The University of Helsinki is strongly investing in data science. For both the university and Nokia, data science is a field of research in which they want to build more collaboration in the future.

− The University of Helsinki being elected Distinguished Academic Partner with Nokia Bell Labs will bring the university and Nokia into a tighter collaboration in a field that is central to both organisations, says Professor Sasu Tarkoma, head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki.

The university is establishing eight professorships in the field of data science, four of which have already been declared vacant.

− In addition, Professor Pan Hui from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has been elected to the endowed professorship Nokia Chair in Data Science. He started in the post at the beginning of September and brought with him a small team that is being grown into a research group, says Tarkoma.

Stu­dents tak­ing part in the Dis­tin­guished Aca­demic Part­ner col­lab­or­a­tion

− Along with its new collaboration programme, Nokia Bell Labs wants to develop close strategic relations with the world’s top universities. Together, we can offer the most gifted scientists the best platform for innovative work, says Julie Byrne, who is in charge of the Distinguished Academic Partner programme at Nokia.

− It includes universities, with which we have had good results already, and with which we want to work even closer both on a strategic and project level. In addition, we are in constant dialogue with universities and comparing visions of the future, says research director Lauri Oksanen from Nokia Bell Labs.

Besides interesting results, the collaboration between Nokia and the university is expected to heighten the visibility of both Bell Labs and Nokia itself to university students.

− Collaboration with students, MSc thesis writers, summer workers, and trainees is an important form of collaboration. Annually, Bell Labs employs 250 trainees globally, and this year it employed 12 in Espoo. We want to continue investing in this, as well, and thus ensure we get the best students, he continues.

Col­lab­or­a­tion from net­works

The programmatic cooperation in the field of computer science started last year, when Nokia, the University of Helsinki, and Aalto University started a research collaboration unit. This Nokia Center for Advanced Research (NCAR) has been working closely with Nokia Bell Labs.

The goal in NCAR is to identify research problems that are significant for the industry and carry out both basic and applied research to solve these problems. Its initial projects are related to network technologies supporting the Internet of Things, future 5G network architectures, efficient communications protocols, and enhancing the intelligence of networks.

A big en­vir­on­mental meas­ure­ment sys­tem for the 5G net­work is next

In spring 2017, a collaboration on 5G networks between the University of Helsinki and Nokia Bell Labs Peking was initialised. The goal is to create an extensive measurement system for the environment, based on the 5G network, to monitor air quality and environmental conditions.

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Nokia Center for Advanced Research

The university extends its collaboration with Chinese universities

Contact details:

Sasu Tarkoma, 040 506 2163, sasu.tarkoma@helsinki. fi

Nokia press services, 010 448 4900, press.services@nokia. com

Minna Meriläinen-Tenhu, @MinnaMeriTenhu, 050 415 0316, minna. merilainen@helsinki.fi; #HelsinkiData