CASE University of Oulu: Co-creating research themes for a new transdisciplinary institute

A new institute opens its themes to all researchers

The University of Oulu is launching Integra – Institute for Integrative Studies, which starts operations at the beginning of 2027. Integra brings research together across disciplines around a few strategic theme programmes, with funding calls open to all researchers at the university.

The Professor Forum outlined four working themes in spring and summer 2026: Sustainable Transitions, Arctic Futures, Future Technologies and Staying Healthy. Before writing the theme programmes, Integra wanted to hear the wider research community, from doctoral researchers to principal investigators.

“The university community spans many disciplines, and it is important to draw on that breadth of expertise when designing the research programmes. The workshops had a good spirit of co-creation and trust, which bodes well for the committed expertise and motivation the research programmes will need.”
— Jussi Paakkari, Research Director, University of Oulu, Integra Institute

Why an external facilitator

With researchers from very different fields in the same room, there was a real risk that familiar research topics and ready-made project ideas would take over the conversation. Keeping the day open to new perspectives took deliberate process design. The organisers wanted to be free to talk with individual contributors throughout the day. With an external facilitator, one person owns the big picture, makes the process decisions as the day unfolds, and makes sure the objectives are met on schedule. That is why Integra brought in Grape People to design and facilitate the series.

“Designing the research programmes took several workshops, and the experts who take part give us a full working day each time. We wanted a professional facilitator who could steer each workshop from an open starting point to a themed outcome in a single day, whoever the participants were. It also left Integra’s own staff time to observe how the process unfolded, including its interim and final results.”
— Jussi Paakkari, Research Director, University of Oulu, Integra Institute

Four themes, four workshops

We facilitated four full-day workshops, one for each theme, each with about 30 researchers. An external speaker opened each day:

• Sustainable Transitions: Tanja Suni, PhD, Head of System Transition and Impact, CLIC Innovation
• Arctic Futures: Gunnar Rekvig, PhD, Project Manager, Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
• Future Technologies: Sasu Tarkoma, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki
• Staying Healthy: Teija Kekonen, PhD, Director of Research, Development and Innovation, Wellbeing Services County of North Ostrobothnia (Pohde)

The brief was the same each day: find the research needs within the theme, not projects. Three criteria guided the work:

• Advances the research field: new questions or openings rather than the continuation of established research lines
• Transdisciplinarity: needs that cut across disciplines and engage people outside the research community
• Societal impact: a 15–20-year horizon, with someone outside academia who holds the problem

One process, adapted to each day

Each day narrowed down step by step, from the wide picture to concrete research needs. The design choices that mattered most:

• Everyone contributes before anyone argues. After the keynote, participants first mapped the trends shaping the theme on their own, then built a shared mind map on the wall together, in silence. Every discipline was on the wall before the discussion started.
• Repeated mixing in small groups. Researchers compared their ideas in multiple rounds of small groups. This is where cross-pollination happened, as researchers had to make sense of each other’s view of what was worth researching.
• The criteria decided the vote. Pairs gave out an imaginary 10 euros among the proposed themes, using the three criteria. A small synthesis group from different fields then interpreted and combined the results into a few themes for the afternoon, and presented its proposal to everyone for comments before the group work began.
• People chose where to work. Working groups formed around the theme each person cared about most, and people were free to move between groups.
• One template for every group. Each group documented its research need in the same way: what the need is, which disciplines it requires, who holds the problem, and why the university can’t solve it alone. That made the outputs of all four days comparable.

No two days were the same, though. The workshops took place in three venues, each with a different room layout, and two of the keynotes were given remotely, which meant running a hybrid setup. The process stayed the same, but how it was carried out had to be adapted on the spot each time.

We also refined the process between workshops. In the later workshops, the opening showed how the day’s input would turn into theme programmes and funding calls, with real examples from the earlier days.

“I found the facilitator was professional and led the event in a controlled and inspired manner. Importantly, most of thinking and doing was left to participants, which served the purpose of the workshop well. It was lots of work, but rewarding all the same.”
— Participant, Integra thematic workshops

“I like how the teams were mixed in each segment. It allowed new perspectives the entire day.”
— Participant, Integra thematic workshops

Results

About 120 researchers took part in the four workshops. Together they worked up 18 research themes, between four and six per theme programme, each documented with the disciplines it needs, who holds the problem, and partners outside the university. Examples:

• Arctic Futures: how space weather affects digital infrastructure in the Arctic
• Sustainable Transitions: critical resource flows in society (food, water, energy, minerals, data), how fragile they are and how they are distributed
• Future Technologies: how people and AI can share agency as work and institutions evolve together, so that the change improves quality of life
• Staying Healthy: promoting brain health throughout the life course

Of the 22 participants who answered the feedback survey, 21 said they participated and contributed actively, 14 found the day intellectually stimulating, and 13 intend to apply for funding in Integra’s first thematic call.

After each workshop, Grape People delivered the photographed outputs as a transcribed document. The theme drafts are open to comments from the whole university community and then presented to the university’s Research Management Group. Integra’s first funding calls build on this work.

“The workshop results will be used in the content descriptions of the strategic theme programmes. When the programmes open in a few weeks, university researchers will see the output of their own workshop as part of the whole.”
— Jussi Paakkari, Research Director, University of Oulu, Integra Institute