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Canada and Finland have a lot of similarities to support the collaboration: raw material base on the boreal belt, societies’ commitment to sustainability and clean planet, forest-oriented culture, and high expertise in innovation. ​​

Boreal Alliance aims to identify opportunities to translate bio-based materials science to sustainable innovations, and welcomes interested academic partners to join the mission. Knowledge exchange between the partners is enabled by, for example, visiting students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty members. The aim is also to develop co-supervised doctoral research topics and to enable and promote reciprocal access to the partners’ research infrastructures. Another practical way to collaborate is to promote partners’ seminars within the Alliance, and to organize joint events. Furthermore, the new co-operation aims to promote science-based policies, standards and circular bioeconomy platforms. By joining forces, the partners aim to encourage sustainable developments and innovations​.

Further information:

• Orlando Rojas, orlando.rojas@aalto.fi, orlando.rojas@ubc.ca
• Tekla Tammelin, tekla.tammelin@vtt.fi
• Monika Österberg, monika.osterberg@aalto.fi

Websites: and

University of British Columbia is a global centre for teaching, learning and research, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the world and recently recognized as North America’s most international university.

Aalto University is a community of bold thinkers where science and art meet technology and business. Aalto is building a sustainable future by creating novel solutions to major global challenges. Aalto has six schools with over 11,000 students and 4,000 employees of whom close to 400 are professors. The main campus is located in Espoo, the capital area of Finland.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. It drives sustainable growth and tackles the biggest global challenges of our time, and turns them into growth opportunities. VTT goes beyond the obvious to help the society and companies to grow through technological innovations. It has almost 80 years of experience of top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.