Tandem Industry Academia (2020)
Directional Data Delivery for Wireless Immersive Digital Environments (3D-WIDE)
Approved grant:
171 123 €
Applicant:
University of Oulu
Industrial partner:
Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
Extended reality and immersive digital environments will set extremely high-performance requirements for wireless networks. Field tests in the first 5G networks have proven 5G capability for a Gbps access link on mm-waves. However, immersive viewing in multi-user environments requires extremely high area capacity, which is not yet achieved with 5G. In this project, Nokia Bell Labs and Centre for Wireless Communications of University of Oulu devise an emerging vision of mmWave-based mobile immersive digital environment, delivers a physical layer connectivity framework accounting for specific effects of directional mmWave connectivity, and allows efficient utilization of the increasingly affordable in-device memory via multipoint coded caching.
Improving immuno-oncology tools to fight cancer: the use of complex immune organoids for testing the efficacy of peptides coated oncolytic viruses (PeptiCRAd / PeptiENV)
Approved grant:
160 028 €
Applicant:
University of Helsinki
Industrial partner:
Valo Therapeutics
Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment in the past 10 years, however the access for patients to experimental trials is still slow. It is clear that there is a need to develop new “human-based” models that better recapitulate the disease. Organoids are “mini-tumors” grown in the laboratory. They retain very similar characteristics as patients’ tumors and are excellent platforms to test new immunotherapies and accelerate their track to the clinic. To this end, scientists at iCAN have decided to partner with Valo Therapeutics to explore the possibility to use complex immune organoids to test the two lead immunotherapy drugs that Valo is developing. If successful, this will generate scientific breakthrough and significantly accelerate Valo’s path towards personalized cancer therapy.
Surface passivation for semiconductor devices and electroluminescent cooling
Approved grant:
193 370 €
Applicant:
Aalto University
Industrial partner:
Comptek Solutions Oy
Surface defects play a role in essentially all semiconductor devices. In SuperDevice we study the use of the controlled oxidation developed by Comptek Solutions Oy in eliminating the detrimental surface recombination in thermophotonic GaAs based optical cooler prototypes investigated at Aalto University. This enables a case study of using controlled oxidation in state-of-the-art compound semiconductor devices, potentially eliminating one of the key bottle-necks presently slowing down the development of optical cooling technologies that may later on revolutionize solid state as well as general cooling applications.
Clinical Validation of Novel Sports and Diabetes Related Analytes Offer New Wearable Diagnostics Solutions
Approved grant:
245 316 €
Applicant:
Oulu University
Industrial partner:
Polar Oy
The Body Mass Index (BMI) has increased and today over 50% are considered obese. High BMI increases risks for diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The reasons are that calorie intake exceeds consumption, and ageing is associated muscle reduction thus reduced energy consumption. Physical exercise affecs positively these conditions includingthe brain by increasing cardiovascular performance and brain gas exchange. Two challenges will be targeted between the academic and Polar company: 1) How to motivate laymen and diabetic people of at high risk for this for physical exercise and 2) How to establish novel rewarding biofeedback biosensor loops that will illustrate clearly, rapidly and in exiting ways the positive impact of the physical and associated mental exercise to the performer.
Constituents of a quantum computer
Approved grant:
193 370 €
Applicant:
Aalto University
Industrial partner:
IQM Finland Oy
Quantum computers are projected to revolutionize information processing. This project taps into the core of this revolution and helps the growing ecosystem to bring forward major innovations paving the way for a useful quantum computer. Thus this project is of great importance and the ambition level is very high. However, taking the exceptionally strong foundations of the local quantum community, we foresee this project to be feasible. Namely, here the strong academic expertise of Aalto University and especially that of the Quantum Computing and Devices (QCD) research group meets with a European leader in quantum computer hardware, IQM. The joint effort of these two front runners will bring major added value and expedite the growth and scale up of the academia and the industry.
Superior infrared sensors
Approved grant:
178 193 €
Applicant:
Aalto University
Industrial partner:
ElFys Inc.
