Today, our planet is facing increasingly complex ecological, politico-economic and socio-cultural challenges. In order to ensure a fair future for the coming generations on this planet, we are in urgent need of innovations that will help to restore the balance between humankind, technology and nature.

University of Turku grants a €30,000 Pentti Malaska Futures Award for a visionary, boundary-crossing, research-based solution that supports the building of more sustainable global futures.

The new and innovative solutions we are looking for should be based on academic research or be in some other way closely linked to the academic world. To be eligible, the solution has to be already developed, a prototype, tested or patented, or the solution’s innovation potential has been proven in some other way. Solutions that are only at the idea stage cannot be entered into the competition.

The competition is open for Nordic (Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic) futures researchers and research teams with a future-oriented research approach within any academic field. By Nordic we refer to Nordic citizens working anywhere in the world or any global citizen working in an institute registered in the Nordic countries. If there are many team members, it is enough that at least one of the team members with a significant contribution to the development of the innovation meets this criteria.

Application period is open until 28 April 2019.

For more information please visit the Pentti Malaska Futures Award pages

The Finland Futures Research Centre of the University of Turku founded in 1992 is the largest Nordic research centre focusing on futures research and foresight. The cornerstone of its philosophy is to promote sustainable, i.e. ecologically balanced, economically efficient, socially equal, and multicultural future.

The University of Turku has been a UArctic member since 2005.