Pekka Leviäkangas

Position:Professor in Transport and Infrastructure, University of Oulu 

Areas of expertise:Infrastructure

Pekka Leviäkangas (born in 1962, PhD in technology in 2007, PhD in economics in 2019) has worked in management and expert positions in civil service, business and research. He is currently Principal Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. For 2012-2016 he acted as Associate Professor at Curtin University in the School of Built Environment, Programme Director of the Australasian Centre for Building Information Modelling and Research Professor at University of Oulu in industrial engineering and management. His previous positions include Chief Research Scientist, Team Leader and Customer Manager at VTT, Vice-President of Jaakko Pöyry Group subsidiary (JP-Transplan), Corporate Analyst of Finnish Railways (VR-Group Ltd), R&D Manager of Finnish National Road Administration’s South-eastern region, and private consultant. He was an adjunct professor of Tampere University of Technology in the department of Logistics and Business Information for 2008-2014 and a life-long nominated Adjunct Professor (Docent) in Industrial Engineering and Management in the University of Oulu.

His own research covers public-private partnerships, business ecosystems, resilience, digitalisation, servitisation, innovation management, impact analysis, financial & investment & socio-economic analysis. His primary research area has been transport sector, but his activities have extended to other fields such as health care, bioeconomy, climate change, meteorology, education, construction and infrastructure management. He has published widely: more than 60 peer-reviewed articles or monographs and more than 70 conference papers, plus many other literal contributions to books, reports and media. He has about 20 years’ experience on international r&d projects and almost 30 years of working experience in public and private sectors.

He has been awarded by National Academy of Sciences (Transportation Research Board), VTT, Finnish Road Administration, ITS Japan/ERTICO/ITS America, University of Indonesia and scholar funds. He has represented Finland in the OECD’s International Transport Forum working groups and in European science & technology researcher networks (COST). He has also been a member of Transportation Research Board committees and sub-committees, Special Interests Groups of the World Congress on Transport Research Society, as well as expert groups of UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe). He has also contributed to the work of International Union of Railways (UIC) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).