Researchers from the University of Turku have been granted research infrastructure funding by the Academy of Finland. The largest funding was granted to the imaging infrastructure led by Professor Juhani Knuuti and the hydrology infrastructure lead by Professor Petteri Alho. Overall, eight projects with researchers from the University of Turku received funding.
The funding of around €700,000 granted for the imaging infrastructure will be used to finish the enterprise resource planning (ERP) for radiochemistry at the Turku PET Centre, explains Director of the Centre Juhani Knuuti.
– This is an application which manages the manufacturing of radiopharmaceuticals and tracers. We have been developing it for several years, and now we will be able to finish this work with the help of this funding, says Knuuti.
According to him, the last stages of developing the ERP allow them to make the system more seamless and automatic so that it will also meet the needs of the PET Centre’s corporate customers better than before and support the objectives of the InFlames Flagship in drug development.
Professor Petteri Alho explains that the funding of around €600,000 granted by the Academy for the hydrology infrastructure will go into acquiring new measuring instruments for e.g. mapping river environment topography and flow characteristics.
– We will get to use instruments that are yet to be used commercially, which, on its part, enables new kind of implementation of measuring projects, says Alho.
A significant funding of over €500,000 was also granted to Professor Baoru Yang, who is a member in the FOODNUTRI consortium led by the University of Helsinki. The consortium studies climate-friendly nutrition and food.
The Academy of Finland provides funding for the acquisition, establishment, strengthening, and updating of nationally significant research infrastructures that promote scientific research. Research infrastructures are research instruments, equipment, materials, and services that serve to e.g. facilitate research and development work and support training and education of researchers. In this round, research infrastructures were supported with a total of nearly €36 million.
At the University of Turku, the infrastructure funding was granted for
- Petteri Alho, hydrology infrastructure, €577,729
- Jari Hänninen, Finnish marine research infrastructure, €136,065
- Heikki Kauppi, research infrastructure for the study of public opinion, €345,501
- Juhani Knuuti, medical imaging infrastructure, €670,971
- Niina Käyhkö, infrastructure for open geospatial data, €117,835
- Veronika Laippala, infrastructure for social sciences and humanities, €237,659
- Otso Suominen, climate and environmental research infrastructure, €213,816
- Baoru Yang, infrastructure for climate-friendly nutrition and food, €508,884