The project develops new type of infrared sensors with superior sensitivity. The project utilizes material knowhow and expertise present at Aalto University related to so-called black silicon that is proven to have superior optical and electrical properties. Black silicon is, however, not applicable material for detecting infrared radiation. Thereby, the project will develop high quality (and black) material structures to Ge-substrates that are known to absorb well also IR radiation. The developed structures will be then applied directly to devices with the help of the industrial partner (ElFys Inc.) who has relevant knowhow, facilities as well as knowledge for the device requirements. The studied applications include medical tools, optical communication as well as security applications.
The Economies of Ox: Scaling up Oxidative Processes to Streamline Synthesis
Approved grant:
133 822 €
Applicant:
University of Jyväskylä
Industrial partner:
Fermion Oy
The main goal of the project is to develop safe, scalable methods for oxidations and oxidative couplings for use in the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) by chemical synthesis. Oxidations and oxidative reactions are some of the most challenging reactions to scale up in pharmaceutical production. Nevertheless, increasing the oxidation state of the molecule by these reactions often provides very attractive shortcuts to synthetic production routes, cutting off the number of steps and providing alternative, less wasteful and less costly methods for synthesis. The goal of this project is to develop safe oxidation and oxidative coupling methods based on catalytic transfer oxidations and other benign terminal oxidants, bearing the scalability and safety always in mind.
Breathing of biosphere – Industrialization of easy-to-use carbon dioxide exchange measurements
Approved grant:
192 971 €
Applicant:
University of Helsinki/INAR
Industrial partner:
Vaisala
An improved understanding of carbon sinks and sources of various ecosystems is one of the priorities for scientists devoted to study interactions of the biosphere and atmosphere. They can be measured by so called flux towers. Flux measurements seem to start to play more important role in assessing carbon sinks of different land-use types also outside academia. Vaisala and University of Helsinki aim to lever the best industrial and academic competences, couple them with real-life users from industrial producers to research, in operationalizing a flux tower that is inexpensive, low-powered, easy-to-use and virtually maintenance free. With a tower, which compromises between accuracy, reliability and price, we hope to revolutionize the carbon flux measurement market.
Language Identification of Speech and Text
Approved grant:
195 442 €
Applicant:
University of Helsinki
Industrial partner:
Lingsoft Oy
The project is dedicated to the advancement of computational methods for automatic language identification. Speech user interfaces are becoming more popular in everyday life. However, almost all the current commercial products using speech interfaces have to be manually set to understand a certain language as no automated language identification methods are used. The project is situated at the department of Digital Humanities of the University of Helsinki and the industrial partner is Lingsoft Oy. Lingsoft develops and uses their own speech recognition solution for a number of different use cases, the most important from a current business perspective are subtitling for television and medical dictation.
Improved sampling of aerosol nanoparticles
Approved grant:
169 992 €
Applicant:
Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research
Industrial partner:
Airmodus Ltd
This project improves the reliability of aerosol measurements by developing the sampling methods of nanoparticles and studying the phenomena affecting the particles during sampling. We will measure the possible impact of sampling and dilution on the size and composition of aerosol particles smaller than 10 nm in diameter. We will characterize the losses of nanoparticles in the Airmodus AND sampling system and test its applicability to atmospheric measurements and industrial applications. The project creates new knowledge about the interactions between aerosol nanoparticles, gases and ions. The project partners are Insitute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research at University of Helsinki and Airmodus Ltd.
Thermodynamic properties of aqueous transition metal sulfate solutions of industrial importance
Approved grant:
189 429 €
Applicant:
University of Oulu
Industrial partner:
Boliden Kokkola
The aims of the project are experimental and computational research of strong transition metal sulfate solutions, in close collaboration with Boliden Kokkola. These transition metal electrolyte solutions, such as zinc, cobalt, and nickel sulfate solutions, are industrially relevant eg. due to the increased use of lithium-ion batteries. New scientific data of the solubility properties of metal salts is produced, with the aim to understand related process phenomena at the fundamental level. This data is applied to control and/or even to prevent industrially relevant process challenges. Project is highly ambitious, because the properties of electrolyte solutions are not known, and reference data does not exist. Thus, modelling requires also new reliable experimental data, which is produced.
