Strategic initiatives

The School has launched five strategic initiatives for spearheading its strategy. All the initiatives have an impact on research excellence, education and teaching, as well as society as a whole.

• Aalto Brain Center
• Aalto Center for Operations Research
• Aalto Energy Science Initiative
• Aalto Science Institute
• Aalto Ventures Program
• Centre for Quantum Engineering (CQE)

Aalto Brain Center’s (ABC) mission is to understand the human brain and mind at a systems level by applying advanced brainimaging and computational methods. It promotes synergy and collaboration among Aalto scientists arising from a strong tradition of neuroscience, neurotechnology, and computation, to provide basic brain and mind education to Aalto students. The goal is to foster translational research into new clinical applications and to utilize developed technologies commercially. The focus areas are human brain dynamics and systemslevel neuroscience as well as new tools to measure and analyse human brain function. ABC supports interdisciplinary research and teaching. It has a high impact on well-being by providing new knowledge that can be widely utilized by different actors in society. brainscience.aalto.fi

Aalto Center for Operations Research (ACOR) is a coordinated network of Aalto researchers with interests in Operations Research (OR). It aims at enhancing collaboration between Aalto’s research groups which conduct research in OR or fields that apply or would benefit from the application of OR methods to create new, high-impact research and bring best expertise available to work on promising application domains. ACOR’s other objectives include expanding Aalto’s activities in OR by providing networking and collaboration possibilities for researchers and representatives of companies and/or other organizations, raising awareness of OR and enhancing possibilities for agile utilization of OR, and development of teaching in Aalto. acor.aalto.fi

Aalto Energy Science Initiative (ESCI) is a multidisciplinary initiative pulling together scientific strengths of the School of Science into strategic energy topics. The goal is to enhance breakthrough thinking in energy focusing on two themes: “Energy, Systems and Society” – systemic issues and “Materials in Energy”, including Multidisciplinary Energy Education (Minor, MSc). The future focus of ESCI will be in increasing student involvement around energy, which includes the Energy Garage learning hub and innovation space.
As an open, transparent, and added-value driven cooperation platform, ESCI enhances multidisciplinary research, collaboration across the departments, and student-faculty interaction. The Energy Science Initiative will have a positive impact on society and is closely related to the strategic focus of energy research at Aalto University. energyscience.aalto.fi

Aalto Science Institute (AScI) is an interdisciplinary research initiative launched in 2012 and hosted by the School of Science to advance and foster international collaboration and research at the highest level across different fields of science. The Institute promotes meetings of minds across disciplines with visitor programmes ranging from undergraduate internships to postdoctoral fellows and senior scientists to come together and collaborate on challenging research problems. AScI’s internship programme’s three calls have reached over 200 students abroad to apply, and 33 students have been accepted to work in related departments during summer months. In AScI’s fellowship programme almost 500 researchers have applied for postdoc positions, and nine of these have been accepted to work in AScI as a research fellow for three years. Aalto Science Institute’s visiting scientist programme has given grants to 75 senior scientist visits to different departments of the School. asci.aalto.fi

Aalto Ventures Program (AVP) is a strategic education initiative of Aalto University. It provides students from all Aalto schools with the inspiration, capability and network necessary to build new scalable businesses either as new independent startup companies or within existing companies. The students learn through experimentation, crossdisciplinary teamwork, and gain insights with the help of experienced professionals. Students can study a minor in high-growth entrepreneurship for a master’s degree or take individual courses as electives. AVP supports the strengthening of entrepreneurship at the School and in Aalto. It collaborates actively with a wide network of stakeholders. It increases internationalization and international visibility by collaborating with international partners including a joint minor in entrepreneurship with Tongji University in Shanghai, China. AVP aims to be a European leader in entrepreneurship education by 2020. avp.aalto.fi

Centre for Quantum Engineering (CQE) Initiated in 2015, the Centre for Quantum Engineering (CQE) is a thematic research centre in the field of quantum engineering at Aalto University. It builds on existing strengths and expertise of our research groups. CQE aims at enhancing thematic collaboration between groups at Aalto, with industry and with international associates, to boost top-notch science and the emergence of new spin-offs and/or commercialization of research results. CQE realizes the joint will to multiply the impact of the efforts currently made in the field of quantum engineering at Aalto. It focuses on strengths and farsightedness, while supporting and developing areas where the local tradition is already strong or where it is emerging and where the local research environment can make a difference. CQE holds high potential to trigger a whole new level of cutting-edge science at Aalto.