Cur­rent top­ics from Oulu

Ben Tardif is a Cana­di­an play­ing for the Kär­pät ice hock­ey team in Finland’s top pro­fes­sion­al hock­ey league. He moved to Oulu last sum­mer with his wife. “One of the best things about liv­ing in Oulu is the safe­ty. I can walk every­where at any time of the day,” Ben says. Watch our video for Ben’s inspir­ing sto­ry!

Star­tups com­pet­ed at the Polar Bear Pitch­ing event this year in quite wet con­di­tions at Värt­tö Beach. The win­ner was Finnish Acous­pin, who have com­mer­cial­ized nanofiber pro­duced with ultra­sound. The nanofibers can be uti­lized in many ways in man­u­fac­tur­ing and health­care.

The City of Oulu and French com­pa­ny Ver­so Ener­gy have signed a co-oper­a­tion agree­ment aim­ing to build a hydro­gen pro­cess­ing plant in Oulu. Ver­so Ener­gy intends to con­struct a plant with a year­ly pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty of 80 000 tonnes of e‑SAF. The esti­mat­ed val­ue of the project is €1.4 bil­lion, and it is expect­ed to cre­ate 250 jobs.

Dri­ven by the desire for a more peace­ful life, supe­ri­or edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for their four chil­dren, and the allure of Finland’s renowned hap­pi­ness index, Jose Vargh­ese and his wife embarked on a jour­ney to forge a new life.

The City of Oulu is part of the “Wel­come Home” cam­paign, a joint ini­tia­tive by Fin­land’s six largest cities to encour­age immi­grants to use the cities’ ser­vices that sup­port inte­gra­tion. The ser­vices help with adapt­ing to Finnish soci­ety, lan­guage learn­ing, and find­ing a job.

The cities of Oulu, Fin­land, and Sendai, Japan, recent­ly renewed their coop­er­a­tion agree­ment for anoth­er five years. The part­ner­ship will lever­age the strengths of both cities to explore new oppor­tu­ni­ties in ICT, health­care, cir­cu­lar econ­o­my, and print­ed elec­tron­ics.

Timegate is a glob­al deep tech com­pa­ny, pro­vid­ing real-time process mon­i­tor­ing solu­tions for bio­pro­cess­ing indus­tries. One mem­ber of the mul­ti­cul­tur­al team is Vineeth. For Vineeth the Finnish work­life appears to have low hier­ar­chy, which sup­ports flu­en­cy in work­ing process­es.

The first part of the Oulu2026 pro­gramme was pub­lished on Jan­u­ary 15. Dur­ing the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture year, the num­ber of events in the Oulu2026 area will exceed thou­sands. In ear­ly 2026, the pro­gramme will focus on the theme Brave Hin­ter­land, in spring and sum­mer on Wild City, and the rest of the year on Cool Con­trasts.

Master’s degree stu­dents in Edu­ca­tion and Indus­tri­al Engi­neer­ing and Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Oulu Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge dur­ing the autumn semes­ter. The goal was to devel­op ser­vice con­cepts to address the well-being needs of inter­na­tion­al stu­dents.

The fund­ing grant­ed by the Research Coun­cil of Fin­land aims to strength­en uni­ver­si­ties’ research capa­bil­i­ties and sup­port and accel­er­ate the pro­fil­ing of uni­ver­si­ties. The fund­ing received by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu was the third largest after the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki and Aal­to Uni­ver­si­ty. Fund­ed top­ics include secu­ri­ty, health, and bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Mitra Marofi is an artist and a for­mer Spa­tial Data Ana­lyst from Iran. She moved to Oulu in 2021 when her hus­band accept­ed a posi­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. Read Mitra’s sto­ry to find out what she thinks about her new home­town and what advice she would give to any­one con­sid­er­ing mov­ing to Oulu.

The Glob­al Rank­ing of Aca­d­e­m­ic Sub­jects pub­lished by the Shanghai Rank­ing assessed 5,000 uni­ver­si­ties across 55 dis­ci­plines. Twen­ty dis­ci­plines from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu ranked among the top 500 glob­al­ly. Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Engi­neer­ing achieved the high­est place­ment in the rank­ing.

