Päivi Laajala, Mayor of City of Oulu

I take a great pleasure in inviting you to the 15th International Conference on Electronic Spectroscopy and Structure 2021 in Oulu. As a vibrant city with 250 000 inhabitants and two universities, city of Oulu offers you an opportunity to make ICESS 2021 a memorable scientific conference with a northern twist.

There are plenty of benefits in holding a conference in Oulu. Firstly, Oulu is a city where over a third of the inhabitants hold a university degree. The University of Oulu and Oulu University of Applied Science form our city’s scientific backbone.

Secondly, our exotic arctic setting offers a memorable meeting place, where excellent infrastructure and services meet northern hospitality. Oulu is a beautiful and safe city by the river delta and the seaside with great traffic connections and accommodation.

Welcome to Oulu! Here you can have a conference to remember.


Jouko Niinimäki, Rector
University of Oulu

The University of Oulu is an international research and innovation university that offers a great setting for hosting a conference at the heart of science: both the University of Oulu and the Oulu University of Applied Sciences will be located on the Linnanmaa campus.

Our university is a uniquely multidisciplinary environment for fundamental and applied materials research. Nano and molecular scale physics with state of the art infrastructures locally and internationally supports several of the focus areas of our university: creating sustainability by materials and systems, molecular and environmental basis for lifelong health as well as studying Earth and near-space system and environmental change.

In addition, the university has a national responsibility in coordinating the participation in the MAX IV synchrotron facility as a part of the Finnish Research Infrastructure Roadmap. The university also contributes to the European Free Electron Laser Eu-XFEL project and, for example, has formal ties to the UVSOR-III SR facility in Okazaki, Japan.

The highly international research on the field is emphasized through several EU funded ERC, ERDF, ESF and Marie-Curie projects. The University of Oulu also hosts the Horizon COFUND doctoral program I4Future, which focuses on materials imaging and characterization.

We believe our international high-quality research makes the University of Oulu an excellent place to hold the ICESS Conference. Welcome to our university in 2021!