programme emphasises strong learning support and close cohort-based study communities. Experiences from the UK and the US show that broad bachelor’s programmes create an excellent basis for high-quality learning and strengthen student motivation.

The first students will start in autumn 2027, with an annual intake of 60. All six Aalto schools are involved in developing the curriculum. The programme will be funded through the university’s core funding and donations, and it has already proven attractive for fundraising.

Jaakko Kahilaniemi

20,000

learners have participated in the Dive into Radical Creativity online course in one year divingintoradicalcreativity.aalto.fi

Major donation launches event business professorship

Aalto University has received a €3.1 million donation from the Finnish Fair Foundation (Suomen Messusäätiö) to establish a Professor of Experience and Event Business at the School of Business. The new position, based in the Department of Marketing, is the first of its kind in Finland and will be funded for 20 years.

The donation aims to strengthen academic research, teaching, and long-term societal impact in the rapidly growing event industry – a sector with an economic value comparable to pharmaceuticals and mining, and which has significant employment effects in Finland.

The university leadership expressed deep gratitude for the support and highlighted the opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration across business, design, and innovation. The appointment process for an internationally distinguished scholar to lead this field will begin soon.

BRILLIANT NEWS

Using register data to support better decision-making

Economists at Aalto University are using extensive register data from Statistics Finland to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of higher education on working life and society. While education is known to improve productivity and labour market outcomes, assessing the precise effects of educational investments has been challenging.

In a project at the Aalto Economic Institute led by Oskari Nokso-Koivisto and Ciprian Domnisoru, anonymised data from student information systems, the Tax Administration’s income register, and Statistics Finland are combined in a novel way. The dataset enables new insights into the career paths of Aalto graduates, different educational pathways within the university, and student selection processes.

The analysis makes it possible to examine, for example, how actively Aalto graduates establish companies, the turnover of these businesses, how continuously graduates from different fields are employed, and how factors such as gender or nationality are reflected in careers and tax contributions.

Register data collected by Statistics Finland are increasingly used to support decision-making across sectors. According to Nokso-Koivisto, when used skilfully they can also strengthen the evidence base for internal decision-making within individual Aalto University schools, and the work has also attracted strong interest from other universities.

Juuli Miettilä

Mika Huisman Over

Kuura Saunawear is a sauna wear collection designed by Krista Virtanen, made using a novel biodegradable fibre derived from Finnish softwood pulp. The textile fibre, developed by Metsä Group, is produced in connection with the Äänekoski bioproduct mill. The company presented the sauna wear collection at the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan.

Sustainability and ecological responsibility guide the work of Krista Virtanen, a fashion and textile designer who graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University’s fashion programme in 2025.

This’n’that was an almost overly modest title for the exhibition on display in the Väre building in October–November 2025. The exhibition featured a rich selection of works showcasing the expertise of workshop masters from the School of Arts, Design, and Architecture, including craft works in wood, metal, and ceramics. Workshops are an integral part of teaching at the school – a place where pedagogy meets hands-on making. Skilled workshop masters ensure the functionality of the workshops and guide students and staff in their use.

Josh Krute,

24 fps / Reframing Cinema is an exhibition project developed in a collaboration between Aalto University’s Department of Film and the Hämeenlinna Art Museum. Students selected artworks from the museum’s collections and created short films, sound works, and screenplays inspired by them. The completed works are exhibited alongside the original collection pieces at the Hämeenlinna Art Museum (Engel Building, Viipurintie 2, Hämeenlinna) until 3 May 2026.

Image: A still from the short film Piilin Reetu, based on a watercolour by visual artist Marjatta Hanhijoki.

Mikko

Ryhänen

Image:

‘Proof’ Collection, pine, linseed oil, pigment.

Liivia

Pallas

Everyday fantasy is embodied in an outfit designed by Enni Lähderinne, which won her the Young Designer of the Year 2025 competition.

The winning design consists of a knitted top and a lower part created using rya rug weaving techniques.

Lähderinne used materials such as tulle fabric from old wedding

dresses, recycled wool yarn found at a reuse centre, and fishing line.

The jewellery worn with the outfit is made from old cutlery.

Enni Lähderinne is a fashion designer who recently graduated with a Master of Arts degree from Aalto University’s fashion programme.

Conceived by the Finnish Fair Corporation and funded by the Finnish Fair Foundation, the Young Designer of the Year competition was held for the 31st time this year, with fantasy as its theme.

Read Enni Lähderinne’s reflections on hope on page 12.

A command that wiped it all

The former chair of the Aalto University Student Union AYY, Sakari Ropponen, vividly remembers a July afternoon from his very first summer job in the field.

Text Paula Haikarainen Illustration Ilona Partanen

‘I was a third-year student of automation and robotics, doing an internship in a job that was typical for the field: running test drives for a robot and monitoring their progress. I had access rights to the company’s test data. The work was mostly routine –you run a test, check that it proceeds as it should, and if a batch goes wrong, you delete it and clean up the unnecessary temporary files. That was what we did day after day.

On a quiet July afternoon, one that required a fair amount of coffee, I was once again typing away, running tests out of habit. While cleaning up after a failed run, I suddenly realised I had entered the wrong command – and understood that I had accidentally deleted the entire test database. The whole historical test dataset. Everything.

My throat tightened and my heart sank into my stomach. In a panic, I started trying to see if there was any way to recover the data. It quickly became clear that the Linux rm command I had used offers no “undo”. It simply wipes everything. I was on the verge of throwing my hands up and berating myself, knowing I had to go and tell what I had done. Years of work – and I, an intern, had just erased it. I went to my supervisor and explained the situation, probably three times over, because I was so shaken. Then I noticed a slight grin on their face.

It turned out that the entire system was backed up daily. That day’s tests were lost, of course, but not years’ worth of data.

The full recovery took three or four hours. I was even given a set of instructions so I could take part in restoring everything myself and fixing my mistake. That felt good, after I had already imagined handing in my notice and perhaps moving to another country.

That moment taught me a lot. I was thanked for speaking up immediately instead of panicking on my own. I learned that no matter how spectacular the mistake, the best way forward is to be honest about what happened – and that it’s always better to have backups.’

Tracing hope THEME

Jane Goodall (1934–2025), a British anthropologist and ethologist, challenged the idea of hope as merely waiting. In her thinking, hope is active. It arises from understanding, moral responsibility, and the desire to make a difference in the world.

This issue brings together perspectives and actions in which hope doesn’t remain just an idea but is turned into action.

12 Theme Searching for hope with Aaltonians.

19 On science briefly Changing sea ice requires new kinds of icebreakers; Wood outperforms concrete.

20 Who Yuri Kroyan is searching for solutions for the energy sector through statistical modelling.

24 On the go Living inside rock: a tour from tunnels to parking halls.

32 Meet-up Ashish Thapliyal teaches the science of happiness.

34 Entrepreneurship Aalto Founder Sprint accelerates students’ business ideas.

Tracing hope

According to the dictionary, hope is the feeling that something desirable is likely to happen. A writer set out to search for hope on the university campus – and encountered fulfilled wishes, critical hope studies, and the kind of hope you have to create for yourself.

designer Enni

wants to create hope for people whose bodies differ from the norm, for example, due to illness.

Text Tiiu Pohjolainen Photos Juho Huttunen

Fashion

Lähderinne

‘Dreams, wishes, fantasies – they inhabit pretty much the same world. Maybe hope is something you can touch just a little more.’

Enni Lähderinne

Seen from afar, the pale outfit looks like a weightless evening gown, its hem ready to lift its wearer off the ground. A closer look reveals that the top is hand-knitted and adorned with jewellery elements reminiscent of old spoons. The lower part turns out to be trousers, covered in thousands upon thousands of hand-tied fringes created using rya weaving techniques.

Enni Lähderinne says she spent over 200 hours tying those fringes. But the effort paid off: the ensemble, complete with a body ornament crafted from old cutlery, won her the title of Young Designer of the Year 2025. The theme of this year’s competition was fantasy.

(See a photo of the winning look on page 9.)

Can hope be touched?

For the competition, Lähderinne interpreted the theme of fantasy through the lens of her late grandmother and her grandmother’s hopes. Her grandmother had once dreamed of becoming an opera singer, but a medical procedure altered her vocal range and redirected her life.

