Oulu’s new H2School pre­pares experts for a new indus­try

Fin­land has set enor­mous expec­ta­tions for the hydro­gen econ­o­my, but there are still few experts. For this rea­son, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and OSAO have devel­oped a study pack­age that cov­ers all edu­ca­tion­al lev­els and enables any­one to become the hydro­gen expert of the future. 

Who can build pip­ing for an explo­sive mir­a­cle sub­stance that can help solve the cli­mate cri­sis? Right now, almost nobody. How­ev­er, in the future, there will be pro­fes­sion­als, at least in Oulu, who know how to do this.  

Oulu is known as a tech­nol­o­gy city with expert pro­fes­sion­als and stu­dents of tech­nol­o­gy and nat­ur­al sci­ences. Now, the city intends to train new experts in an indus­try that does not yet exist – the hydro­gen econ­o­my. Hydro­gen plays an impor­tant role in achiev­ing Finland’s car­bon neu­tral­i­ty tar­gets, as its use reduces the need for fos­sil fuels and there­by car­bon emis­sions. 

Com­pa­nies and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions have a com­mon need to under­stand what can be done with hydro­gen. As knowl­edge of an ele­ment increas­es, so does the under­stand­ing of its oppor­tu­ni­ties for new busi­ness.  

“There is a lot of talk about the use of hydro­gen, but there is still quite lit­tle knowl­edge about it. Vision is good, but real­ism is need­ed: we need to be real­is­tic about what hydro­gen enables and what risks and prob­lems are asso­ci­at­ed with it,” says Lau­ra Piht­sal­mi, Edu­ca­tion Spe­cial­ist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.  

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu is coor­di­nat­ing the H2School project, in which the uni­ver­si­ty, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and Edu­ca­tion­al Con­sor­tium OSAO devel­op a study mod­ule on hydro­gen.   

“Hydro­gen as an ele­ment is famil­iar to every­one in one way or anoth­er. Its future appli­ca­tions, such as cars, are also well-known. This makes the top­ic easy to approach,” says Piht­sal­mi.  

Hydro­gen econ­o­my needs experts from pro­cess­ing to trans­port 

Hydro­gen as an ele­ment is chal­leng­ing. Its pro­duc­tion, stor­age and trans­porta­tion require coop­er­a­tion and experts through­out the pro­duc­tion chain and from sev­er­al sec­tors, from logis­tics to ener­gy. These new experts will enable, for exam­ple, the con­struc­tion of hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plants and infra­struc­ture, not only in Oulu but also nation­wide.  

Explo­sive hydro­gen also requires spe­cial safe­ty skills. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu spe­cialis­es in safe­ty and its man­age­ment, so the uni­ver­si­ty has a lot to offer in iden­ti­fy­ing and solv­ing risks,” says Satu Pitkäa­ho, a researcher in envi­ron­men­tal and chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing. Pitkäa­ho is involved in the devel­op­ment of the H2School study mod­ule. 

“We need peo­ple who know how to build gas lines or hydro­gen pro­duc­tion plants. In oth­er words, experts who know how hydro­gen is pro­duced and what restric­tions it entails,” Pitkäa­ho says.  

With an intro­duc­to­ry course, any­one can learn the basics of an ele­ment 

H2School cov­ers four study mod­ules. The first is an intro­duc­to­ry course, a two-cred­it online course in Finnish. Com­plet­ing the course does not require any pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of hydro­gen or tech­nol­o­gy or look at time and place.  

The course will be pilot­ed in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions dur­ing the autumn and win­ter and finalised on the basis of feed­back from stu­dents. The course is aimed at upper sec­ondary schools and voca­tion­al schools, but lat­er it will be avail­able to every­one inter­est­ed in hydro­gen.  

“There is no cor­re­spond­ing course yet. The course teach­es basic knowl­edge about hydro­gen and the hydro­gen econ­o­my. Ini­tial­ly, the aim is to increase the com­pe­tence of stu­dents, but lat­er also the skills of those work­ing in com­pa­nies,” Pitkäa­ho explains.  

The oth­er three cours­es are insti­tu­tion-spe­cif­ic. Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences is devel­op­ing cours­es on the hydro­gen pro­duc­tion process, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu on hydro­gen pro­duc­tion and use and OSAO on hydro­gen dis­tri­b­u­tion and stor­age. Ini­tial­ly, the cours­es will only be open to stu­dents from edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, but at least the uni­ver­si­ty plans to open a course for Open Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents. 

Accord­ing to Pitkäa­ho, the study mod­ule was designed in such a way that acquir­ing hydro­gen com­pe­tence does not require the com­ple­tion of a full degree, but can be acquired in bite-sized chunks. The rapid assim­i­la­tion of knowl­edge sup­ports life­long learn­ing, con­tin­u­ing train­ing and the needs of busi­ness­es in par­tic­u­lar.  

H2School com­bines research and busi­ness under­stand­ing 

Coop­er­a­tion also increas­es the com­pe­tence of the edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions. The uni­ver­si­ty is based on research and the­o­ry, while uni­ver­si­ties of applied sci­ences and voca­tion­al schools have a greater under­stand­ing of prac­tice and the needs of com­pa­nies.  

 “The Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and OSAO receive con­fir­ma­tion from the uni­ver­si­ty that the cours­es guar­an­tee the most up-to-date infor­ma­tion on hydro­gen. In addi­tion, the university’s safe­ty experts ensure that safe­ty is tak­en into account in all study mate­ri­als,” Piht­sal­mi explains.  

Satu Pitkäa­ho believes that the intro­duc­to­ry course in par­tic­u­lar would not have been as com­pre­hen­sive with­out coop­er­a­tion. 

“We would have been able to car­ry out the course at the uni­ver­si­ty on our own, but then it would not have been as ver­sa­tile as it is now,” Pitkäa­ho says.  

The City of Oulu plays an impor­tant role in the cre­ation of new edu­ca­tion. One of the goals of the Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance (OIA), coor­di­nat­ed by the City of Oulu, is to ensure that there are experts in the Oulu region for the com­pe­tence needs of the future.  

H2School has been fund­ed through the Sus­tain­able Urban Devel­op­ment ESF+, Oulu Inno­va­tion Ecosys­tem Agree­ment, and is thus imple­ment­ing the Oulu Inno­va­tion Alliance strat­e­gy and the ecosys­tem agree­ment between the City of Oulu and the Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Employ­ment. The Uni­ver­si­ty, OAMK and OSAO are all alliance part­ners. 

Increas­ing exper­tise in Oulu ben­e­fits the whole of Fin­land 

If suc­cess­ful, the project will increase the hydro­gen com­pe­tence of the peo­ple of Oulu. Accord­ing to Piht­sal­mi, this is not only in the inter­ests of Oulu but also Fin­land as a whole. The hydro­gen econ­o­my is part of the green tran­si­tion and brings new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, invest­ments and tax rev­enues to com­pa­nies. Fin­land has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to become an inter­na­tion­al leader in the field, and com­pa­nies have been inter­est­ed in hydro­gen for years.  

Oulu has a long tra­di­tion of hydro­gen research and teach­ing, which is why it is nat­ur­al to offer teach­ing to all edu­ca­tion­al lev­els and entry-lev­el stu­dents.  

“The university’s task is to pro­duce the most up-to-date research data for the use of cit­i­zens and com­pa­nies. Teach­ing is one way to ensure this. As long as the tech­nol­o­gy is not famil­iar to the gen­er­al pub­lic, its use can remain mar­gin­al. That’s why we want­ed to cre­ate a course suit­able for every­one, through which any­one can deep­en their skills,” says Piht­sal­mi. 

Oulu is part of the InnoC­i­ties net­work. H2School is imple­ment­ing Oulu’s goal of a sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar econ­o­my and clean solu­tions, which include, among oth­er things, next-gen­er­a­tion ener­gy solu­tions.