Frequently asked questions

The data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts - Research program for health and well-being can be requested for research collaboration projects with University of Oulu.

See more on NFBC research themes and contact persons

Familiarize to cohorts and data available. Are they feasible for your research questions?

See more on the cohorts

If your research is in line with the scope of the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts – Research program for health and well-being, make a material request:

See more on the material request process

Additional variables are requested with the electronic material request portal. The request is processed through scientific evaluation and decision phases. The request for additional variables needs to be complemented with research plan showing the rationale for additional variables.

proceed for the material request

Biological samples and relating data collected before 2013 in Northern Finland Birth Cohorts – Research program for health and well-being can be requested from Arctic Biobank.

See more information on Arctic Biobank sample collections

See more information on material request process for Arctic Biobank

Note, that the biological samples that have not been transferred to Arctic Biobank are available from the NFBC research program.

See more on the cohorts

The data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts - Research program for health and well-being can be requested for research collaboration projects with University of Oulu.

See more on NFBC research themes and contact persons

Biological samples and relating data collected before 2013 in Northern Finland Birth Cohorts – Research program for health and well-being can be requested from Arctic Biobank. Arctic Biobank aims to promote research in health and well-being, and in medicine and life sciences. It provides samples and data for high-quality research projects aimed at elucidating the causes of disease and the impact of genetics, environment, and lifestyles on their onset.

See more on Arctic Biobank data collections

See more instructions how to access project folders

The access to the project folder needs to be activated by the cohort center.

• Check from the cohort support if you have been granted the access (cohortsupport(at)oulu.fi).

If you have not been granted the access, did you follow the

instruction how to access project folders

• If your VPN is working but you are not able to access the project folder and if you have both student and researcher UFO-account, check that you have used the UNIV/UFO account for research for VPN.

Note that project folder having national register data have been closed on the University of Oulu server. Project data are analysed in Kapseli environment.

Check that you have included the necessary information for cohort data:

See web pages

The process for scientific evaluation and decision for new projects, additional variables and amendments takes around four weeks and for publications two weeks. The decision is informed via the applications system generated email for contact persons on the application. After the decision, the projects applying data are compiled in the order of the compilation queue.

See more on the during the project activities.

Shortly, you need to have:

• signed user policy document
• UNIV/UFO account
• inform NFBC project center, use the project number as a reference

If your project includes data from national register, you need to follow the instruction for national register usage

see above from the "I want to apply data or samples"

NFBC research program is using Findata’s secure environment (Kapseli) for national register data. Researchers named on the Findata research permit and listed in the Kapseli application, will be informed when the Kapseli environment is available.

Below Findata’s instructions for Kapseli users:

• Download Duo Mobile –app on your mobile phone. It is used for Kapseli-registration.

• Use SMS message provided for Kapseli identification.

• If you have missed the one week time slot for Kapseli access activation, ask a new activation link from kapseli@findata.fi. NFBC Kapseli application number is available from the cohort center emails or by asking from the cohort center.

• User guide for Kapseli (for example Logging in Kapseli, Result verification): Kapseli user guide - Findata

• Standard terms of use - Findata

• Data transfers to Findata

Instruction for using NFBC Kapseli, see Information for researchers web page.

• NFBC projects without data from national registers included in the Findata research permit (The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Statistics Finland/cause of death, Kela, Finnish Centre for Pensions), will continue as they are, at the University of Oulu servers.
• Project folders containing data from national registers will be temporarily closed and opened on University of Oulu servers without register data by request to cohortsupport@oulu.fi.

see more information from the NFBC web pages

• New projects generate their project folder and compile their data based on the accepted material request. Instructions for NFBC Kapseli
• Older projects originally compiled at the University of Oulu server and now having need to move to Kapseli, please contact kohorttituki@oulu.fi,