‘Life gave her other paths,’ Lähderinne says. Those paths included conjuring a sense of magic for her family – for example, through clothing. Even her own wedding dress echoed the iconic New Look silhouette of the fashion house Dior. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the fringed lower half of Lähderinne’s award-winning outfit, made from reclaimed yarn and tulle, feels like an homage to Christian Dior’s design language, though crafted with recycled materials and the techniques of Karelian textile tradition.

‘In the project, I also explored what life might have been like if my grandmother’s dream had come true. To me, dreams are essentially wishes. Isn’t a dream just a wish looked at from a distance?’ she reflects.

‘Dreams, wishes, fantasies – they inhabit pretty much the same world. Maybe hope is something you can touch just a little more.’

Wishes fulfilled

Lähderinne describes herself as a naturally positive person who has been a dreamer since childhood. She believes hope – what the future might hold – carries her as a person, not just as a fashion designer.

‘But many of my wishes have already come true,’ she says with a smile.

‘I got into the field I care about, fashion. I’m a clothing designer. I won the competition. I’ve already received recognition. My next hope is to work abroad as a designer.’

Among her achievements, Lähderinne mentions interest from international stylists responsible for dressing major artists. Her fantasy collection piece has already travelled to Spain, and stylists for Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan have inquired about looks from her master’s thesis collection. She values that artists with something to say choose to wear her work. Lähderinne’s design sensibility is, after all, a message in itself.

The beauty of a curved back

Lähderinne may never have become a fashion designer had she not been forced to think differently about clothing as a school-aged child. In early adolescence, she had to wear a back brace 23 hours a day due to Scheuermann’s disease.

The rare, hereditary spine condition is treated with a custom brace that forces the wearer upright during their growing years.

‘As a teenager, I couldn’t dress like everyone else. I had to scour thrift stores for men’s XXL clothes because the brace’s metal frame made everything extremely oversized. I wore it for four years.’

In her Aalto University thesis collection, she examined what kind of relationship a person forms with clothing when they have an atypical body. What does it mean when there is an extra layer between the garment and the body?

‘In that collection, I studied and used Dior again – his feminine ideal is almost poetic. I took, for example, a Dior evening gown silhouette and combined it with the shape of a Scheuermann’s back. I disrupted the harmony – I wanted to show that it is beautiful. I think I succeeded.’

She hopes her work offers something meaningful to people with different bodies or those going through medical treatments.

For doctoral researcher

Ali Salloum, hope goes hand in hand with knowledge and understanding the world.

‘Doesn’t seeing a model on the runway wearing a garment that fits your own exceptional body create hope?’ she asks.

Following engineer-politics

Doctoral researcher Ali Salloum believes we talk far too little about hope. Salloum, who studies political polarisation, argues that hope is a crucial driver in the world and moment we are living in. ‘We’ve been going through difficult times for quite a while. That only amplifies the importance of hope.’

Perhaps surprisingly, Salloum – who graduated as a Master of Science in Engineering – is now preparing a doctoral thesis on political polarisation. ‘We live in a networked world where every person and group is constantly leaving digital footprints. These footprints form massive datasets. To study them, you need computational skills. To uncover statistically significant patterns, you need mathematical models,’ he explains.

His work focuses on the mathematical modelling of polarisation and the use of AI to understand the phenomenon. ‘I’m lucky to study something people are interested in. It makes the work easier when citizens, experts, the state, various stakeholders, and the media all care about what we do.’

Salloum says polarisation has intensified sharply during the four-year period his research group has examined.

Understanding hard things creates hope

Polarisation can arise between two or more groups that, in the worst case, cannot tolerate each other. Research shows such groups tend to view each other as stereotypical and threatening. Polarisation can also be asymmetric, in which one group attempts to strip the other of rights.

It’s a grim topic, and one of Salloum’s data sources is social media. How does he find hope when he sees the content people post online?

He returns to the meaning of his work: ‘I’m privileged to be studying something socially important and to communicate its insights to the public,’ he says. ‘Knowledge increases understanding. Even a complex issue like polarisation feels less frightening when you can make sense of it.’

Salloum leans back in his chair. ‘Hope, for me, comes from the fact that as a species we strive to understand difficult things rather than panic and withdraw.’

Talking openly about polarisation is part of the solution, he adds. ‘Just recognising the phenomenon and understanding its mechanisms makes people more immune to the most extreme thinking patterns and the most harmful consequences.’

Knowledge – education and learning –strengthens that immunity. For Salloum, hope walks hand-in-hand with understanding the world. It is active: something individuals can build alone or with their communities. In difficult times, action itself creates hope.

‘Sometimes you just have to create hope yourself. And that becomes much easier when you understand how the world works and why people behave the way they do.’

Technological optimism is not enough Human behaviour has also puzzled Johanna Ahola-Launonen. She does not understand why people expect technology to solve all problems – structural, social, and political.

‘Why do we always hope for a new technology that will fix everything?’ she asks with an intent look. ‘Well, I do know why. It would be wonderfully easy.’

What she also knows – as an Academy of Finland research fellow – is that technology will not save the planet. She leads the SUSTHOPE project, which studies the expectations, values, and beliefs tied to technological optimism. According to her, relying solely on such optimism in the context of the sustainability transition is doomed to fail.

Hope that encourages people to live without depleting their own or others’ resources can be energising. In contrast, hope built on the idea that a future invention will fix everything becomes paralysing.

‘It gives people an excuse to assume that we can continue our current consumption patterns – and that someone will simply replace dirty materials and energy with clean ones.’

‘Hope, for me, comes from the fact that as a species we strive to understand difficult things rather than panic and withdraw.’

Ali Salloum

Academy Research Fellow Johanna Ahola-Launonen explores technological optimism, which humanity is keen to place its hope in.

Ahola-Launonen emphasises that she approaches hope from the viewpoint of critical hope studies. Hope and optimism are not inherently positive. Hope can also encourage avoidance of responsibility, narrow thinking, or mask power relations. As an example, she cites Western societies’ fixation on technological solutions. Not a single technological innovation, she points out, has reduced the overall flow of energy and materials.

‘Inventions may make things more efficient, but when something becomes more efficient – or greener – people just consume more of it. We are extremely optimistic about our current way of doing things.’

Hope built on oil

‘The ability to hope is shaped by one’s surroundings,’ she says. What we understand as hope is in many ways a modern, Western form of hope – one built on a kind of self-sufficiency tied to fossil fuels.

Finns, Ahola-Launonen notes, are a notably technocratic people. ‘Our optimism is based on trust. We deeply trust science and technology and assume that the progress they generate will serve us.’

She stresses that there is no single form of hope; there are many kinds. She speaks often about the content of hope and the directions it can take.

Where does a sustainability-transition researcher like Ahola-Launonen find hope?

‘Climate facts are still poorly popularised. We are in a moment where there is an enormous body of research that needs to reach people quickly. What gives me hope is the idea that knowledge could help humanity reach a consensus: that the most important thing right now is to bring material and energy flows down significantly.’

‘I hope my work can be one voice countering the illusions of technological optimism or at least putting them in proper perspective.’

She brings her thumb and index finger close together, showing how small a role technological solutions should realistically play in solving the sustainability crisis. Then she spreads her arms wide, illustrating how much more focus should be placed on reducing consumption.

‘The ability to hope is shaped by one’s surroundings.’

Johanna Ahola-Launonen

My Name is Hope –Where is hope found under tyranny?

Aalto University educates film professionals and produces films that may also explore hope. One of the most extraordinary perspectives on hope comes from director-screenwriter Sherwan Haji’s graduate film My Name is Hope (2025).

Most of this fictional short film presents itself through the food hatch of a Syrian solitary confinement cell. What does the absurd everyday life of prison look like when the world seems to have forgotten the prisoners? As the prison’s newest janitor is trained to remove bloodstains from walls as efficiently as possible, flickers of a violent, tyrant-ruled society appear through the hatch.

How does one fight against being forgotten from inside solitary confinement? Where does hope come from when someone is imprisoned for their opinions – or their father’s?

