TERVEYDEN JA HYVINVOINNIN LAITOS

Their core work

Finland's national public health institute (THL) conducts population-level health research, disease surveillance, and health policy analysis. They manage large-scale biobanks and birth cohorts, monitor vaccine effectiveness across Europe, and study how environmental exposures, nutrition, and social factors shape health outcomes — particularly in children and adolescents. Their work bridges epidemiological data collection with actionable public health interventions, making them a go-to partner for projects requiring access to Nordic population registries and longitudinal health datasets.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In 2014–2018, THL's H2020 portfolio centered on health information standards (ASSESS CT, semantic interoperability, SNOMED CT), ageing research (ATHLOS, J-Age II), and foundational participation in life-science research infrastructures (CORBEL, ELIXIR, BBMRI-ERIC). From 2019 onward, a clear shift emerged toward data-intensive population health: omics-based research, biobank-linked studies, One Health surveillance, and FAIR data principles became dominant themes. The institute also deepened its focus on children, adolescents, and pregnancy outcomes while expanding into exposome science and digital health screening.

THL is moving firmly toward large-scale, data-intensive health research combining omics, biobanks, and environmental exposure data — making them an increasingly valuable partner for projects requiring population-level datasets and FAIR-compliant health data infrastructure.

How they like to work

THL operates exclusively as a participant or third-party contributor — they have never coordinated an H2020 project, preferring to bring their national datasets, registry access, and epidemiological expertise into large consortia led by others. With 706 unique partners across 48 countries, they are a highly connected hub rather than a loyal repeat-partner organization. This makes them easy to integrate into new consortia: they are experienced team players accustomed to working within complex, multi-country project structures.

THL has collaborated with 706 distinct partners across 48 countries, giving them one of the broadest partnership networks among Nordic health research institutes. Their connections span Western and Southern Europe heavily, with links into North America through projects like euCanSHare (EU-Canada).

What sets them apart

THL's core advantage is access to Finland's exceptionally well-maintained population registries, biobanks, and longitudinal health datasets — resources that are difficult to replicate elsewhere in Europe. As a national public health authority (not just a university lab), they bring regulatory insight and real-world health system data that academic partners typically cannot provide. For consortium builders, THL offers a rare combination: Nordic data quality, broad European network experience, and the institutional stability of a government research agency.

Highlights from their portfolio

• RECAP preterm
  THL's largest single H2020 grant (EUR 888,882), focused on lifelong health outcomes of preterm-born Europeans — demonstrating their strength in birth cohort research.
• HBM4EU
  EUR 840,000 in a flagship European human biomonitoring initiative linking chemical exposure data to health outcomes across 28 countries.
• MOOD
  Combines big data, One Health, and climate change for epidemic surveillance — represents THL's evolution toward data science-driven public health.