Tampere University strongly represented on Finland’s new national roadmap for research infrastructures

Tampere University participates in the following four research infrastructures that have been newly added to the 2025–2028 national roadmap by the Research Council of Finland:

• National infrastructure for human in digital world (MAGICS)
• Operando research infrastructure for energy materials and systems (OperaRI)
• The Finnish BioFoundry for synthetic biology and biomanufacturing (FIN-BioFoundry)
• The Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research (FIRE)

Tampere University receives significant funding for human-centric research 

The MAGICS research infrastructure promotes cutting-edge science and art related to socially sustainable digitalisation and virtualisation. The substantial funding following MAGICS’s inclusion in the national roadmap will enable further investments in advanced extended reality technologies, mobile labs and multimodal measurement systems. 

At Tampere University, MAGICS represents a significant investment in the equipment housed within the Human-Centered Research Hub, supporting research and teaching across multiple faculties. The MAGICS consortium involves four faculties at Tampere University: the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences (ITC), the Faculty of Social Sciences (SOC), the Faculty of Education and Culture (EDU), and the Faculty of Management and Business (MAB). 

MAGICS provides open access to technologies such as extended reality (XR), social robotics, brain imaging, haptic feedback and olfactory technologies. 

“The funding granted due to our roadmap status will allow us to invest, for example, in new XR facilities and mobile XR research environments, enhancing the study of teaching and learning,” says Professor Roope Raisamo, Deputy Director of the MAGICS infrastructure and Site Director at Tampere University. 

Research infrastructures advancing industrial biotechnology, hydrogen technologies and register-based research 

The Finnish BioFoundry for synthetic biology and biomanufacturing (FIN-BioFoundry) brings together the scientific excellence and industry interface of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Aalto University, the University of Turku and Tampere University to develop cutting-edge solutions for industrial biotechnology. The FIN-BioFoundry infrastructure promotes advanced research in synthetic biology and biomanufacturing.

The Operando research infrastructure for energy materials and systems (OperaRI) provides powerful in-situ and operando characterisation techniques to deepen scientific expertise necessary for advances in hydrogen and green technologies.

The Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research (FIRE) supports the construction of novel research datasets and register-based research projects. In addition, FIRE trains future generations of register data specialists in research and evidence-based decision-making. 

Tampere University is a partner in six infrastructures receiving extended roadmap funding 

Tampere University is involved in six research infrastructures that were already included in the 2021–2024 roadmap and have been selected for the 2025–2028 roadmap as well:

• Biocenter Finland (BF)
• Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (FIN-CLARIAH)
• Euro-BioImaging Finland: Research Infrastructure for Imaging Technologies in Biological and Biomedical Sciences (EB-Fi)
• Finnish Social Science Data Archive & CESSDA ERIC’s Finnish Service Provider (FSD)
• Research Infrastructure for Future Wireless Communication Networks (FUWIRI)
• Integrated Atmospheric and Earth System Science Research Infrastructure (INAR RI)

Finland’s national roadmap for research infrastructures aims to ensure that research infrastructures remain internationally competitive and capable of addressing both current and future scientific challenges, generating new knowledge and expertise, and engaging with RDI actors. A total of €130 million in funding is available for the roadmap’s research infrastructures. For more details, please read the Research Council of Finland’s press release.