Aalto university innovation groups receive over €4M funding for sustainable innovations

Business Finland has awarded research to business funding to seven new Aalto innovation projects. The funding is directed to commercialisation of university born inventions. In total, the innovation groups collected more than four million euros.

In this funding round, all Aalto University research groups that participated in the application process received commercialization funding. Janne Laine, vice president responsible for innovation, is satisfied with the success.

"We have learned to recognize promising innovations and have created a service chain that helps research groups get up to speed. With this result, we can state that we succeeded in building a functioning innovation ecosystem, although there is still a lot of work to be done," he states.

The cluster of seven innovation projects includes researchers from four out of six Aalto University's schools. For the first time, the project of the School of Arts and Design also received funding. The researchers of the WUUD project are developing environmentally friendly and long-lasting interior and exterior wood cladding that combines technical solutions with sustainable design and architectural know-how. The leader of the WUUD project team, Hemmo Honkonen, an interior architect specializing in wood processing, is excited.

"Feels great," says Honkonen. "We have already been preparing the application for a year and although the feedback has been encouraging along the way, the positive funding news was a pleasant surprise."

Commercialization funding is the first step in the journey of a project aiming to benefit the society as a thriving business.

"Innovation is just the beginning," says Honkonen. "With funding, we can assemble a team to bring the product to the market, where its impact can be seen."

Janne Laine is also happy about WUUD's funding.

"Personally, this was very delightful. Inventions are often regarded as technical, although innovation can also stem from design. In the future, the importance of smart design is more important than ever in regard to environment and resources. It is important that we all share this vision", concludes Laine.

The funded projects are:

Visentools, facilitation tool empowering communications through visual sensebuilding​​​​​​
PCMI, bio-based smart insulating material
Twinbase, digital twin management platform
CirPa, a bio-based acoustic insulation solution
WUUD, environmentally friendly and durable wooden cladding
A-Gate, ultra compact high-precision imaging sensor
3DPiezoMEMS, a design platform for energy-efficient microelectromechanical components.

Aalto University offers expert services from the commercialization of research ideas to a comprehensive business accelerator program for research groups from its ecosystem. With initial stage funding, new innovation projects strenghten the scientific background of their project and develop a business model with business developer. More than a hundred projects have already been operated through Aalto's innovation services.

Get to know other ongoing R2B research projects and dive into Aalto's deep technological know-how.

More information:

Janne Laine, vice president, innovation
[email protected]
050 465 6835

Kim Aalto, Commercialization Portfolio Manager
[email protected]
050 4731979