Research

Centre of Excellence in Research

Human Geography

Research of Regional Transformation (Regional and Political Geography). Research is concentrated on the transformation of regional systems, on the social and cultural construction of regions, as well as on economic, political and cultural processes, phenomena and ideologies affecting on these transformations.

In Social Geographical research the core question is to map the ways in which space, place and landscape appear as experiential phenomena, that is, as lived environmental relations.

Tourism Geography

Tourism Geographies. Main research themes tourism and regional development, impacts of tourism, environment and sustainable tourism and local culture and regional and local identities in tourism.

Geoinformatics

Geoinformatics studies cartography, Geoinformation systems (GIS), geocoding and  basic and applied research of location based services.

Rural research

Rural research is concentrated in rural policy and development of rural areas.

Regional politics, policy and development

Both research and teaching of regional politics, policy and development at the University of Oulu focus primarily on regional transformation

Physical Geography

Potentiality of geodiversity in biodiversity modelling -research develop a methodology to map and measure geodiversity. Moreover, the aim is to examine the applicability of geodiversity in predicting biodiversity patterns.

Remote sensing  and GIS in biodiversity modelling -research develops species distribution models of plants and animals based on satellite images and geographic information.

Spatial modeling of periglacial processes -research concentrates in environmental factors controlling geomorphological processes in cold environments. Additionally, the project develops novel approaches in predictive geomorphological mapping.

Global change -research focuses on assessment and forecast of changes in habitat and species distribution and in structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems.