HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN TECHNOLOGY
 
Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) is a research-oriented university with a strong commitment to the needs of Finnish industry, especially in the nationally defined focus areas, namely energy and the environment, information and communication industry and services, metal products and mechanical engineering, forest cluster (pulp and paper industry) and health and well-being. In addition, the university has made significant investments in micro- and nanotechnology research and has, for example, a high-quality water and development research group working actively in South East Asia and Africa.

Currently, the university hosts seven national centres of excellence in research; their areas of research include material physics and complex systems, low temperature physics and brain research, radio technology and intelligent machines as well as data mining and inversion problems.
 
Intensive co-operation with industry
In the centennial year 2008, the university has launched two new ambitious research programmes focused on energy and digitalisation. This five-year research effort has received a funding of €20mn in donations from businesses and private foundations. Otaniemi campus in itself is a prime example of close academia-business co-operation: recently, Nokia, the leading telecommunications corporation of the world, opened a research lablet on the TKK campus.

Otaniemi is the largest concentration of high technology in the Nordic countries, with more than 16,000 professionals of technology and 13,000 engineering students working on the campus and in the surrounding business zone. The intensive co-operation has borne fruit: the Otaniemi model of innovation and its academia-business co-operation has twice been presented with the Award of Excellence for Innovative Regions by the European Commission.

Wide-spectrum of international degree programmes
Every year, more than 1,200 international students representing 90 nationalities study at TKK in 11 master’s programmes, three European Erasmus Mundus programmes, in the doctoral programmes and the exchange programmes provided in English. The university also offers non-degree courses, for example in wood architecture. In the near future, the university will diversify its range of master’s programmes taught in English.

History
The history of TKK started from the establishment of the Technical School of Helsinki in 1849. In 1908, the school, then called the Polytechnic Institute was granted university status and consequently the right to grant doctoral degrees. During the 1960s and 1970s, the university departments moved from Helsinki city centre to the Otaniemi campus designed by the world-famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Today, TKK accounts for approximately 40 per cent of the master’s degrees and approximately 60 per cent of the doctoral degrees obtained in the fields of engineering and architecture in Finland; each year some 1,000 master’s degrees (MSc) and 160 doctoral degrees (DSc) are granted by the university.

Future
In 2009, TKK will become part of a new university formed by merging TKK with the Helsinki School of Economics and the University of Art and Design. The goal for the new university is to be one of the lading institutions in the world in terms of research and education in its own specialised disciplines by 2020.

For additional information about Helsinki University of Technology in English, please see www.tkk.fi/en/index.html.