Finnish Institute of High Performance Sport KIHU

(formerly known as Research Institute for Olympic Sports)

Our mission is to help to improve Finnish sporting success by improving the quality and impact of coaching and training with strong scientific service to athletes and coaches together with domestic and international collaborators.

We at KIHU are passionate about developing Finnish high-performance sport. We continually research, develop and innovate new training methods enabling athletes to reach their potential. We harness research evidence, new technologies and innovations to inform best-practice in coaching and decision making in sport. We bring together various networks and collectively open the way towards international success for athletes making the nation proud. We scientifically lead the way onto the top.

Scientific support for high-performance sport
We help elite athletes and their coaches progress further by bringing self-belief to athletes and teams in their performance. We support elite athletes’ training and help to optimise their performances. We help to prevent injuries and illnesses, thus, increasing healthy training days. Further, we bring the evidence-based understanding of human body and the influence of training to support the decision making for athletes and coaches.

Sport RDI
We work as a development partner and an interpreter for inter-disciplinary science in sport. We combine multi-disciplinary research information and endless improvement work to support the best performances. We bring continuous development, new technologies, innovations and evidence-based leadership to elite sport together with our collaborators.

We work closely together with Finnish Olympic Committee, Finnish Paralympic Committee, the University of Jyväskylä and national Sports Institute network as well as sports governing bodies. The main funding for our operation is the annual grant from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Further support is provided by Finnish Olympic Committee, some sports governing bodies and City of Jyväskylä.

• KIHU was founded in 1991
• Currently KIHU has about 30 scientists, experts and support personnel
• KIHU works closely with 14 different national teams by providing scientific support for their training
• Annual budget is about 2.5 M€.

Finnish Institute of High Performance Sport KIHU
Rautpohjankatu 6
FI-40700 Jyväskylä
FINLAND
Ph. +358 20 781 1500

Director Arto Kuusisto, +358 40 061 3014, arto.kuusisto@kihu.fi
Scientific support lead Ville Vesterinen, +358 50 545 1049, ville.vesterinen@kihu.fi
Research, development and innovations lead Tomi Vänttinen, +358 40 758 4671, tomi.vanttinen@kihu.fi
Communication Manager Riku Valleala, +358 50 328 1174, riku.valleala@kihu.fi

Foundation for Research and Development in Olympic Sports
Rautpohjankatu 6
FI-40700 Jyväskylä
FINLAND

VAT number: FI1574321-0

PIC (for EU funding programs): 909670948