Key Research Area: Digitalisation and AI
Digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and communications are cut through the whole society, from education to medicine and economics.
Research & Art
High-quality research. A unique combination of science, art, technology and business.
At Aalto University, we create the conditions needed for innovation, economic growth, employment and wellbeing. Our research focuses on seven key areas combining four core competences in the fields of digitalisation, materials, arts, design and business together with three grand challenges related to energy, living environment, and health.
Key research areas
Key Research Area: Materials and natural resources
Materials research ranges from physics, nanotechnology, mechanics, performance and design to biomaterials and sustainable resource use.
Key Research Area: Arts and design
Art and creativity enable looking at the grand challenges of our time from a new perspective. Look past the imaginable and join us in changing the world in arts and design.
Key Research Area: Business and economics
Research related to business and economics include the areas of business, economics, industrial engineering and management.
Key Research Area: Energy solutions
The main focus in energy research and teaching are energy sciences, multidisciplinary energy technologies, and sustainable energy solutions.
Key Research Area: Living environments
We are developing interdisciplinary research to enhance planning and engineering, architecture and design for better living environments.
Key Research Area: Health and well-being
Aalto University’s expertise in health and well-being is broad-based, with strong clusters of research groups such as in medical devices, health AI, neuroscience, and care-facility architecture.
A! Sign of Change
In line with its 15th anniversary on 8 January 2025, Aalto University launched a fundraising campaign with the aim of attracting EUR 30 million in donations and 1,500 donors over two years.
Aalto University conducts top-notch research in dozens of fields from quantum technology to artificial intelligence, management and biomaterials. The donations collected now will enable Aalto to respond better to the growing need of high-quality education, research and innovation activities.
Quicklinks
Join Aalto - Interested in starting a career with us?
Read more about our doctoral programmes and tenure track career system! And get to know our university teaching.
How to apply for doctoral studies?
Find out what is required of applicants and what can our doctoral studies offer!
Tenure track
Aalto University’s tenure track career system offers a well-supported and clear career path for professor-level academics towards a permanent professorship.
Lecturer career system
Aalto lecturer career system is intended primarily for individuals conducting teaching. The lecturer career system supports individual development and career advancement through clear principles and systematic evaluation criteria and allows Aalto teachers and lecturers to advance in their careers with teaching-focused merits. Teachers and lecturers have the opportunity to advance within the career system, from the university teacher level to the university lecturer level, and further to the position of a senior university lecturer and principal university lecturer. This page contains principles of the lecturer career system, levels in lecturer career system, generic time allocation in lecturer career levels as well as descriptions of recruitment and advancement processes.
Teaching and Learning
You can now find the information from the Teaching and Learning page in the updated Teacher's Handbook.
Delve into our research – find the people behind it!
Excellence in research
We believe that impact and excellence in research are best achieved by collaboration – both between disciplines as well as universities. Get to know our recognitions, funding awards and projects.
Physicists embark on six-year hunt for dark matter particle
Researchers to probe the galactic halo in search of axions
Tiny organisms, big discoveries: How swarming shrimp could influence a new wave of ‘mesorobotics’
Aalto researcher aims to understand the complex movement of brine shrimp—a gateway to physics on an unfamiliar scale
Significant funding for thin-film technology research - materials to be developed can be used, for example, in energy storage
The search for new, precisely tailored thin-film materials is accelerating for a wide range of next-generation applications in fields such as energy storage and IoT.
Tenured Professors' Installation Talks
In the short videos, the new tenured professors present their own field and research.
Ilkka Niemelä, PresidentScience and art help us make sense of our complex world and, at the same time, challenge our own ways of thinking.
Read the latest research news
Aalto computer scientists in STOC 2025
Two papers from Aalto Department of Computer Science were accepted to the Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC).
New Academy Research Fellows and Academy Projects
A total of 44 Aalto researchers received Academy Research Fellowship and Academy Project funding from the Research Council of Finland – congratulations to all!
Aalto University's Wood Studio's future visions of Finland's most valuable wood are presented at the Finnish Forest Museum Lusto
Curly birch – the tree pressed by the devil – exhibition will be on display in Lusto until March 15, 2026.
Spring term open science highlight: Aalto Open Science Award Ceremony
We gathered at A Grid to celebrate the awardees of the Aalto Open Science Award 2024 and discuss open science topics with the Aalto community.Platforms and other collaboration units
Many scientific and societal challenges require systematic and integrative approaches that are beyond the capabilities of a single discipline or department. We believe that collaboration both within Aalto as well as with external stakeholders is key in order to gain the best possible impact.
Aalto Networking Platform
The Aalto Networking Platform brings together research expertise across departments, supporting collaboration both inside and outside of Aalto.
Research and learning infrastructures
Our research and teaching infrastructures are a prerequisite for world-class, cutting edge research. They offer opportunities for collaboration and foster the local innovation ecosystem growth. The large infrastructures are open for all Aalto and external users.
Societal impact as driving force
Open science and research
The principle of openness is the key principle of science and research. At Aalto University, the most visible forms of open science are open access publications, open research data and metadata, and combining openness and commercialisation.
Research assessments
Aalto University regularly assess the quality of its research and artistic activities, and its societal impact. The assessment is based on internationally agreed best practices and peer review.
Research Ethics and Research Integrity
Aalto University is committed to following the guidelines for research ethics and integrity. You will find help and advice on questions on research ethics and intregrity.
Management of research and art
Research at Aalto University is conducted by faculty and staff based in the departments. The role of the university management is to ensure the long-term preconditions for conducting high-quality and high-impact research and art.