At the University of Oulu, knowledge, collaboration and societal insight help guide clean technology towards the needs of society
In northern Finland, clean hydrogen is becoming more than a future energy carrier. Around Oulu, University of Oulu researchers, energy companies and heavy industry are exploring how it could reshape industrial processes, regional infrastructure and future skills needs. Beyond the energy system, hydrogen technologies could also transform transport, agriculture and politics — in practice, society as a whole. The projects now taking shape in the region are generating scalable solutions and knowledge with relevance far beyond Finland. In Oulu, those ambitions are closely tied to the city’s northern setting and long history of practical innovation.
A northern innovation ecosystem built on local strengths
Oulu is a Finnish coastal city, located slightly further north than the city of Reykjavík in Iceland. The climate and long distances have always required the people of Oulu to build well-being from locally available resources. The city has excelled in this, both in trade and in innovation development—from the tar merchants of the past to companies like Nokia and Oura more recently. It is therefore no surprise that the University of Oulu is developing unconventional clean hydrogen production technologies and studying the synergies created by their industrial use.
In summer 2026, around a dozen commercial hydrogen projects were under development in the Oulu region and slightly further north. The role of research in enabling these projects becomes clear when speaking with Kimmo Alatulkkila, Head of New Business at Oulu Energy.
“Together with research and innovation actors in Oulu, we developed a hydrogen vision for the Laanila area, where we produce steam, heat, and electricity for industrial park operators,” says Alatulkkila. “The vision has played an important role in promoting hydrogen development in the Laanila region and creating momentum for project development.”
The vision has since been updated to cover not only hydrogen and energy but also data and artificial intelligence, reflecting how the region’s clean technology development is expanding into a broader industrial and digital ecosystem.
Geographically, activities have expanded from Laanila to three new industrial areas, where hydrogen project development is being planned, zoned, and assessed for environmental impacts. The City of Oulu aims to connect the energy infrastructures of these areas in the future. For the University of Oulu, this regional expansion also shows why close collaboration with companies is essential.
“Close interaction between university research and private-sector research, development, and innovation organisations works in both directions. Companies gain insight into development pathways and solution ideas they did not even know were theoretically possible,” says Professor Marko Huttula, head of the NANOMO unit at the Faculty of Science, University of Oulu.
“On the other hand, it keeps the university well informed about current technological development needs. This helps to direct basic research towards areas where resource-efficiency solutions for the future can be found,” he continues.
From chemistry labs to steel plants
Companies seek competitive advantage through the adoption of new technologies. Universities aim to solve societal problems and build a more sustainable future. To achieve both goals and maintain productive collaboration in joint development work, it is necessary to be able to move between laboratories and factory floors—and back again.
A good example of turning research insight into industrial advantage is the co-production of clean hydrogen and battery-grade graphite, an innovation originating from Professor Ulla Lassi’s research group and commercialized by the growth company Hycamite. Researchers who have worked on the topic at the university may transfer their expertise part-time to the company and return later to the university to study why certain solutions work – or do not work – at an industrial scale.
“The basic research I represent in chemistry is typically such that certain solutions can generate multiple benefits across different sectors of society. The limits are, of course, the laws of nature – but largely also creativity and imagination,” says Lassi.
“That, in turn, is fuelled by the practical applicability of results, which is why a living connection to technology development carried out in industry is absolutely essential.”
About an hour’s drive south of Oulu lies the city of Raahe, whose lifeline has long been SSAB’s steel plant. The company is a Nordic frontrunner in decarbonising the steel industry. Hydrogen can reduce emissions at the iron ore reduction stage, and electric arc furnaces can replace the coke-based blast furnace production.
In studying the interaction between hydrogen and steel, the University of Oulu has, in addition to these emission reduction opportunities, identified a fertile field of research in the production of ultrahigh-strength steels.
In the latest joint project between SSAB and the University of Oulu, ultrahigh-strength steels are being developed for applications such as ship hull structures, port cranes, and forestry machines. These structures must withstand heavy loads and demanding conditions. For example, in forestry machines, the boom used to reach and cut trees must be long and strong, while the machine itself must remain lightweight and agile in terrain. When structures are made from stronger steel, less material is needed, equipment becomes lighter, and energy consumption decreases.