The Arabic-language short leaves an unforgettable mark on the viewer in just twenty minutes. My Name is Hope won the main prize in the domestic competition at the Love & Anarchy Film Festival in autumn 2025.

aalto.fi/marsio

Some reflections by Enni Lähderinne, Ali Salloum, and Johanna Ahola-Launonen are on display in the Laboratory of Hope exhibition at Marsio until 27 March 2026.

Still from the film My Name is Hope.

Wood beats concrete when emissions are priced in

A new study from Aalto University found that a wood-built school is far more cost-effective for society than a concrete one if the environmental impacts of construction materials are converted into euros. The case examined was a timber school and sports hall completed in Myrskylä in 2021; the researchers compared its costs with a hypothetical reinforced-concrete version.

In direct construction costs, the concrete option would have been roughly 4.4% cheaper than the wood version. However, accounting for indirect costs – including greenhouse-gas emissions, impacts on health, ecosystems and the economy, plus the carbon stored in wood – changes the picture entirely.

The study estimates that the embodied emissions of the concrete structure would have been about 40% higher, and when monetised with internationally recognised valuation coefficients, the total cost (direct + environmental) of the concrete building turns out to be about 30% higher than building with wood.

The study’s lead author, doctoral researcher Oana Iliescu, summarises: ‘Wood construction is a competitive choice under all valuation coefficients.’

The results show that by monetising environmental externalities, decision-makers gain a far more realistic assessment of the true cost of construction projects for both society and the environment. The researchers suggest that public procurement criteria and real-estate regulations should reflect these broader costs to promote low-carbon building materials.

Global warming challenges icebreaking technology

Melting and thinning Arctic sea ice is opening new shipping routes, but it’s also increasing safety and design challenges. Aalto University is part of the international ICE-SHIELD consortium formed by Finland, the United States, and Canada to develop solutions for vessels operating in changing ice conditions and to strengthen the countries’ capabilities in the Arctic.

Many vessel types have never been thoroughly tested in ice, even as interest in Arctic routes grows. According to Assistant Professor Mikko Suominen, the research helps assess ship performance, develop new hull designs, and identify efficient routes.

Finland is recognised worldwide as a pioneer in ice-going ship design and construction. Finnish engineers have designed 80% of the world’s icebreakers, and domestic shipyards have built 60% of them.

But maintaining progress requires more funding, as global competition intensifies and investments in the US and Asia grow. Suominen stresses that Europe must boost research to maintain its leadership and that Finland’s strong shipbuilding sector offers an ideal setting for collaboration between research and industry.

Aalto’s Ice and Wave Tank enables unique experiments on wave–ice interaction. Professor Jukka Tuhkuri notes that expanding marginal ice zones and warmer, mechanically different ice types pose new design challenges. As the climate warms, ships must be prepared for far more variable ice conditions.

The wooden school in Myrskylä, located in Uusimaa, Finland was completed in 2021.

Tuomas Kärkkäinen

Modelling sustainable change

Yuri Kroyan, an energy industry associate, develops advanced statistical models to describe and predict how the world can move away from fossil fuels.

Text

Ville Heirola

Researcher Yuri Kroyan isn’t working on easy questions. He’s trying to figure out how alternatives to fossil fuels could better power planes, trains, automobiles and ships. It’s a hugely complex question: one that’s not just about how much fuel cars consume but also about local climates, social factors, economic trends, and infrastructure like roads and refueling stations.

In his work at the energy company Neste, Kroyan, who graduated from Aalto University in late 2022 with a doctorate in energy technology, looks for answers with the help of statistical modelling. As Kroyan’s mathematical models churn out projections of how to best replace carbon-based fuels with renewables, decision-makers from the European Commission to energy industry C-suites pay attention.

But it wasn’t always like that. When Kroyan was supposed to start work at Aalto on a doctoral research project called ADVANCEfuel, he had no idea where to begin.

‘We needed to model the impact of advanced fuel properties on end-use performance, meaning fuel consumption, emissions and stuff like that. But how do you do that so that the model is flexible enough to describe both a single vehicle and an entire country?’

It’s best to pause here and explain that the word ‘advanced’ refers to biofuels made from non-food biomass such as agricultural waste. Biofuels can be blended with or used to replace liquid fossil fuels, which reduces emissions.

H OWThere was almost no data available, but after countless hours the team figured it out.

‘We started looking at the performance of alternative fuels relative to fossil fuels that were taken from the same source. We knew that their properties, like density, octane and cetane numbers, vapor pressure and distillation points, compared to their fossil counterparts. We saw how these properties shifted with changes in fuel consumption.’

That relative analysis cracked it. Kroyan built models that could use existing data points to describe fuel consumption in light-duty gasoline vehicles and aircraft, while his colleague Michał Wojcieszyk built the models for diesel vehicles. After verifying the results and writing a stack of papers, the next step was obvious.

‘We created a tool for the European Commission and European industries to support their regulatory and decision-making processes.’

That’s the gist of statistical modelling: creating reliable predictions from limited data.

‘In general, modelling is about finding the continuity of what you observe. You see certain phenomena, perhaps you have a few points of data. Then you want to understand what is between those points and what lies beyond them. That’s where statistical modelling comes in.’

Statistical modelling is a powerful tool for emerging technologies and vast, complex issues, like decarbonising transportation.

Photos Akseli Valmunen

Doctor of Science

Yuri Kroyan works at Neste.

In the best case, the results steer both public policy and private enterprise. For Kroyan, statistical modeling is a way to affect real change in the world and put his varied background to work.

From physics in Poland to energy in the Nordics

Kroyan already knew as a child that he wanted to use science to help the world. During his bachelor’s studies at Jagellonian University in his native Krakow, Poland, Kroyan was interested in materials science and nanotechnology.

‘It was a thorough education in materials science and physics. I could have stayed there, but I felt then that the impact that the field could have on the world was still too far in the future.’

Then Kroyan had a realisation. ‘I had one thought: the energy sector. It’s a huge contributor to climate change. I started studying and quickly got interested in transportation because it’s challenging and not easily understood, yet everything in our society and economy relies on it.’

After Krakow, Kroyan toured the Nordics and studied energy technology. ‘I was in the Joint Nordic Master’s Programme as a double-degree master. I started at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The second year of that programme took me to Aalto.’

At Otaniemi, he found like-minded individuals eager to use science for good. One was Martti Larmi, now Professor Emeritus at the School of Engineering.

‘Professor Larmi is a fantastic and inspiring leader. I was very lucky because I had an excellent mentor like that and a great team that all became fast friends.’

After graduation, the move from academia to the private sector came naturally. Having worked with Neste on past projects, Kroyan knew they did pioneering research on renewable fuels and, more importantly, he knew his modeling expertise could supercharge it.

‘My background merges physics, chemistry, and maths. Perhaps that helps me see things a bit differently and understand why certain things happen when testing different phenomena.’

Working against the clock

At Neste, Kroyan builds statistical models that tell the company’s decision-makers how to move away from fossil fuels in an impactful way that also makes sense from an investment standpoint. The race is on for the energy sector as Kroyan says the world, the economy, and everything else are on a timer.

‘We take fossil fuels for granted because we have plenty now. But one day they will run out. Power-to-X technologies like hydrogen

and carbon capture are expensive and are still in the early stages, but they will scale well enough to transform the sector in the coming decades.’

According to Kroyan, alternatives like longer hydrocarbon chain fuels, such as renewable diesel or sustainable aviation fuels, could be used in existing infrastructure (as so-called ‘drop-in fuels’) bringing faster and more cost-effective reductions in the carbon footprints for those sectors.

Kroyan points out the challenge is also deeply layered and loops in on itself.

‘For example, electric vehicles are treated as zero-emission vehicles. But there are emissions related to the manufacturing of batteries and the mining and processing of minerals. And then there is the question of what source the electricity comes from.’

Kroyan says addressing climate change by decarbonising global transportation on air, land, and sea has to be comprehensive. ‘All potential technologies should be on the table, from electrification and biofuels to hydrogen and more, to achieve genuine transformation and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. They should go hand-in-hand, because the magnitude of the decarbonisation challenge is so big we cannot afford to pick and choose. Unexpected discoveries can lead to surprising scalability, so it’s crucial not to pick favourites early on.’

Some might be daunted by the sheer scale of the problem, but Kroyan relishes working on it because, simply put, ‘renewable fuels can be better than fossil fuels.’ We just need to find the best technologies and make the right policy decisions to realise their utmost potential. That might take some statistical modelling.

Yuri Kroyan

/ Graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology from Jagellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

/ Studied in the Joint Nordic degree programme, graduated in 2018 with a double-degree Master’s in Innovative Sustainable Energy Engineering.

/ Doctoral researcher in Professor Emeritus Martti Larmi’s Thermodynamics and Combustion Technology research group. Completed a doctorate in Energy Technology at the School of Engineering in 2022.

/ School of Engineering’s publication of the year for the paper “Modeling the effects of fuel properties on end-use performance in light-duty road transport and aviation” (2022).

/ Associate at Neste since 2022 with a focus on gasoline, aviation, and powertrains. Won Neste CEO’s Innovation Award 2022.

Life inside the rock

Building underground calls for research and expertise from many fields. We descended into a tunnel right from the Aalto University campus.

Students of the European Mining Course MA programme listen to Aalto University researcher Mateusz Janiszewski in an underground “lecture hall”.

It is convenient: a tunnel just a stone’s throw from the lecture halls.

Laboratory engineer Otto Hedström guides visitors below ground. A small statue of Saint Barbara stands at the entrance to the test tunnel, welcoming visitors. The saint protects those working with artillery and explosives, and in many European countries she’s an important symbol for tunnelling and mining.

Hedström’s job is to take care of the test tunnel. He assists researchers and research groups in their projects and teaches students hands-on skills such as rock drilling. The ‘classroom’ in a cavern niche consists of a long table, benches, and presentation equipment. The tunnel is filled with tools of all sizes.

‘We have everything needed for small-scale tunnel construction. The yellow pipes overhead are for ventilation. If we do something that produces a lot of smoke or dust, we’ve got a solid ventilation system,’ Hedström explains.

Accompanying us are students from the European Mining Course master’s programme. Understanding rock and underground conditions is essential in both mining engineering and rock construction.

A former mining engineer, Hedström says curiosity about what lies underground led him to the field. Tunnels and rock structures were a mystery he wanted to understand.

‘For me, it’s a fascinating combination of practical work inside the tunnel and collaboration with research groups – turning theoretical research questions into practice.’

Text Terhi Hautamäki

Photos Alexander Komenda

Saint Barbara protects those working with explosives and adorns the test tunnel.

Explosives and imaging

Cubes attached to the rock wall bear markers that can be automatically recognised by computers. Here, researchers study imaging methods: LiDAR scanning, photogrammetry and the Gaussian splatting visualisation technique. Imaging allows analysis of rock mass stability, displacements, and weaknesses.

There is a key difference between construction above and below ground: on the surface you add material; underground you remove it. Assistant Professor Lauri Uotinen says the biggest challenge is that the rock is already under stress.

‘We have everything needed for small-scale tunnel construction.’

When material is removed – by open-pit excavation or tunnelling – the stress field changes. ‘You must ensure the rock remains stable and doesn’t collapse on you. Once you have the desired shape, you use shotcrete and rock bolts, and in some cases safety nets, to ensure the structure remains stable throughout its lifecycle.’ Bolts in the ceiling prevent large blocks from falling, while shotcrete on the walls prevents smaller fragments from coming loose.

Austrian students Paul Riener and Norman Schillinger on a rock drilling machine.

In the test tunnel, cutting-edge research and traditional work coexist. Automation, digitalisation, and remote operations are now central to rock engineering and mining, and students are exposed to all of it. Reducing emissions is another major theme: Aalto researchers are developing recycled and biopolymer materials to replace shotcrete, for example.

But now, the students climb aboard an orange 1980s-era work machine –this time just for photos. The machine is still operational but is awaiting repair. It drills holes in rock to be filled with dynamite for blasting.

‘As you can see, the walls are full of holes. It’s getting hard to find a spot that hasn’t been drilled. In the future, we’ll extend the tunnel below this level,’ Hedström says.

Holes in one wall are marked in different colours. Hedström explains that this simulates real tunnel construction: small detonators create a controlled blast.

‘It makes a lot of noise and smoke, but the blast isn’t strong enough to fracture the rock. You can’t compare this to a PowerPoint in a classroom – once students have done this, they remember it.’

Collaboration across disciplines

Building into rock is a multi-stage process requiring expertise from many fields. Uotinen says everything starts with geological investigations: geologists drill holes and inspect core samples or perform geophysical measurements on site. ‘This allows us to characterise the rock and determine the best location for the project and whether there are weak

zones or water-bearing areas that must be considered.’

Rock-construction professionals design the spaces. Many underground projects now also include the work of architects, just like any above-ground construction.

‘From there, construction becomes very similar to what happens above ground: you have structural engineers and designers for electrical, HVAC and automation systems.’

Good lighting design is crucial underground, as there is no natural light. Fire safety and ventilation also require special attention. ‘If a fire starts in a rock cavern, the space fills with smoke quickly. You must plan pressurised escape shafts and routes so visibility is maintained and people can evacuate. Winter brings other problems: if sub-zero air is blown in, ice can start forming, so the air needs preheating.’

Being underground doesn’t feel pleasant for most people. Comfort can be improved through surface materials, lighting, and sound design. Large halls and tunnels often have abundant signage – far more than above ground.

‘After five minutes underground, you have no idea which direction you’re going. Wayfinding is essential,’ Uotinen says.

The metro reshapes the city

An orange metro train brakes into Tapiola station, and passengers hurry on and off.

Laboratory engineer Otto Hedström helps researchers and guides students in the test tunnel.

A significant share of Helsinki-region residents travel underground every day: on a typical weekday, the metro carries 257,000 passengers (HSL, October 2024).

The ceiling offers an example of design’s many functions: 108 lighting domes act as acoustic dampers, illuminate the platform, and conceal speakers and sprinkler nozzles.

Aalto’s research fields and alum expertise are visible everywhere in the underground construction: in technical structures, in the functionality of spaces, and in their atmosphere. In Tapiola, one visible ‘fingerprint’ is Kim Simonsson’s artwork Emma Leaves a Trace. The large sculpture has paint smudges on its palm, and the colours appear throughout the station as if a giant had wiped the walls while passing by.

Recognisable features of each station help passengers orient themselves. If the stations

flashed by identically, the underground could feel far more claustrophobic.

The West Metro is more than a means of transport: it was a major urban development project. In his 2019 doctoral thesis, Oskari Harjunen – now an assistant professor of real estate economics – found that prices of older apartments near metro stations rose by 4–5% due to the metro even before operations began.

To isolate the impact of the metro, he compared prices to similar areas not affected by the project. ‘The housing market looks ahead. When there’s enough certainty about a major investment, the expectation becomes capitalised into prices,’ Harjunen says.

The metro transforms the city in ways beyond improving connections. By increasing transport capacity, it enables the construction of more housing around stations, which in

This wall is used to simulate tunneling.

Students of the European Mining Course get acquainted with practical work.

turn attracts more services and can further increase an area’s desirability.

As part of a Helsinki-region research collaboration, Harjunen is studying how the metro has affected travel behaviour and whether it has reduced car use. Researchers have access to datasets such as vehicle inspection records, which are processed so that individuals cannot be identified. They are also examining the metro’s effects on companies and their productivity.

‘Large rail-transit projects are planned across the region. Research gives valuable insight into the kinds of impacts to expect and greatly supports cost-benefit analyses.’

Everyday life underground

Many metro stations, sports facilities, and parking halls also serve as civil defence shelters. This is the case with the vast parking garage beneath the Forum shopping centre in Helsinki. The massive steel doors of the rock shelter can withstand shrapnel, pressure, and gas, and the equipment is mounted on springs to absorb shock.

Life in the capital region extends deeply into the bedrock. Underground, people lift weights, swim, skate, shop and eat, and enjoy culture – from Amos Rex to Espoo’s Kannusali. Out of sight lie other essential functions: a wastewater treatment plant and a combined heating and cooling facility.

Why does it make sense to build underground? First, it’s about building where it’s

possible. Professor of urban economics Tuukka Saarimaa says one motive is that urban space is limited and high-rise construction is restricted. ‘If Helsinki wants to maintain a relatively low skyline and demand for space is high, underground construction may become viable even though it’s expensive.’

Parking regulations matter too: the city requires a certain number of parking spaces for residential buildings, though Helsinki recently removed the requirement across a large part of the downtown area.

Parking-hall costs feed into housing prices.

‘In some areas, mandatory parking may limit housing supply – fewer homes get built than would be if parking weren’t required. People value parking, but you have to consider whether they’re willing to pay what it costs.’

Large infrastructure projects lock in land-use decisions long into the future. Their viability is weighed by comparing costs to expected benefits – such as tunnelproject costs versus shortened travel times, reduced congestion, and improved air quality. These calculations involve uncertainties: for example, estimates for the proposed

Paul Riener and Norman Schillinger are taking measurements of the rock.

Art at metro stations makes underground spaces more comfortable and recognisable.

West Harbour tunnel rely on forecasts of future port traffic.

Underground planning must anticipate future needs despite uncertainty. Helsinki has several ‘ghost metro stations,’ built just in case, because adding them later would be harder and more expensive. The newest reserved space lies beneath Mall of Tripla in Pasila. But no metro is coming there anytime soon – if ever.

The Forum parking garage in Helsinki serves as a public shelter, as do many other underground spaces in the city.

Student folklore in the tunnels

Underground tunnels and caves evoke mystery and excitement – especially in Otaniemi, where the local ‘catacombs’ form part of long-standing student lore. Several kilometres of tunnels crisscross inside the bedrock. Below ground lie large civil-defence shelters and VTT’s research halls.

The catacombs – and the fate of ending up there – have appeared in Wappurieha (Wappu celebration) speeches, and over the years students have even held anniversary dinners and ‘sitsit’ banquets inside the rock. Real and embellished stories tell of mishaps and odd twists of fate underground in Otaniemi. For some students, the appeal stems from their studies in rock construction, minerals, and geology – but perhaps most are simply drawn to these intriguing spaces.

In Ossi Törrönen’s 1991 story collection Ossin parhaimmat lässyt (~ Ossi’s best pranks), the ‘atom cave’ appears in many legends. One tale involves ‘Nordic police chiefs driving Porsches in the atom cave,’ stemming from a PR officer’s desire to entertain visiting police leaders with a student prank.

There was even said to be a small underground lake for a while, presented to visiting Swedish students as a ‘miracle spring.’ One student demonstrated its powers by wishing, ‘Jag vill gärna ha en flaska öl.’ The guests watched in astonishment as someone emerged from the water like the sea monster Iku-Turso, not with a single bottle but with an entire crate of beer.

Nice to meet you, Ashish Thapliyal!

Who are you and what is your role at Aalto?

I am a doctoral researcher in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. I study employee well-being and happiness in the context of future work trends.

In my research, I aim to understand what factors support psychological wellbeing and how these elements can be integrated into workplaces.

In my doctoral dissertation, I examine how remote work affects our human needs. Research shows that employee wellbeing is influenced by their experience of autonomy, a sense of relatedness among colleagues, and opportunities to develop one’s skills and enhance one’s sense of competence.

For instance, remote work may reduce social interaction, but the feeling of autonomy can increase. So it’s not straightforward for employers to determine the optimal balance between in-office and remote work.

You teach an Aalto University Summer School course called Happiness Science from Finland. What is the science of happiness?

The science of happiness brings insights from economics, philosophy, psychology, and behavioural science to understand what makes life truly good – not just fleeting pleasure but lasting well-being.

We discuss classical theories like Aristotle’s eudaimonia and modern theories of motivation and well-being such as Self-Determination Theory and Subjective Well-Being. We also look at why Finland and the Nordic countries consistently rank so high in happiness and what social and cultural factors help people flourish here.

Is the course science or therapy?

The course is not therapy, as we do not address personal problems of participants. It is about understanding what supports human flourishing. We use research findings and real-world data. Students learn

Text Aino Pekkarinen

Nita Vera

why certain actions – like connecting with others or pursuing meaningful goals –enhance happiness.

However, many students have reported that studying the science of happiness was personally transformative, and the course changed how they look at their own happiness.

How does industrial engineering and management relate to happiness?

Improving employee well-being has been shown to correlate strongly with employee productivity, organizational profitability, and reduced staff turnover.

The responsibility for better well-being doesn’t rest solely on employees, and poor leadership cannot be remedied with gratitude journals. Leaders need to ensure that employees can experience autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

Before becoming a researcher, I worked for 20 years in the technology sector in both India and Finland. I’ve seen what happens when people are managed like machines: they burn out and disengage from work, which leads to worse results for the organisation.

I came to Finland in 2013 to complete my master’s degree at Aalto. Our family was initially planning to return to India, but conducting research at Aalto felt rewarding. The children’s daycare and school, along with our everyday life, were so smooth and secure that we decided to stay. We found happiness here.

An international academic summer at Aalto

Aalto University Summer School offers future-led courses across various fields from the university. The teaching emphasises a societal perspective and collaboration with industry. The summer school also organises social activities.

The registration deadline for the Happiness Science from Finland course is 31 May 2026.

Photo

Ashish Thapliyal teaches ‘happiness science’. His insights are presented at the Laboratory of Hope exhibition in Marsio until 27 March 2026.

The runway for an entrepreneurial journey

Aalto Founder Sprint is a growthentrepreneurship training programme tailored for ambitious students. Two participants in the very first Sprint, Oliwia Kaczmarek and Emil Pekkinen, share what they learned in 13 weeks about building a company and about themselves.

Oliwia: I was already thinking about entrepreneurship when I applied to Aalto University. So, when I saw the announcement for the very first Aalto Founder Sprint, I sent in my application right away.

I built my startup with two co-founders: Giulia Rinaldo, who is the idea owner, and Luca Buonarrivo. You don’t need a business idea to apply – what matters most is potential, ambition, and a genuine desire to build something

of your own. You need to show that you’re ready to take action and solve problems.

Emil: I’ve been involved in Aalto’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and in Junction, one of Europe’s largest hackathon organisers. I was excited to join the first Aalto Founder Sprint and become part of the entrepreneurial community forming around it. Of course, the knowledge and networks offered by the programme were a huge draw as well.

Text Minna Hölttä

Photos Kristian Presnal

Students participating in the new entrepreneurship programme visited the Slush event in November 2025. This year, 12 new innovations were presented at Aalto’s stand.

Crushing and instructive

Oliwia: The Aalto Founder Sprint lasted 13 weeks and consisted of three phases. In the first phase, all seven participants worked together on background research and interviews. In the second, we split into two teams to develop product concepts and pitch them to investors. The third phase focused on market entry and refining our sales strategy.

Emil: Every week we visited companies or met with entrepreneurs. Talking to potential customers was challenging, but it taught us a lot about what it really takes to start a business – typing away on your laptop simply isn’t enough. In just four weeks, we had to create a product from scratch and then present it to one of Finland’s top venture capitalists. On stage, reality hit: we weren’t prepared well enough.

Oliwia: The two-hour marathon of questions felt crushing in the moment, but ultimately it was an excellent learning experience. We also got a valuable tip: in a tough situation, start asking questions yourself instead of going silent. Preparation matters, but your product prototype doesn’t have to be polished before you start selling. Sometimes you don’t even need a fully formed product idea. When you share your idea with people, their feedback guides its development. But first, you need to clarify who

your future customers are – you can’t listen to everyone.

Emil: A key lesson for me was that you can only do one thing at a time if you want to do it well.

Oliwia: I also tend to jump into everything that interests me without first thinking about where the hours will come from.

A way to change the world

Oliwia: There are many things in the world I’m not satisfied with. For me, entrepreneurship is the most effective way to change them.

I come from an arts background. In art, the most rewarding part is seeing the journey from idea to sketch to finished piece – usually through many twists and turns. The same applies to founding and growing a company.

Emil: For me, becoming an entrepreneur is a chance to do what I truly care about while tackling big global challenges. As an entrepreneur, I can shape my work and my life in a way that feels authentic to me.

I’ve watched my brother’s journey as a growth entrepreneur up close. I also worked at Swappie, which sells refurbished iPhones, when it had fewer than 100 employees. Seeing how much a small team can achieve was incredibly inspiring and pushed me toward entrepreneurship.