The lat­est pro­duc­tion from the Ger­man Con­stan­tin Film fol­lows Smil­la Jaspersen as she inves­ti­gates the mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of a friend. The Arc­tic ice field scenes were filmed in Oulu in 2024. “I’ve filmed in many breath­tak­ing loca­tions, but film­ing on the ice in Oulu was a land­scape nev­er to for­get,” pro­duc­er Ali­cia Remirez says.

Ger­lân­dia first came to Fin­land in 2007 to study and work. Lat­er she returned to Brazil but decid­ed to move back to Fin­land in 2019. Now she is the own­er of the first Brazil­ian café in Fin­land. In this arti­cle, Ger­lân­dia shares her thoughts about what inspired her to pur­sue gas­tron­o­my and what the process of open­ing a café was like.

Oulu fin­ished proud­ly on the podi­um at the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Council’s annu­al iCap­i­tal Awards in Lis­bon on 13 Novem­ber. The iCap­i­tal awards are giv­en to cities that lead the way in using inno­va­tion to shape sus­tain­able, inclu­sive and resilient urban envi­ron­ments.

In 2021, Shilpa and her fam­i­ly moved from India to Oulu. The tran­si­tion from trop­i­cal warmth to snowy land­scapes has been both chal­leng­ing and reward­ing. “One of the best things about Oulu has been the edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, not just for my kids but for me as well,” Shilpa says.

Oulu has become the first of Finland’s Big Six cities to be award­ed the Sus­tain­able Trav­el Fin­land (STF) label for sus­tain­able tourism by Vis­it Fin­land. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty has been one of the strate­gic devel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties for the indus­try in Oulu, so obtain­ing the label is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone.

In the Oulu2026 area, Novem­ber is Glowem­ber! Dur­ing the dark­est time of the year, we cel­e­brate the bril­liance of lights and colours through experiences, events, and art instal­la­tions. You can also par­tic­i­pate in Glowem­ber by illu­mi­nat­ing your home or work­place and shar­ing light-themed pic­tures on social media.

Jes­si­ca Segu­ra Polo comes from Colom­bia. She is mar­ried to a doc­tor­al researcher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, which is what ini­tial­ly brought her to Oulu. In this tal­ent sto­ry, Jes­si­ca tells us what she thinks about her new home­town and what advice she would give to any­one con­sid­er­ing mov­ing to Oulu.

Have you heard about Oulu2026’s sto­ry routes? The Sound of the North sto­ries tell about the phe­nom­e­na of pop­u­lar music in Oulu, and the Tales of Tar take you to the true events from the gold­en era of tar trade. The sto­ries can be read or lis­tened to at the route loca­tions by using QR codes or at home on the Oulu2026 web­site.

Great news! The City of Oulu will par­tic­i­pate in World Expo 2025 next April as a part­ner of Busi­ness Fin­land. The World Expo will take place in Osa­ka, Japan. As an exhi­bi­tion part­ner, Oulu will be able to show­case the inno­va­tion and unique­ness of the region.

The Lumo Light Fes­ti­val, orga­nized by the City of Oulu, will spread over the city cen­tre and the Hupisaaret City Park on Novem­ber 22–24, 2024. This year’s main instal­la­tion will be dis­played at the City Hall. The full pro­gram of the event will be pub­lished in ear­ly Novem­ber.

Man­isha, a doc­tor orig­i­nal­ly from Nepal, got mar­ried in 2021 and moved to Fin­land with her hus­band. Despite know­ing lit­tle about the coun­try, Oulu quick­ly felt like home. After the busy streets of Kath­man­du and the qui­et of the Mal­dives, Man­isha says that Oulu’s bal­ance brought her peace.

Oulu is com­pet­ing with Bra­ga (Por­tu­gal) and Linz (Aus­tria) for the title of most inno­v­a­tive Euro­pean city in the cat­e­go­ry of cities with less than 250,000 inhab­i­tants. The win­ner of the com­pe­ti­tion will be announced on 13 Novem­ber in Lis­bon, the Inno­va­tion Cap­i­tal 2023.

The third Oulu2026 mur­al has been com­plet­ed in Myl­ly­o­ja, Oulu! The art­work was exe­cut­ed by Ital­ian artist Fabio Petani. Oulu2026 murals are exe­cut­ed annu­al­ly in dif­fer­ent parts of Oulu as part of the jour­ney towards Oulu’s Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture year 2026.

