Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub is an innovation ecosystem focused on developing the wood products and forestry sector. It strengthens collaboration between innovations emerging at the University of Helsinki and companies in the field. Its core focus areas are the sustainability transition and innovations that support it. The Hub’s activities are reinforced by the faculty’s growing offering of innovation and entrepreneurship studies. Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub promotes collaboration among industrial actors, creating added value and competitive advantage across the entire value chain.
The realization of the sustainability transition requires new solutions, products, services, and social innovations resulting from research, development, and innovation activities. Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub is Finland’s new research-driven innovation environment for the wood product and forestry sector, created to meet these needs. It provides an open platform for the exchange of ideas among different stakeholders and generates innovations where university research and industry needs come together. These innovations can lead to long-term social, climate, and environmental benefits.
The objectives of Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub are to:
The establishment of Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub was preceded by a preliminary study that examined the prerequisites for building a sustainable innovation ecosystem for the forest and wood product sector. The study investigated the needs, feasibility, and potential impacts and outcomes of an open innovation ecosystem in the sector. The methods included extensive interviews with forestry stakeholders, workshops, and literature analysis.
The results of the study showed that forestry actors have the conditions, capabilities, and interest to participate in an open innovation ecosystem. The study also explored possible funding models, organizational structures, and potential domestic and international partners and mentors for the ecosystem. The preliminary study was funded by the Uusimaa Regional Council and the City of Helsinki.
Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub acts as a link between researchers, students, companies in the sector, and third-sector actors. This includes facilitating the flow of information, both from industry needs to research and from research-based innovations to industry. The Hub’s activities cover the development of education and teaching, organizing joint events and gatherings, and identifying collaboration opportunities. The Hub operates in an open innovation environment but also supports, when needed, the establishment of startups or bilateral cooperation between companies and researchers.
Among others, Hub’s thematic areas include:
Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning provide highly detailed information about forests and trees, which can be widely used in forest, land-use, and natural resource planning. Photo: Jiri Pyörälä.
Innovations are built on high-level research conducted at the university. The Department of Forest Sciences hosts more than 20 research groups covering a wide range of forest and wood product research. These innovations draw on new technologies from multiple fields—such as artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, measurement and positioning technologies, production technologies and systems—combined with new business and market expertise.
The University of Helsinki’s Hyytiälä Forest Station, with its new buildings forming a “living laboratory” (Living Lab), is part of Viikki’s innovation ecosystem for sustainable wood construction, wood materials, and forestry. The Living Lab is a multidisciplinary research platform for studying and teaching the sustainability, climate, and well-being impacts of wooden buildings.
Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation Hub receives part of its funding from the City of Helsinki’s Innovation Fund for the 2024–2026 operational period. The preliminary study was funded by the Regional Council of Uusimaa and the City of Helsinki.
The activities of Viikki Wood and Forest Innovation hub are guided by the steering group of the Green Transition Innovation Campus project, which includes representatives from: