Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11

Aalto University (AU)
The university was established in 2010, when Helsinki University of Technology 
(TKK), Helsinki School of Economics, and the University of Art and Design 
Helsinki were merged. It has 20,000 students and a staff of 4500, of which 300 are 
professors. The Aalto University School of Science and Technology, the former TKK, 
has 15,000 students. The other two schools are the Aalto University School of 
Economics and the Aalto University School of Art and Design. As of 2011, the 
School of Science and Technology will be divided into four schools: School of 
Engineering, School of Chemical Technology, School of Science, and School of 
Electrical Engineering. This more or less corresponds to the faculty structure of 2010: 
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Faculty of Chemistry and Materials 
Sciences, Faculty of Information and Natural Sciences, and Faculty of Electronics, 
Communications and Automation.

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Due to the restructurings, the names of subunits are somewhat unsettled. Until 
the end of 2007, TKK had twelve departments divided into more than 100 
laboratories. Since 2008, there were four faculties, whose 25 subunits were called 
departments. In some cases, these corresponded roughly to the old departments, in 
other cases to new groupings of previous laboratories. Each department had a number 
of subunits, often termed ‘research groups’. These more or less corresponded to the 
previous laboratories. The groups still often call themselves laboratories although this 
name has no official status. Few changes are expected at this level when the new 
schools are introduced in 2011.