Aalto University boosts bold and new transdisciplinary research projects

The new strategy of Aalto University encourages collaboration across schools and disciplines. To support this, Aalto invests over one million euros during 2022–2024 through its internal seed funding and research funding calls.

The seed funding for Cross-Cutting Areas and the Radical Creativity research funding call received altogether 45 excellent proposals, of which Aalto funds 13 research consortiums.

‘We believe in transdisciplinary collaboration and want to encourage it and support it with these calls. One of Aalto University’s greatest assets is the unique combination of different disciplines, which enables high-quality science and border-crossing innovations’, says Ossi Naukkarinen, Vice President of Research.

The seed funding for Cross-Cutting Areas got 19 proposals, of which nine research groups were funded. The funding encourages professors to establish new research consortiums and new collaborations and thus aims to enhance chances to get major external funding in the future. It sought to fund emerging research groups and support establishing a new international collaboration network.

The Radical Creativity research call received 26 proposals, of which four research groups were granted funding. The projects aim to provide tools, knowledge, and theoretical frameworks for future applications of radical creativity, or take a radically creative approach to their research subjects, familiar things like ceramics and vision, with the potential to completely transform the way they are made and perceived.

‘These are all novel, unique, and interesting projects that have the potential to create a radically new kind of future, as well as produce sustainable solutions to the challenges of the current world. In addition, the research projects are aligned with our strategy and strengthen our key research areas’, Ossi Naukkarinen concludes.