A virtual laboratory is an easily accessible and well-documented digital platform composed of interlinked collection of computational methods, software tools and data. Interactive visualization tools allows the scientists, students or customers to input their knowledge to the virtual laboratory.

First virtual laboratories were developed for educational purposes, allowing the students to, for example, simulate laboratory experiments to gain understanding in the instruments and the measured process. Virtual laboratories are currently developed also for research purposes, and they will be used to optimize experiment or model design as well as understand complicated process networks with many feedback mechanisms. The session presents virtual laboratory application to three fields: synthetic psychology, biodiversity and atmospheric particle formation. Many of the key artificial intelligence elements required for virtual laboratories are common across the wide span of disciplines.

• Chairperson: Professor Hanna Vehkamäki (University of Helsinki)
• Doctor Suyog Chandramouli (Aalto University): Synthetic Psychologist – Optimal Experimental Design for Cognitive Models
• Academy Professor Otso Ovaskainen (University of Jyväskylä): Simulating biodiversity dynamics and virtual ecologists
• Professor Hanna Vehkamäki (University of Helsinki): Virtual laboratory for atmospheric particle formation