FinEst Centre for Smart Cities is a research and development centre driven by the passion to enhance the quality of life in urban areas. It brings together cities, researchers and entrepreneurs to co-create scalable, research-based solutions for the most pressing urban challenges. Based in Tallinn, Estonia, the centre serves as a unique cross-border smart city centre of excellence and collaboration between Estonian and Finnish universities.
Cities as testbeds for building resilient, smart communities.
FinEst Centre was established in 2019 with the goal of bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and the everyday realities of cities. Since then, the team has expanded to around 40 core members internationally. Another important goal was to strengthen the research and innovation collaboration between Finland and Estonia, especially between the universities of Aalto and Tallinn University of Technology.
While many urban innovation projects remain stuck at the pilot stage, FinEst Centre was created to break that cycle – delivering high-impact, repeatable solutions that can move from testing into use in cities across Europe and beyond. The organisation’s founding partners include Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), Aalto University, Forum Virium Helsinki, and the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.
The centre was established through the FinEst Twins project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and by the European Regional Development Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. The aim of the project was to create the world’s first cross-border smart city centre of excellence, now known as the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities.
“Our mission is to make innovation practical for cities,” says Director Ralf-Martin Soe. “We do this by working hand-in-hand with municipalities, researchers and companies and not just delivering projects, but implementing solutions that improve our urban living.”
Turning research into practical impact
For FinEst Centre, innovation is not just about technology. It’s about solving problems that matter to people. The centre defines innovation as research-based solutions that create value to urban areas and citizens, and that value must be measurable, scalable and tied to real-world challenges.
To make this happen, FinEst Centre works on the full lifecycle of innovation: from identifying urban challenges, to developing pilot projects, testing the solutions in real-life conditions and scaling successful solutions. Projects are selected through open challenge calls and supported through piloting funding and coordination.
Until now, FinEst Centre has implemented six pilot projects, creating novel solutions tackling urban greenery planning, smart mobility, energy resources management, citizen wellbeing and more.
The centre’s ability to combine world-class academic expertise with agile, city-led implementation has made it a standout in the European urban innovation landscape.
Looking ahead: Scaling impact and innovation that belongs to everyone
In the coming years, FinEst Centre aims to become one of Europe’s leading research and innovation hubs for developing novel smart city solutions, offering expert advice and delivering high-level research projects. With the increasing demand for digital twins, urban data spaces and AI integration in public services, the centre is expanding its scope to support a broader network of municipalities, innovators and researchers.
“Bringing research results from academia to cities and people is challenging — but the bigger is the reward when you see this collaboration working. We see new solutions being implemented by cities across different countries and exciting new spin-offs emerging from the process.” says Külle Tärnov, Head of Innovation at FinEst Centre.
FinEst Centre also actively drives innovative research and urban development projects that create value through new services and strategic partnerships, supported by EU funding such as Horizon Europe. FinEst Centre is a key partner in two major European projects. First, NetZeroCities, supports European cities in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions through ambitious climate action on the path to climate neutrality. Second, European Data Space for Smart Communities, aims to develop a large-scale, cross-sectoral data space that empowers smart communities across the EU.
Through science, collaboration and impact-driven work, the FinEst Centre for Smart Cities continues to shape a smarter, more sustainable urban future — one challenge at a time.
