Cur­rent top­ics from Oulu

When Ele­na Sor­munen, 45, moved to Oulu with just one suit­case, she left behind a suc­cess­ful career in Kyiv and start­ed every­thing from the begin­ning. Today, she works as a health cen­ter doc­tor.

Are you new in Oulu or plan­ning to move here? Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu’s Wel­come Office is here to sup­port you and make your life smoother in a new city. You can get help online or by book­ing an in-per­son appoint­ment. The ser­vice is free of charge.

The Lumo Light Fes­ti­val, organ­ised by the City of Oulu, will once again light up Oulu from Novem­ber 21 to 23. This year’s pro­gramme has an excep­tion­al­ly inter­na­tion­al flavour, with a total of 10 works cre­at­ed by artists from across Europe.

Meet Mako­to, a fam­i­ly man from Japan who now calls Oulu home. In this video, Mako­to shares his expe­ri­ence of relo­cat­ing to Oulu, talks about the sup­port avail­able, and how eas­i­ly his chil­dren were able to find school places in Oulu.

In just four months’ time, Oulu will be Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture! The Oulu2026 pro­gramme will place the North firm­ly at the cen­tre of Europe’s cul­tur­al map. Already over 1,000 events are list­ed in the offi­cial cal­en­dar, with fur­ther addi­tions to fol­low.

Mia Chen focus­es on chil­dren’s learn­ing appli­ca­tions in her master’s stud­ies, while Yomal Fer­nan­do spe­cialis­es in dis­ease pre­ven­tion. Oulu has made such a good impres­sion on them that they both hope to work in Fin­land in the future.

The Lat­vian air­line air­Baltic will begin direct sched­uled flights between Riga and Oulu – the Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture 2026 – in March 2026. The return flights will oper­ate five days a week until the end of Octo­ber 2026.

The NHL Char­i­ty All Stars game, held in Oulu in ear­ly August, brought togeth­er Finnish hock­ey icons and fans in sup­port of a mean­ing­ful cause. The jer­seys worn in the game by Sebas­t­ian Aho and Pekka Rinne were lat­er donat­ed to OYS Children’s Hos­pi­tal to bring joy to its young patients.

Aapo “The Angus” Rautio from Oulu par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Air Gui­tar World Cham­pi­onships for the first time when he was only 10 years old. This year, he final­ly became World Cham­pi­on. Rautio is the first Finnish world cham­pi­on in the sport in 25 years.

Sophie Platt fell in love with Fin­land on her very first vis­it — so much that she decid­ed to leave the UK and move to Oulu to pur­sue a master’s degree. From karaoke nights to vibrant fes­ti­vals, Sophie has found warmth, peace, and a true sense of belong­ing in her new Finnish home.

Are you won­der­ing about what to do in Oulu in your free time? Don’t fret – with­in this arti­cle you will find all free leisure, cul­ture and hob­by activ­i­ties that can be found in Oulu.

Leon Bergs­ma is a foot­ball play­er from Ams­ter­dam who is cur­rent­ly play­ing for AC Oulu. Watch the full video to hear more about Leon’s expe­ri­ence and why play­ing in Oulu is some­thing spe­cial.

On August 14, Hal­li­tuskatu in Oulu will once again be filled with food, music, and com­mu­ni­ty. The Sum­mer Night’s Din­ner event offers local fla­vors, cul­tur­al per­for­mances, and a relaxed atmos­phere for the whole fam­i­ly. Sum­mer Night’s Din­ner is part of the Oulu2026 Arc­tic Food Lab pro­gram.

Dis­cov­er Air­lines is expand­ing its year-round con­nec­tion from Frank­furt to Kit­tilä by adding a stop in Oulu dur­ing the sum­mer of 2025. From the begin­ning of next year, Dis­cov­er Air­lines will start fly­ing direct­ly from Frank­furt to Oulu and back twice a week.

The new Oulu2026 hot air bal­loon made its maid­en flight on Tues­day, June 3, 2025! The bal­loon will serve as a mes­sen­ger of the upcom­ing Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture year and an ambas­sador of good cheer for at least the next two years.

Meet Fran­cis­co Carneiro, an IT pro­fes­sion­al liv­ing in Oulu. Fran­cis­co has an intrigu­ing jour­ney that spans con­ti­nents and indus­tries. Orig­i­nal­ly from the North­east of Brazil, he pur­sued his edu­ca­tion in busi­ness, com­plet­ing his degrees in Fin­land.

The City of Oulu has nego­ti­at­ed with three groups of com­pa­nies on the imple­men­ta­tion of the Expe­ri­ence Are­na project. A final call for ten­ders has now been sent, and the con­trac­tor for the project will be select­ed next autumn. The are­na is due to be com­plet­ed in the win­ter of 2030.

The City of Oulu has been prepar­ing to reserve land for three new hydro­gen pro­duc­tion and pro­cess­ing plants in Pyyryväi­nen. The city’s aim is to active­ly pro­mote green tran­si­tion invest­ments in its area. Advanc­ing the plan­ning of new hydro­gen plants will sup­port the growth of hydro­gen econ­o­my and the devel­op­ment of Oulu’s local hydro­gen infra­struc­ture.

Art­works cre­at­ed by world lead­ing Finnish and inter­na­tion­al artists will form a per­ma­nent art trail around Oulu in 2026. The artists behind the Cli­mate Clock art trail, which is part of the Oulu2026 pro­gram, have now been announced – learn more about them on the Oulu2026 web­site!

Michal is a 28-year-old Czech ice hock­ey play­er who has lived in Fin­land for three years. Last sea­son, he played cen­ter for Oulun Kär­pät in Finland’s top ice hock­ey league. We inter­viewed Michal to hear his thoughts about liv­ing in Oulu.

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.

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!

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.