The University of Eastern Finland is a multidisciplinary university, which offers teaching in more than 100 major subjects. The university comprises four faculties: the Philosophical Faculty, the Faculty of Science and Forestry, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies.

The activities of the university underscore multidisciplinarity. The university's key interdisciplinary research areas are built around four global challenges: Ageing, lifestyles and health; Learning in a digitised society; Cultural encounters, mobilities and borders; and Environmental change and sufficiency of natural resources.