First, I want to expand the hackathon community even further and

bring more top talent to Finland. In ten years, I’m sure I’ll be building my own team and product – and hopefully my own growth company, maybe in robotics.

Oliwia: My company currently makes yarn from algae. In the future, algae-based materials could be used in everything from biomedicine to fashion and fishing. But the local scale won’t be enough for me or my company. Ten years from now, we aim to be a global player influencing not just individuals or single countries – but the entire world.

Let’s just do it

Emil: Wolt CEO Marianne Vikkula has a motto that fits entrepreneurship perfectly: Let’s just do it.

Oliwia: Entrepreneurs should surround themselves with smart and ambitious people who motivate them to set the bar high. Courage matters more than perfection, because the early stages of entrepreneurship are full of constant course corrections. Pivoting is the key.

Emil: For anyone considering Aalto Founder Sprint, I’d say you should absolutely apply – and commit 100 percent. If you give it your all, you’ll gain the skills you need to start a company.

Oliwia: The programme and its instructors are incredibly flexible. Speak up about what you want to learn – the programme will adapt.

Aalto Founder Sprint is part of Aalto’s entrepreneurship programme, Aalto Founder School, which launched in autumn 2025. The Sprint lasts 13–15 weeks and combines in-depth learning modules with personalised coaching, and each cohort includes only a small group of selected students. In addition to Aalto Founder School staff, the coaches and mentors include experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

Aalto Founder School also includes entrepreneurship courses open to all Aalto students, as well as the public Aalto Founder Talks lecture series, in which seasoned entrepreneurs share their insights and experiences. Entrepreneurship is taught using the latest research in each field, combined with hands-on student projects. Students can even compile a full minor from the courses.

Aalto Founder School shares the Finnish startup community’s common goal: to create at least 100 new companies with over €100 million in revenue by 2050.

Oliwia Kaczmarek studies International Design Business Management at the Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering, and Emil Pekkinen is a master’s student in Business Analytics at the Aalto University School of Business. They are pictured at the startup event Slush.

Towards lightweight, flexible, and colourful solar cells

Researchers from Aalto University, University of Cambridge, and their international collaborators have discovered that carbon-based organic radicals can function as highly efficient semiconductors.

The study shows that these radicals can be used to create a new class of semiconductors that convert all absorbed light into electrical charges. Organic radicals – carbon-based molecules with an unpaired electron – can act as single-material semiconductors without the need for precisely engineered combination of two materials that conventional organic solar cells require to generate and transport charges.

It is the lone electron that makes radicals exceptionally efficient charge carriers. When a thin film of radicals is exposed to light, electrical charges are generated and separated from each other with ideal 100% efficiency, meaning that all absorbed light can be transformed into electrical charges.

The discovery opens a new path for lightweight, flexible, and even colour-tunable thin-film solar cells. Organic radical materials can be deposited as layers only 100 nanometres thick, enabling the creation of modules that weigh just a few hundred grams and can be integrated into windows, wearable electronics, or other curved surfaces. Production is also easy to scale up.

According to Academy Research Fellow Petri Murto, radicals’ ability to generate charges without energy loss could lead to highly energyefficient devices.

New macular degeneration treatment

Dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affects millions of people, and there’s currently no effective treatment. Researchers at Aalto University have now developed a method that may halt the disease in its early stages. The study was published in Nature Communications.

As we age, retinal cells become stressed by reactive oxygen compounds that damage proteins. These damaged proteins clump together into fatty deposits called drusen, the key sign of dry AMD. The new treatment strengthens the cells’ natural defence systems that repair or remove such damage.

Cells can use heat-shock proteins to refold misfolded proteins. If that fails, the damaged proteins are broken down into smaller components. Larger aggregates are cleared via the cell’s internal recycling system, a process called autophagy that isolates and digests faulty material.

Professor Ari Koskelainen’s group showed that warming retinal tissue with near-infrared light to about 45°C activates heat-shock proteins and autophagy at the same time. The process acts like cellular waste removal, improving cell survival and reducing damage.

The team has founded the company Maculaser to support commercialisation, and the therapy could reach patients in a few years.

Petri Murto

Next-generation solutions for industry

Aalto University and ABB share a long-term strategic partnership that spans education, research, and lifewide learning. The collaboration involves all six of Aalto’s schools and focuses particularly on electrification, automation, and the circular economy.

Text Anne Kosola, Paula Haikarainen

Illustration Juuli Miettilä

Extensive collaboration in degree training

ABB experts contribute to Aalto’s teaching by giving guest lectures and providing engaging project topics for students.

Each year, Aalto students complete 25–30 master’s theses projects for ABB.

Student groups visit ABB several times a year, and the company actively participates in Aalto’s career and recruitment events.

ABB is a Premium Partner of the School of Business and has its own dedicated lecture hall in Aalto’s Undergraduate Centre.

ABB also works closely with Aalto Executive Education and Professional Development, especially through tailored programmes for the company such as the annual ABB Manager programme, which is designed for professionals in leadership roles.

20 doctoral theses in

progress

Doctoral collaboration is also active: more than 20 doctoral dissertations are currently underway in joint research projects, and three new doctoral studies began in autumn 2025 as part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s doctoral pilot programme.

The partnership has produced 113 research articles between 2016 and 2024.

Research collaboration is particularly strong in the control of electric drives and grid converters, as well as in research related to the use of artificial intelligence.

ABB employs many Aalto alumni

More than 650 Aalto alumni work at ABB (Source: LinkedIn), and the number of PhDs in the company’s workforce has grown in recent years from just a few to several dozen.

‘To maintain our market leadership in the frequency converter business, our products must be the best in the world in terms of competitiveness, features, reliability, performance, and cost-effectiveness. Through university partnerships, we ensure that we have the necessary expertise to do this. ABB Drives currently has 50 PhDs working in Helsinki.’

Matti Kauhanen, VP, Technology Manager, ABB Drives

‘The time span of a doctoral thesis is longer than that of current product development. Dissertations can also be risky and involve trying something completely new, and doctoral students look at things with an open mind. There are risks, but there’s also the potential for groundbreaking insights.’

Jorma Kyyrä, Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University

ABB in brief

/ Over 135 years of history. Electrical engineering pioneer Gottfrid Strömberg founded a company in Helsinki in 1889 which rose to become one of Finland’s most significant industrial enterprises thanks to its innovative electrical machines. Today, it is part of the global ABB Group.

/ Located next to ABB’s factory in Pitäjänmäki, Helsinki, the company’s leading global R&D unit for frequency converters forms one of the world’s largest power electronics hubs, together with local universities.

/ ABB Group is a global technology leader in electrification and automation, with around 110,000 employees. Its headquarters is in Zurich, Switzerland.

/ Key product areas include power distribution, industrial automation, motors, drives, and ship propulsion systems.

/ ABB employs around 5,500 people in Finland in about 20 locations and is the Helsinki region’s largest industrial employer.

AI use makes us overestimate our cognitive performance

New research warns we shouldn’t blindly trust Large Language Models with logical reasoning – stopping at a single prompt limits ChatGPT’s usefulness more than users realise.

Text Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne, Sarah Hudson Illustration Tuomas Kärkkäinen

When it comes to estimating how good we are at something, research consistently shows that we tend to rate ourselves as slightly better than average. This tendency is stronger in people who score low on cognitive tests. It’s known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE) – the worse people are at something, the more they tend to overestimate their abilities, and the ‘smarter’ they are, the less they realise their true abilities.

However, a study led by Aalto University reveals that when it comes to AI – specifically, Large Language Models (LLMs) – the DKE doesn’t hold, with researchers finding that all users show a significant inability to assess their performance accurately when using ChatGPT. In fact, across the board, people overestimated their performance. On top of this, the researchers identified a reversal of the Dunning-Kruger Effect – an identifiable tendency for those users who considered themselves more AI literate to assume their abilities were greater than they really were.

‘We found that when it comes to AI, the DKE vanishes. In fact, what’s really surprising is that higher AI literacy brings more overconfidence,’ says Professor Robin Welsch ‘We would expect people who are AI literate to not only be a bit better at interacting with AI systems but also at judging their performance with those systems – but this was not the case.’

The finding adds to a rapidly growing volume of research indicating that blindly trusting AI output comes with risks, like

‘dumbing down’ people’s ability to source reliable information and even workforce de-skilling. While people did perform better when using ChatGPT, it’s concerning that they all overestimated their performance.

‘AI literacy is truly important nowadays, and therefore this is a very striking effect. AI literacy might be very technical, and it’s not really helping people actually interact fruitfully with AI systems’, says Welsch.

‘Current AI tools are not enough. They are not fostering metacognition [awareness of one’s own thought processes] and we’re not learning about our mistakes,’ adds doctoral researcher Daniela da Silva Fernandes ‘We need to create platforms that encourage our reflection process.’

Why a single prompt is not enough

The researchers designed two experiments where some 500 participants used AI to complete logical reasoning tasks from the US’s famous Law School Admission Test (LSAT). Half of the group used AI and half didn’t. After each task, subjects were asked to monitor how well they performed – and if they did that accurately, they were promised extra compensation.

‘These tasks take a lot of cognitive effort. Now that people use AI daily, it’s typical that you would give something like this to AI to solve, because it’s so challenging,’ Welsch says.

The data revealed that most users rarely prompted ChatGPT more than once per question. Often, they simply copied the question, put it in the AI system, and were happy with the AI’s solution without checking or second-guessing.

‘We looked at whether they truly reflected with the AI system and found that people just thought the AI would solve things for them. Usually, there was just one single interaction to get the results, which means that users blindly trusted the system. It’s what we call cognitive offloading, when all the processing is done by AI,’ Welsch explains.

This shallow level of engagement may have limited the cues needed to calibrate confidence and allow for accurate self-monitoring. It’s therefore plausible that encouraging or experimentally requiring multiple prompts could provide better feedback loops, enhancing users’ metacognition, he says.

So what’s the practical solution for everyday AI users?

‘AI could ask the users if they can explain their reasoning further. This would force the user to engage more with AI, to face their illusion of knowledge, and to promote critical thinking,’ da Silva Fernandes says.

The study was published in October 2025 in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

Flash in stone

Text Outi Turpeinen, Noora Stapleton

Photo Mikko Raskinen

A new public artwork has appeared in the middle of Otaniemi. Laura Könönen’s Glitch is an inspiring and thought-provoking piece that combines natural materials with the complexity of the human mind.

The sculpture presents a stone that seems to have been torn in half, revealing a black space where lonely planets wander, with occasional colourful flashes shimmering on their surfaces as light hits them. Through small, colourful reflections, the artwork offers the idea of new thoughts emerging, enabled by creative interaction among people from different fields.

The artist drew inspiration from fascinating discussions with neuroscientists, which provided her with a new perspective on the unexpected ways things can connect.

Könönen used black diorite from Varpaisjärvi and spectrolite, reflecting the colours and shapes of the campus architecture.

Laura Könönen’s Glitch is located on a prime spot on the Otaniemi campus, in the area between the Undergraduate Centre (Otakaari 1) and Marsio (Otakaari 2).

Aalto University adheres to the percentfor-art principle in its construction projects, allocating about one percent of its budget for art acquisitions.

More information: aalto.fi/publicart

Creativity is an untapped superpower

Creativity is not the preserve of artists or a rare innate talent but a human capacity we all share – and one that can be measured, developed, and led for. The two-year

Creative Leap project explored how creativity shows up in everyday life and work, and how it connects to companies’ financial results. Here are five key takeaways.

Text Tiina Forsberg

Touko Miikkulainen

1. Creativity supports better health

Creativity is part of daily problemsolving: adjusting schedules, finding workarounds, or inventing new ways to deal with routine tasks. It helps people adapt to change and manage life’s hassles – which is why it is closely tied to wellbeing. Studies show that creative self-expression supports both physical and mental health and may even influence immune function.

Creativity is also tied to selfactualisation and experiencing life as meaningful. Real learning is not rote memorisation but is about connecting new information to our own experiences and shaping it into our own understanding – a creative act.

2. Creativity thrives on trust

The project examined how leadership and organisational culture shape whether creativity can emerge at all. The findings were clear: creativity flourishes in cultures where diverse ideas are genuinely valued, regardless of who voices them.

Creative sparks often ignite in informal encounters – at the coffee machine, in corridors, over lunch, or between meetings – when people feel safe enough to share thoughts that are still taking shape.

Psychological safety, belonging, and mutual trust are essential

conditions for creativity. When people feel seen and heard, they dare to question assumptions, ask ‘stupid’ questions, and acknowledge uncertainty.

Creative work also needs time, space, and permission to experiment – and to fail without punishment. Ultimately, creativity is a leadership issue: leaders must cultivate environments where different skills and perspectives meet, trust can grow, and the joy of work is sustained.

3. Leading creativity is the bottleneck

Creativity is no longer an immeasurable mystery. The project developed new metrics for both individual and organisational creativity.

The researchers found that companies have vast creative potential, much of which remains untapped. The challenge usually isn’t people’s creativity but how it is led for.

Lack of time and resources, efficiency-driven cultures, low tolerance for risk, and discomfort with uncertainty all constrain experimentation. Creative ideas fall flat without supportive structures and leadership.

The study also identified what effective creative leadership looks like: a psychologically safe climate, active knowledge sharing, and a genuine commitment to renewal.

4. Creativity shows up in the bottom line

A central question was whether creativity is visible in financial results. To explore this, the researchers compared creativity measures with companies’ performance.

The results were striking: firms that were above-average in terms of both individual creativity and having a creativity-supporting culture were far more likely to outperform their industry peers. Organisations scoring low on both were more often underperformers.

The analysis showed that the link between a creative culture and financial success is stronger than the link between individual creativity and performance. Leadership again emerged as crucial.

Creativity is not a soft extra – it is a capability that shows up directly in the bottom line.

5. AI cannot replace human creativity

The findings revealed several tensions in the use of AI. Generative AI is fast and often helpful but its output is not always reliable, and over-reliance on it can narrow human thinking.

AI recombines existing information; humans make the creative leap – understanding context, tacit knowledge, and nuance in ways current systems cannot.

For now, the technology works best as an assistant in creative processes: suggesting options, accelerating drafting, and helping to get started, while humans make the final judgements, evaluate quality, and take responsibility. Creativity is not replaced by AI – it evolves alongside it.

Illustration

Doctoral theses

Approximately 250 doctors of technology, business, arts and philosophy graduate from Aalto University each year. The largest number of doctorates is completed in the tech fields.

A cost-effective shelter network for the people

Aalto University doctoral programmes are designed to be completed in four years when studying full-time or in eight years if studying part-time.

Finland has approximately 50,500 civil defence shelters providing protection for about 4.8 million people. The country’s shelter system is the most comprehensive in the Nordics, and its development can be considered a success story: using the equivalent of roughly three years of its defence budget, Finland has built an extensive and cost-effective shelter network.

‘In an actual emergency, the shelters offer a reasonable level of protection for nearly the entire population. However, the environment is uncomfortable, as it would be crowded, noisy, hot and humid,’ says Pekka Kyrenius, who examined the development of Finnish civil defence shelter regulation from 1954 to 2011 in his doctoral thesis.

In the 1950s, the main concern was air raids and the use of nerve gases. Since then, threat assessments have been updated to reflect new risks, such as effects of nuclear strikes near Finland and attacks by drones.

As climate change brings increasingly hot summers, improving temperature control in shelters has become essential. Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine are also reshaping how shelters would be used.

‘A distinctive strength of Finland’s civil defence system is its funding model. The cost of constructing shelters is borne by property owners, not taxpayers.’

Building civil defence shelters is mandated by legislation. Kyrenius’s research provides tools for the upcoming reform of the shelter decrees and technical regulations, scheduled to begin in 2026. His findings can also be applied to the design and inspection of shelters.

Kyrenius received the Finnish Security Awards Researcher of the year 2025 prize.

Pekka Kyrenius 17.6.2025:

The Finnish Civil Defence Shelter System – Evolution of the regulation and technical specification 1954–2011

Doctoral theses can be interdisciplinary: they can include parts from other fields of research, for example, on art in a technology thesis or vice versa.

