In 2025 the theme of the Helsinki University Open Science Award was the reuse of data.
The Helsinki University Open Science Award has been presented to the working group for data openness active at Hyytiälä Forest Station. The group includes Postdoctoral Researcher Allan Souza, Research Technician Silja Vuorenmaa, Research Coordinator Pekka Kaitaniemi and Project Planning Officer Tanja Lindholm.
The award was granted for efforts to enable the reuse of research data produced at Hyytiälä Forest Station. Over the past century the station has hosted research and accumulated data, some of which have now been made available. The time-series (1909-2024) of forestry measurements and management practices in Hyytiälä Forest Station, Finland is available at .
The University of Helsinki's Open Science Award is presented yearly in recognition of significant work to promote open science. This year the aim was to highlight the reuse of previously accumulated data in research.
The jury stated that the data now published are valuable as such for further use. In addition, the jury wanted to emphasise that students and researchers have contributed to the accumulation of the research data over the years, and the award is also an acknowledgment of this collaborative effort. The award-winning endeavour also reflects the diverse, time-consuming, demanding and multiprofessional skills and input needed when data are made openly available retroactively.
The Open Science Award jury also noted that the proposed recipients were of typically high quality. The proposals diversely highlighted perspectives related to this year's theme, including different use of data previously compiled for another purpose, the increasingly effective use of data with the help of new innovations and the aggregation of data from various sources into datasets, databases or maps.
Special mentions to two doctoral researchers
Because the use of research data in different research questions and disciplines was also highlighted in the proposals, the jury decided to award two special mentions.
Nikolai Paukkonen, Doctoral researcher in archaeology - Computer vision to detect and classify photographs taken of archaeological finds. The solution enables better utilization of mass discovery data and combines modern digital humanities methods with traditional material-based archaeology.
Nour Assaf, Doctoral researcher in neuroscience - Neuronal Atlas: integrating open sequencing datasets into a harmonized atlas, enabling the reuse of datasets for purposes such as method comparison and repeatable analyses, making it a valuable resource for teaching and research.