Autumn is an excel­lent time to vis­it the stun­ning nature des­ti­na­tions of the Oulu region. Are you more of an inde­pen­dent adven­tur­er, or one to enjoy an easy trip to a close-by nature site? Don’t wor­ry – Oulu has it all.

The City of Oulu has pre­sent­ed to the Gov­ern­ment its ini­tia­tive to seek a NATO Cen­tre of Excel­lence (CoE) in Oulu. Oulu already hosts the accel­er­a­tor and test cen­tre for NATO’s DIANA pro­gramme and leads an ecosys­tem of 5G and 6G research and indus­try in Europe.

Accord­ing to the annu­al rank­ing con­duct­ed by the Insti­tute for Qual­i­ty of Life, Oulu is now the 13th hap­pi­est city in the world. The fac­tors ana­lyzed in the Hap­py City Index com­par­i­son include, for exam­ple, edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Amer­i­­can-Finnish Timo Green, who grew up in the Unit­ed States and lat­er also lived in Italy, was wait­ing for the right moment to move to his sec­ond home coun­try, Fin­land. After being accept­ed to study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, he knew that moment had final­ly arrived.

The inter­na­tion­al Fab Lab con­fer­ence “STEAM­ing Cre­ativ­i­ty” will take place in Oulu in August 2027. STEAM ped­a­gogy and cre­ativ­i­ty are impor­tant themes of the Oulu con­fer­ence. The City of Oulu will act as the respon­si­ble organ­is­er and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu as a part­ner.

Once again, Oulu filled up with an unfor­get­table atmos­phere and air gui­tarists, fans, and media rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all over the world, when the Air Gui­tar World Cham­pi­onships 2024 were held in the city from the 21st to 23rd of August. The event cul­mi­nat­ed on Fri­day with the final, where Zachary “Ich­a­bod Fame” Knowles from Cana­da was declared the win­ner.

Meet Ladislav, the cur­rent Head of Oper­a­tions in Bloom Oulu, who moved to Oulu last year in pur­suit of a life that is more aligned with his val­ues. In this piece, he shares his thoughts about his new home­town.

Four big events, includ­ing Oulu Arts’ Night, Kort­telihaipak­ka, Oulu Inter­na­tion­al Grand Mar­kets, and Lit­er­ary Art Fes­ti­val Muusajuh­lat, were all orga­nized in Oulu on Thurs­day, August 15. Lots of peo­ple came to the city cen­ter to enjoy the warm sum­mer evening and the so called “Super Thurs­day” of events.

In a recent com­par­i­son con­duct­ed by Raha­laitos, Oulu was found to be the most afford­able uni­ver­si­ty city in Fin­land for stu­dents in terms of liv­ing expens­es. The dif­fer­ence in total liv­ing expens­es between Oulu and Helsin­ki, which was the most expen­sive city, was about 200 euros per month.

With excel­lent road trip oppor­tu­ni­ties and a sum­mer cal­en­dar burst­ing with events, there’s some­thing for every­one, includ­ing fam­i­ly-friend­ly attrac­tions such as a children’s amuse­ment park, water park, and the scenic Turkansaari island in Oulu.

Max’s jour­ney from a small town near Lon­don to set­tling down in Oulu is noth­ing short of inspir­ing! From unex­pect­ed twists in his career to find­ing a sense of belong­ing in a new coun­try, Max shares his amaz­ing expe­ri­ence.

Julius Idi­an and Jayson Ril­lo came to Oulu from the Philip­pines. They like their workplace’s cul­ture in Puis­to­la restau­rant. It is friend­ly, gen­er­ous, and sup­port­ive. “Love the way they have trust for Fil­ipinos, even if we don’t speak Finnish”, they say.

Beat­riz Rocha, 25, moved to Oulu in the fall of 2021, when she start­ed her master’s degree. We were curi­ous to know what brought her here and ulti­mate­ly made her stay.

This expan­sion marks a sig­nif­i­cant step for the region’s tourism and busi­ness sec­tors, pro­vid­ing more con­nec­tions to the heart of Cen­tral Europe and beyond.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu cel­e­brat­ed one year anniver­sary with a mem­o­rable event that high­light­ed its achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions over the past year.

Intro­duc­ing Tomas Sle­sar, a Slo­va­kian native who’s called Oulu home for 14 years. From nav­i­gat­ing the con­trasts of Finnish sea­sons to ful­ly embrac­ing the warmth of Finnish cul­ture.

Are you har­bour­ing a tech busi­ness idea but not quite ready to take the leap into entre­pre­neur­ship? Start­up Pro­gram Man­ag­er Viera Karam presents five steps to becom­ing a start­up entre­pre­neur.

Work­ing in the Finnish city of Oulu lets you build a life that looks like you. Before, dur­ing and after work.

The Win­ter Swim­ming World Cham­pi­onships will return to its roots in Oulu in 2026. The Win­ter Swim­ming World Cham­pi­onships will be one of the inter­na­tion­al high points of the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture year 2026.

Oulu’s own, orig­i­nal Arc­tic start­up event Polar Bear Pitch­ing made a live come­back after four years. A big crowd at Oulu Mar­ket Square and online around the world watched as ten star­tups one after anoth­er jumped into the Avan­to (Finnish for ice hole) to impress the pan­el of judges with their busi­ness ideas.

A Ger­man edu­ca­tion­al trav­el group vis­it­ed Oulu. The col­lab­o­ra­tion with the city of Oulu pro­vid­ed the group of teach­ers with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to famil­iar­ize them­selves with the Finnish school sys­tem.

Break­ing news! Anoth­er won­der­ful exam­ple of Oulu’s vis­i­bil­i­ty in inter­na­tion­al media due to our win­ter cycling cul­ture and cycling infra­struc­ture.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu is recruit­ing 98 doc­tor­al researchers as part of the new doc­tor­al edu­ca­tion pilot fund­ed by the Finnish Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture.

Eduar­do Acos­ta, orig­i­nal­ly from Colom­bia, is research­ing cir­cu­lar econ­o­my at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu. He is also an Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu Ambas­sador.

Ger­man air­line Lufthansa is set to con­tin­ue its direct flights between Munich and Oulu for the upcom­ing sum­mer sea­son. Addi­tion­al­ly, win­ter flights will extend into the next win­ter, estab­lish­ing this his­toric route as a year-round con­nec­tion.

Stu­dents are very inter­est­ed in Oulu’s gen­er­al devel­op­ment and want Oulu to con­tin­ue devel­op­ing. The city of Oulu col­lect­ed stu­dents’ views on devel­op­ing a bet­ter city.

Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty’s adjunct pro­fes­sor and senior researcher Gui­do Giun­ti, the leader of the Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) research group, has been award­ed with the Glob­al Patient Inno­va­tor Award,

Beat­riz Rocha, 25, came here to do her master’s degree in Learn­ing, Edu­ca­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy. Cur­rent­ly, she works as a Mar­ket­ing Trainee at Business­Oulu.

Med­ical stu­dent Jer­ry Nguyen has been award­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu’s Stu­dent of the Year 2023. Nguyen sup­ports the stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty with study tips and cheers up the stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty by being spon­ta­neous and ini­tia­tive.

The Mega­Match­mak­ing, a pre­mier recruit­ment fair where recruiters and job­seek­ers have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act, was held on the 14th of Sep­tem­ber at Tullisal­li in Oulu. One of the major high­lights of the event was the pan­el dis­cus­sion.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu is a place at Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma that col­lects dif­fer­ent guid­ance ser­vices for inter­na­tion­al new­com­ers, immi­grants and com­pa­nies that recruit inter­na­tion­al peo­ple under the same roof. Wel­come to vis­it!

Jun Naka­mu­ra is orig­i­nal­ly from Japan. Cur­rent­ly, he stud­ies MSc. in Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu brings togeth­er guid­ance and coun­selling ser­vices for inter­na­tion­al cus­tomers on a sin­gle-win­dow basis under one roof, says Coor­di­na­tor Riku­pekka Leinonen.

She­fat Islam is orig­i­nal­ly from Bahrain. Cur­rent­ly, she is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions intern and stud­ies MSc. in Mar­ket­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Are you look­ing for work? Plen­ty of jobs can be found in Oulu and near­by region for met­al indus­try pro­fes­sion­als. Be the next to get a job in the met­al indus­try!

Oulu is the first loca­tion in Europe where Sil­i­con Val­ley start­up Alif Semi­con­duc­tor has estab­lished a pres­ence. Why did the firm decide to come to Oulu after set­ting up two offices in Cal­i­for­nia, one in Sin­ga­pore and one in Ban­ga­lore, India?