Close research and development collaboration between the university and companies is already visible in the project’s reverse design logic: the starting point is the requirements of the end product—such as strength, toughness, weldability, and surface quality of the steel. Based on these, the manufacturing chain needed to produce the desired end result is modelled.
“We bring knowledge from end use and even recycling back to the steel manufacturing stages,” describes Professor Jukka Kömi of the University of Oulu, who leads the RIS4E project (Revolutionary and Intelligent Steel Solutions for Sustainable Environment).
Crucial partnerships that strengthen sustainable steel research
The University of Oulu’s role in sustainable metals research is also strengthened by its strategic partnership with Outokumpu, the world’s leading producer of responsibly produced stainless steel.
Announced this summer, the partnership builds on long-term cooperation in process metallurgy, materials science, process engineering and automation technology. It is now expanding to include the natural sciences, human sciences and business studies.
The aim of the collaboration is to accelerate innovation, ensure the availability of skilled professionals, and at the same time strengthen the competitiveness of northern industry. Outokumpu aims to recruit a total of one hundred interns annually from the University of Oulu for its Kemi mine and Tornio mills.
“As part of this increasingly close collaboration, the University of Oulu can offer novel and multidisciplinary perspectives on the sustainable production of stainless steel and chromium-based products. This provides an excellent opportunity to systematically build long-term joint research agendas”, says Professor Timo Fabritius from the University of Oulu.
Alongside companies, other important partners are, of course, universities and research institutes in Finland and internationally. For example, at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia there is a strong production region for iron ore and the steel industry that utilises it. In addition to the University of Oulu, innovation in this region is driven by Luleå University of Technology on the Swedish side. Nationally, Finnish research partners, for example, in the RIS4E project include Tampere University and LUT University.
State-of-the-art research also requires access to world-leading research infrastructures. At the University of Oulu, the research is conducted at several leading large-scale synchrotron radiation facilities around the globe, such as MAX IV Laboratory in Lund, Sweden, and Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon, Canada. The research is carried out in close collaboration with the facilities, working together on method development.
These partnerships and infrastructures support technological breakthroughs, but the wider question is how such breakthroughs will shape society over time.
From scientific breakthroughs and university spin-offs to future societal impact
As hydrogen technologies develop, one question becomes increasingly important: How can they be guided so that they serve the needs of future society?
“For example, when photocatalytic hydrogen production research practically began at the University of Oulu in 2016, we didn’t yet see spin-offs like ZUN-H coming,” Professor Huttula says. “Still, disruptions always begin with scientific breakthroughs. The development cycles of basic research after that are so slow that the needs of the future society must be kept in mind in almost all project funding applications,” he explains.
At that point, seamless collaboration between natural and technical sciences and the human sciences becomes crucial. Business studies, sociology, psychology, and other social sciences also actively anticipate the future based on what we already know.
“For example, in the hydrogen flagship proposal H2ERA that we are building together across technical and human sciences, we describe methods for increasing knowledge and understanding of how the changes driven by hydrogen technology development will affect society”, Huttula concludes.
University of Oulu spin-off company ZUN-H in a nutshell
- Solar hydrogen panels: ZUN-H develops panels that produce clean hydrogen directly from sunlight and water through photocatalytic water splitting, instead of electricity-based electrolysis.
- Off-grid, distributed energy production: The technology enables local hydrogen generation in remote or grid-independent locations, supporting decentralised energy systems.
- Emission-free fuel production: The system generates hydrogen without external electricity, offering a renewable, zero-emission fuel pathway.
- Scalable system design: Solutions range from individual hydrogen-producing units to large solar hydrogen fields capable of supplying communities and industrial users.
- Research-driven University of Oulu spin-off: ZUN-H is rooted in academic solar hydrogen research, emphasising scientific development and engineering rigour.
- International operations: The company operates through ZUN-H Development Oy in Finland and AZAILA CLEAN ENERGY S.L. in Spain, combining Finnish R&D with Spanish sunlight for real-world deployment.
- Founded: 2025. CEO: Veera Tapionkaski.
For the University of Oulu, clean hydrogen research is not only about developing new technologies. It is also about understanding how those technologies reshape industry, infrastructure, skills and everyday life — and how society can prepare for that change.
Please Note: This is a Commercial Profile
Please note, this article will also appear in the 27th edition of our quarterly publication.
