Research in the field of ecology conducted at the University of Helsinki has improved in ranking from 20 to 12 in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects in 2024 published by ShanghaiRanking. In the field of ecology, the University of Helsinki is the leading university in Finland and the Nordic countries, and the fifth-best in Europe. The classifications of disciplines used in the rankings are based on the groupings used by international scholarly journals.
At the University of Helsinki, research in the discipline of ecology is extensively conducted from a range of perspectives. Ecological research is carried out particularly at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, which has several professorships in the field. Research in the field is also carried out, for example, at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry and the Faculty of Science, the Finnish Museum of Natural History, as well as the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) and the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science HELSUS – all in all, in 13 different units of the University. Ecological research has therefore also been a key topic in several profile-building projects funded by the Research Council of Finland at the University of Helsinki.
What factors have boosted the University’s ecological research to such heights?
According to Craig Primmer, Vice-Dean for research at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, one clear factor is the marked increase in the number of scholarly publications in the field: from 2016 to 2019, the number of publications per year was on average 300, while from 2020 to 2023 the number of ecology-themed publications had risen to approximately 420 per year.
According to Professor Anna-Liisa Laine, the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences has a long tradition of ecological research on which to build new research efforts.
“Longitudinal datasets collected in Finland have turned out to be irreplaceable when investigating environmental change as a result of human activity. We also provide solid training and education in the field. In terms of research, we have been at the forefront of integrating new methods, such as genetic tools and remote sensing, into ecological research. They make it possible to investigate ecological research questions in an entirely new way,” Laine points out.
In addition, significant funding has been allocated to ecological research over the years. Researchers at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences have received several grants from the European Research Council (ERC) in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, as well as Centres of Excellence and Academy Professorships funded by the Research Council of Finland.
“We have successfully recruited international top-level scholars for professorships,” Laine sums up.