Adjusting to new demands – NUAS Economy conference
May 21 @ 19:00 - May 23 @ 12:15
Wednesday, May 21st
19:00 Casual get together for early arrivals at own expense
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Thursday, May 22nd
09:30 Registration opens, coffee is served
10:00 Welcome to Helsinki, Introduction to the program
Theme 1
The demand of eco budgeting
Eco budgeting aims to better understand the environmental impact of spending choices and ensure that public budgets are aligned with climate and environmental objectives. The possibilities and challenges of actually doing that are discussed during this session.
10:10 Keynote: Birgitta Losman, Sustainability Strategist Strategic Resource, Borås University, Sweden
“If universities don´t stand up to follow climate researchers’ recommendations – then who will?”
How the university of Borås did to break the trend of increased emissions from carbon dioxid.
11:10 Case study no 1, Jesse Schrage, NORCE, Research Institute, Norway
Paris-compliant targets to governance tools: What can universities learn from cities insights from urban climate governance
11:35 Case study no 2, GreenSenze, Origo/KPMG Iceland
“Measuring carbon footprint of purchases by invoices – the example of Reykjavik University”
12:00 Lunch
13:00 Keynote: Daniel Pargman, KTH, Sweden
“Academic mobility now and in the future – Who gets to fly?”
Academic flying constitutes a large part of the carbon emissions at a research intensive university and we need to reduce our flying if we are to live up to the Paris Agreement and reach our climate targets. But how? The research project “Decreased CO2-emissions in flight-intensive organisations” had access to all data about everything at KTH; who flies when, where and why. We used this information as input to workshops at different departments to raise awareness and work with these issues, e.g. how can universities reduce ”unnecessary” flying and reach their climate targets and what does this mean for me as a researcher?
14:00 Coffee
Theme 2
Cost awareness – an emerging demand
The universities are under pressure to justify their costs and therefore it is important with transparency and insight – but this comes with the risk of increased bureaucracy. How we handle this demand will be explored during this session.
14:30 Keynote: Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg, Professor at Dept of Government, Uppsala University; Sweden
“Increased control and increased bureaucratization”
15:30 Case study no 1, OsloMet – Controller Siren Linnestad, OsloMet, Norway
“Cost allocation in education; how to meet the university’s need for economic insigh”
15:50 Short break
16:00 Case study no 2, Lasse Bjerg, Aarhus University,
“Covering project related indirect costs with external funding”
Six of the big private funds in Denmark have agreed to partly cover indirect costs related to the research projects that they fund at Danish universities. The six funds account for more than a quarter of the total external funding for Aarhus University, and their impact on the university economy has increased in recent years. With the agreement, it has become significantly more sustainable to increase the dependance on private funding. The talk will cover the process for getting to the final agreement, as well as the analyses that went into estimating the indirect costs.
16:45 Closing of day 1
17:00 Guided tour of Helsinki University
19:30 Conference dinner
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Friday, May 23rd
Theme 3
Demands for digital tools and transformation
In this session we are looking into how to utilize digital tools in our daily work. We also learn more about AI-literacy and why it is essential to understand how AI works.
09:00 Keynote: Laura Ruotsalainen, Professor of Spatiotemporal Data Analysis for Sustainability Science at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland
10:00 Case study no 1, Bergen University; Norway
To be announced
10:20 Coffee
10:45 Case study: University of Helsinki – intelligent automation, Elina Rajuvaara, expert RPA & AI
The University of Helsinki (UH) has been utilizing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) since 2018 to automate repetitive tasks. Today, an in-house Intelligent Automation Team is responsible for automating processes across finance, human resources, student services, the university library, and other administrative departments. Currently, the team utilizes both in-house robots and those from external service providers. They are developing AI-driven chatbots to enhance support services and actively train university personnel in using low-code automation tools.
11:10 Keynote:
To be announced
12:00 Closing of the conference
12:15 Lunch-to-go
Welcome to NUAS Economy Conference 2025 in Helsinki, Finland. Registration opens in January 2025 and closes 30.4.2025. Please note that refundable cancellation is possible only until 31.3 (cancellations always have a 50 € administrative charge), after 31.3 cancellations are non-refundable.
The price of the conference is 510 € incl VAT (25,5 %).
Please do your registration at:
NUAS Economy Conference Helsinki 2025 – University of Helsinki online payment service
The City Centre campus of the University of Helsinki is situated in the heart of the city. Our conference will take place in the main building of the university, just some hundreds of metres from the central railway station. (LINK google maps)
Arriving in Helsinki.
Helsinki-Vantaa international airport is a bit more than half an hours train ride from the central railway station. The train runs frequently and tickets can be purchased easily via the HSL app or in automats at the train platform on the airport. Both I and P trains from the airport go to the city centre (ie all trains leaving the airport go to the city centre.
It takes a bit less than 30 min to the city centre with a taxi. Different taxi companies have different lanes at the airport and their pricing vary. The bigger companies have visible pricing and a taxi ride to the city centre is usually around 35 €.
Suggested hotels:
There is a possibility for cheaper accommodation when in Helsinki, the University owns Unihome that has hotel like accommodation (and mainly temporary accommodation for international staff and visitors). With the code NUAS one can book accommodation in a single studio for 129e/night or double for 163e/night. Bookings are made here. The offer is until 22.4.2025 and as long as they have rooms available. The location of Unihome/Töölö towers is in Töölö (maps link), so a bit more than half an hour walk (2,5-3km) from where are conference is held.
Helsinki is a popular conference city with a big selection of hotels. We recommend hotels according to University of Helsinkis “Guide for visitors”. Please find out more here: