Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11

Research environment
The available instrumental infrastructure is excellent and fulfils the needs of the 
current research. However, laboratory space limits further expansion of the unit and 
hampers daily interaction, especially between the new organic synthesis group and 
the organic synthesis service of the physical chemistry group.
Research networking and interaction
The applied physical chemistry unit has, mainly thanks to the group leader, strong 
collaborations with several internationally well-recognised groups in the field of 
supramolecular photochemistry. As a result, the proportion of papers with 
international co-authors is very high. The organic group, founded in the evaluation 
period, is building on contacts with China, Japan and other methods-oriented organic 
chemistry groups in Finland. It has still not achieved as strong an international 
recognition as the physical chemistry group.
The unit has, through the physical chemistry group, been active within COST 
actions, and the proportion of internationally recruited PhD students is high. The 

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unit regularly receives senior scientists on stays of 1–3 months, mainly from Russia, 
Romania and Japan. As seems to be the common practice in Finland, the senior or 
postdoctoral researchers hired are mainly educated within the unit.
Recommendations
The physical chemistry group’s shift from studies of assemblies in solutions to studies 
of the assemblies deposited on surfaces is timely and should be actively pursued. The 
organic chemistry group should focus on topics where it is likely that the available 
resources are sufficient to create international impact and promote the group towards 
higher visibility. The target-oriented organic synthesis subunit of the physical 
chemistry group and the new methods-oriented organic chemistry group would both 
benefit from closer interaction. If local geography is the main obstacle for 
collaboration, not only on analysis instruments, it needs to be constructively 
discussed at TUT. 
The retirement of the most senior professor in the near future calls for strategic 
discussions at department and faculty level in order to further develop the chemistry 
unit and the university. Since chemistry is a key topic in several of the priority areas 
of TUT and a key element in several educational programmes, the panel strongly 
advises engaging competence in chemistry disciplines other than physical and organic 
chemistry (analytical and industrial chemistry currently not being covered at all 
according to the self-evaluation). Expanding the disciplinary versatility will 
strengthen the chemistry unit both at the research level and at the undergraduate 
teaching level.
The presently active groups at TUT are advised to seek collaborations not only in 
easterly directions. The “People” calls of the EU framework programmes could be 
pursued in order to increase the number of postdoctoral researchers on stays longer 
than a few months.