- Since its establishment in 2021, the partnership has elevated collaboration between Metsä Group and the University of Helsinki to the next level in both chemistry and forestry.
- The partnership has spawned several research projects, theses and traineeships for students.
- Students familiarising themselves with Metsä Group at the beginning of their careers is valuable to the company.
How can logging be carried out while protecting the environment? How can textile fibres be produced from pulp? And what do we know about the shelf life of food in wood-based packaging? These are among the questions to which Metsä Groupand the University of Helsinki are collaboratively seeking answers.
The idea is to accelerate the sustainability transition and educate the experts it requires. Professor Anne Toppinen from the Department of Forest Sciences considers joining forces extremely important.
“The sustainability transition can only be achieved with the help of businesses in the field,” Toppinen sums up.
For Metsä Group, the benefits of the partnership are manifold. The company gains access to fresh views that would not necessarily arise internally. Thanks to long-term collaboration, it is also effortless to identify suitable researchers for various projects. Metsä Group is also involved, among other things, in brainstorming for the University’s innovation operations and in the advisory board of the University of Helsinki Research Foundation, which supports junior researchers.
“Participating in these activities continually generates knowledge and understanding for us, making it easier to put things in motion,” says Senior Vice-President (Group R&D) Katariina Kemppainen of Metsä Group.
Research collaboration is underway on several fronts. The University of Helsinki, Metsä Group and partners have investigated, for example, how alternatives to plastic(link in Finnish only) can be made from pulp. The opportunities are extensive: even today, pulp is used, for example, in sausage skins and paints. Only in recent years have the problems caused by plastic become a matter of common knowledge.
“We live in a boom of bio-based materials,” says Professor of Organic Chemistry Ilkka Kilpeläinen.
New processing methods are key to creating increasingly ecological products. The recyclable and non-toxic ionic liquid solvents (link in Finnish only) under development in Kilpeläinen’s research group show great promise. In fact, their potential has been surveyed with Metsä Group. Among other things, ionic liquids can be used to dissolve cellulose and convert it to textile fibres, thus replacing, for example, viscose, which is produced using toxic carbon disulphide.
Metsä Group utilises research-based knowledge in the development of its own Kuura textile fibre. Kilpeläinen’s expertise is partly to thank for Metsä Group even beginning to consider the possibilities of dissolving cellulose.
“He is a pioneer in the field and he has played a significant role in the creation of textile fibre research as a whole,” Kemppainen says.
In forest management too, Metsä Group wishes to be the first to gain access to increasingly sustainable solutions.
“Matters related to responsibility and regenerative commercial forestry in particular are something that we are happy to investigate and put to use as a pioneer. We hope that they will spread widely throughout the sector,” says Senior Vice-President (Development) Juho Rantala at Metsä Group.
One example of the collaboration is a project entitled Environmentally friendly precision harvesting (link in Finnish only) aimed at reducing the environmental strain caused by forest management. In practice, this means that the environment is carefully surveyed before logging.
“Almost all trees and topographic details in the forest can be charted before taking any machinery to the area,” says Professor Jori Uusitalo, who heads the project.
The data collected can be transmitted to harvester operators. Optimising harvester routes helps to reduce terrain damage, carbon dioxide emissions and strain on the water system. In addition, accumulating knowledge of tree species and soil types is useful in preventing damage caused by the wind, insects and diseases.
At the core of the collaboration is also the education and training of experts. Metsä Group has supported the completion of several doctoral theses, and soon the company will be taking part in the CIMANET doctoral pilot. For the pilot, the University of Helsinki is recruiting six doctoral researchers to explore topics related to the circular bioeconomy and chemistry.
“Metsä Group’s experts will be invited to thesis committees and sparring groups when pilot projects launch in January 2025,” Professor Toppinen says.
In the period 2021–2023, the company provided summer jobs and traineeships for more than 20 students of the University of Helsinki. In addition, the company has been involved in the completion of roughly 10 master’s theses whose topics have included the shelf life of berries and ice cream in wood-based packaging. According to Senior University Lecturer Hanna Koivula, most students like to complete their theses in cooperation with businesses.
“They feel that the knowledge generated will be genuinely useful.”
The partnership also benefits researchers. According to Kilpeläinen, it helps steer research, among other things. With an endless amount of interesting clues associated with ionic liquids, the company can help identify the most promising ones. In fact, the researchers hope to continue intensive collaboration with Metsä Group.
“The intensity and volume could still increase from the current level,” Toppinen notes.
The availability of experts is of utmost importance to Metsä Group. When students get to know the company already while writing their theses and completing traineeships, it can also become an attractive employer later on.
“Our goal is to be visible to students throughout their study paths,” says Senior Vice-President Rantala.
One goal is to expand the partnership, perhaps even to entirely new fields of science. At the moment, Metsä Group is interested in, for example, competencies related to information technology and data at the University of Helsinki.
“We are open to anything,” Kemppainen sums up.
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