Partners

Auria Biobank is Finland’s first biobank. Approximately one million samples are stored in the biobank and used for medical research. Auria Biobank is situated in Turku, in connection with Turku University Hospital and the University of Turku.

The biobank was established by the University of Turku and the hospital districts of Southwest Finland, Satakunta and Vaasa. It was established in 2012, and in spring 2014 received its operating licence from Valvira, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health.

The biobank’s activities are guided by the Finnish Biobank Act, which entered into force in autumn 2013. The Biobank Act secures the rights of the donor and improves researchers’ prerequisites for using the sample collections. In accordance with the Biobank Act, samples and personal data can, with the donor’s consent, be collected and saved in biobanks for future research purposes.

Turku Centre for Labour Studies, TCLS, complements and strengthens academic teaching, research and cooperation on interdisciplinary work and working life. The centre functions as network. The network includes specialists and researchers from all faculties of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi. In addition, the network includes an extensive set of working life research institutes, working life influencers and members and alumnus from public organisations and companies.

TCLS promotes, designs and coordinates research and development projects in the fields of work and working life in different disciplines. The scientific disciplines represented by researchers include management, entrepreneurship, sociology, social policy, future research, psychology, educational sciences, law and information sciences. Research findings can be applied to develop and promote work communities, organisations and working life.

Future Ethics is the leading research group of technology ethics in Finland, which resides in the Turku School of Economics at the Univeristy of Turku. Future Ethics focuses on the ethics of future technologies concentrating on ethical questions related to information and communication technology in near future. The main research areas are governmental ICT and eHealth systems. Other fields of interest include e.g. game and gamification research, data economy, and artificial intelligence.

KREPRO is a research group focusing on processes of knowledge creation, innovation, and creativity in the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Turku. One of KREPRO’s core research aim is to understand knowledge and creativity in co-creation processes between humans and machines in the era of artificial intelligence.

Laboratory of Business Disruption Research is a research laboratory in the Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku, which studies the business disruption phenomenon and designs new business models to support development of groundbreaking innovations.