Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11

4.35 VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Process Chemistry
Overview
VTT is a large government organisation with the aim of providing applied research 
and bridging the gap between academic research and industrial development. It has 
experienced several reorganisations during its history, the latest being the introduction 
of VTT group structure in 2010. Before that, VTT changed into a matrix organisation 
in 2006 and this assessment therefore covers only the period 2006–2009. The Process 
Chemistry Knowledge Centre was one of the 46 Knowledge Centres of that 

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organisation. Another organisational change relevant here is that part of KCL (Oy 
Keskuslaboratorio – Centrallaboratorium Ab, a major pulp and paper research 
institute) was integrated into VTT in 2009.
The average personnel resources of the unit during the period were in total 
slightly less than 50 FTE, of which four were chief researchers, 32 research scientists, 
four research engineers, and eight technical personnel. About 27 per cent of the 
researchers had a PhD degree. The merger with KCL increased these numbers with 
some 15 FTE.
Of the total funding resources during the evaluation period, one-third was core 
funding and two-thirds external funding. The latter includes funding from industry 
(40% of total funding), Tekes funding (18%) and EU funding (5%), the remaining 
sources being marginal. However, funding from the Academy of Finland increased 
from 1 per cent to 2 per cent during the period.