Texts Marjukka Puolakka

There are 3,200 doctoral students representing 95 different nationalities. Approximately 1/3 are doctoral researchers working at Aalto.

Join the dental care queue or pay extra for a private clinic?

Public and private dental care hardly affect each other in Finland, according to Tuomas Markkula’s doctoral thesis. Markkula examined the dental care market, where patients queue for affordable public treatment while private services are available quickly for a higher price.

Consumers rarely change their dental clinic, even though they have options.

‘People tend to stay with the same dental clinic because the quality of care only becomes evident after experience. A long-term relationship can also improve care quality as the dentist gets to know the patient’s situation. Switching often means a new dentist and uncertainty about the quality of care,’ Markkula explains.

When the choice is between waiting in line for public care or paying more for faster service in the private market, people are split: some tolerate queues, while others pay for speed.

‘Moderately shortening queues by adding resources hardly increases competition. Although some customers move to the public sector when queues shorten, they are exactly the ones who would leave first if prices rose again. Therefore, private providers feel little pressure to lower their prices.’

Low-income patients benefit less from expanding public services, as they use dental care relatively infrequently and are more willing to tolerate queueing than high-income patients.

If both sicker and healthier patients must wait equally long, some of the sicker ones stop using public care, and only a few switch to private providers.

‘Preliminary results suggest that without prioritisation, sicker patients end up receiving no treatment at all.’

Tuomas Markkula 19.9.2025: Industrial organization studies on mixed health care markets and waiting times

Theses online: aaltodoc.aalto.fi shop.aalto.fi

Reuse of demolition wood from buildings

Wood plays an important role on the path toward more sustainable construction.

Timber from demolished buildings could be given a second or even a third life with better support for recycling and reuse.

Bahareh Nasiri developed a model that predicts the amount of wood recovered from demolished buildings and supports its reuse.

In Finland, around 95 percent of wood from demolished buildings is currently burned for energy without assessing whether it could be used for other purposes. In her doctoral thesis, Bahareh Nasiri examined the potential for reusing and recycling wood from construction.

‘There are about 17.5 million tonnes of wood embedded in Finnish residential houses, considering only the load-bearing structures.When other building components and different building types are included, the amount increases significantly,’ Nasiri says.

Extending the service life of construction timber is particularly timely. Construction places a heavy burden on the environment, and the amount of waste generated by construction and demolition is enormous: in the EU, it accounts for about 38 percent of all waste.

‘In Finland, the situation is further intensified by the fact that forests have been harvested faster than they can regrow. Forests have shifted from being carbon sinks to net emitters.’

The demolition method matters

The usability of wood recovered from demolished buildings depends largely on how the demolition is done. Demolition using heavy machinery damages materials and makes reuse more difficult. Nasiri observed material separation practices at demolition sites and waste management facilities.

‘At the moment, only about 30 percent of demolition wood can be reused as such. Most of the rest is suitable mainly as raw material for particleboard, although some waste is mixed in. More controlled demolition and careful disassembly would significantly increase the share of reusable wood.’

Reuse is also limited by current standards. For example, wood that has already been used once is not permitted in load-bearing structures, and there are no clear guidelines for manufacturing products from reused materials.

‘Waste wood often contains nails and other contaminants, which makes industrial use difficult due to the risk of damaging machinery. What is needed are practical solutions that increase the reuse and recycling of wood while also creating markets for these materials.’

Nasiri’s research shows that reusing wood reduces long-term wood consumption more effectively than solely extending the lifespan of wooden buildings.

‘The same piece of wood can first serve as part of a building, then be reused in another building, and finally be recycled as raw material for products such as particle board. In this way, the material goes through multiple life cycles, and the emissions from burning wood are pushed further into the future.’

A predictive model to support decision-making

The model developed by Nasiri makes it possible to track how materials flow into buildings and out of them over time. It estimates both the quantity and quality of wood that can be recovered from buildings at the end of their life.

‘The model supports decision-making by predicting when and what kinds of reusable materials will become available. This makes it possible to plan material use more efficiently, develop policy instruments that support recycling, and reduce costly storage.’

In the future, the reuse of construction timber could be significantly increased by designing buildings for disassembly from the outset. When structures are easy to take apart, materials can be readily recovered intact and reused.

Bahareh Nasiri 28.10.2025: Potential cascading of wood from the built environment

Nita Vera

You get asked a lot about happiness. What’s a question you haven’t been asked?

Rarely have I been asked why modern Western societies are much more interested in happiness than other societies or at earlier times. In collective societies, individual happiness was not as essential. A successful life meant fulfilling one’s role as well as possible, for example, as a mother, father, family member or practitioner of a specific profession. How one felt was not that important.

With the rise of individualism, suddenly it was thought that maybe we don’t have any predetermined role or place in life. Then people started to ponder where they might find purpose and direction, and the pursuit of one’s own happiness became one answer.

Should we take happiness seriously?

Societies should take happiness more seriously, but individuals shouldn’t take it too seriously. Societies and politicians focus too much on economic indicators, even though the ultimate goal of societies should be ensuring people’s well-being instead of economic growth.

The compulsive maximisation of one’s own happiness is paradoxically harmful to one’s own happiness. It’s better to live your life, allowing happiness to come as a byproduct. Individuals should treat their

Frank Martela, should we take happiness seriously?

Insights from an assistant professor and philosopher who studies human well-being and motivation.

Text Tiina Aulanko-Jokirinne

Photo Outi Törmälä

happiness more like a barometer providing useful information than as a specific goal.

What brings you the most happiness in your everyday life and what brings you the least? I’m happy in my work. If I were to win 50 million euros in the lottery now, my work routine wouldn’t change much. I would still sit in a café in the morning, writing and contemplating the big questions of humanity.

What brings me the least happiness is the enthusiasm of schools to start mornings at eight. I’m not a morning person at all, and I have to wake the kids up at seven. Even though my oldest child is already in middle school, and I’ve had many years to get used to it, the early wake-up bothers me every morning. But I have to deal with it.

Are you a pessimist or an optimist?

Neither. I am a meliorist. A meliorist focuses on the things they can affect, concentrating energy on improving them.

A concrete example of this is when I was writing my philosophy thesis at the University of Helsinki in 2007. During a thesis meeting with my advisor, we concluded that my 120-page manuscript had to be rejected. It simply didn’t work. I was trying to solve the entirety of moral philosophy. This bothered me for

a moment, but a couple of hours later when I got home, I already had a completely new plan for my thesis. I started writing it the next day.

How can you recognise a happy person or community?

Sometimes it’s visible on the surface, sometimes not. A happy person might have a twinkle in their eye and not take themselves too seriously. If someone has found balance in their life, they don’t think about their own happiness.

In a happy community, compassion for others is visible. People care about each other, everyone dares to be themself and feels accepted for who they are. People are then actively oriented towards each other. If they’re in the same room, you can see that they want to interact with each other.

If hope and happiness compete, which one wins?

Hope wins. Hope is oriented more towards the future and it’s more active. Happiness tends to remain in place, so hope surpasses happiness.

Frank Martela’s insights are part of the Laboratory of Hope exhibition at Marsio until 27 March 2026.

Aalto University is where science and art meet technology and business. We shape a sustainable future by making research breakthroughs in and across our disciplines, sparking the game changers of tomorrow and creating novel solutions to major global challenges. Our community is made up of 14,000 students, 413 professors and close to 4,900 other faculty and staff working on our dynamic campus in Espoo, Greater Helsinki, Finland.

55,000 people from all over Finland participated in Aalto University Junior’s activities in 2025.

of

and employ around

15,000 €3 billion

people in Finland. €30 billion

51%

1,700 bachelor’s degrees and of Aalto’s international graduates find employment in Finland.

250 doctoral degrees, Each year our students earn about 2,200 master’s degrees,

300

MBA and Executive MBA certificates.

53,000 m2

We offer of space for businesses, and companies operate on campus.

Ranked

#1

170 university in Finland (QS World University Rankings 2025)

#5

Ranked in patent applications in Finland.

1,400

alumni participated in Alumni Weekend 2025.

16%

10%

Almost of our scientific publications are among the top of most cited in their field worldwide.

Sign of Change