Caption: Receivers. Project Specialist Marianne Muurinen (bottom row, left), Student Liaison of TEK Rita Ojaniemi, Education Manager Sari Stenvall-Virtanen, Dean Jaakko Järvi (top row, left), Professor Pasi Liljeberg and Head of Corporate Collaboration Timo Vasankari kindly answered questions and posed for a picture in the newly opened TFiF & TEK Lounge in Aurum on Henrikinkatu when the editorial staff of TEK Magazine visited Turku to find out the latest news.
The Faculty of Technology at the University of Turku turned one year at the turn of the year. For a one-year-old, it is already quite impressive.
The faculty has more than 2,000 students and its own research and teaching staff of almost 300 people. In addition, the faculty provides jobs for about one hundred other employees.
The yearling has not grown this big in just one year. The university has educated academic engineers for much longer. Education first began in collaboration with the Swedish-language university Åbo Akademi in 1999. Later on, the University of Turku was assigned its own educational responsibilities, namely degree programmes in biotechnology and information and communication technology.
The new faculty was born in 2019 when the Ministry of Education and Culture assigned the university educational responsibilities in mechanical engineering and materials engineering at the university's request. In the ensuing turmoil of organising and planning the new education, the Department of Computing, Department of Biotechnology and Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering were grouped under one faculty.
The faculty now offers Master’s degree programmes in technology (Mechanical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Biotechnology, and Information and Communication Technology) and in sciences (Computer Science and Biochemistry).
But this is not enough for the one-year-old.
Growth continues
Last September the University of Turku turned to the Ministry of Education and Culture to apply for a further extension to its educational responsibilities to include electrical and automation technology. The Ministry approved the application in January, and the new programme should be available in 2023.
– Automation technology is the ultimate addition, because automation is linked to all digitalisation. There is a lot of pressure coming from local companies. There is a shortage of experts in the region of Satakunta and elsewhere in southwestern Finland. The demand therefore comes from the economic region and the country as a whole, says Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Professor Jaakko Järvi.
The needs of companies have been invoked for years, but they remain unmet. TEK Magazine wrote just over two years ago (TEK 5/2019) that companies in the Turku economic region have advocated the extension of university education in technology in Turku for decades.
Concerns have been voiced in other parts of the country as well. According to a report published by Technology Industries of Finland last autumn, the technology industry alone will need 130,000 new workers within the next ten years. Of the recruited workers, 60 percent are already required to have a university degree or a similar level of expertise.
Companies in Turku have struggled especially with the fact that experts in mathematics and technology who have lived in the region have had to move elsewhere to pursue postgraduate studies and have not returned.
The applicants to the new degree programmes in mechanical and materials engineering proved this concern to be legitimate. There is a need for local higher education in technology.
– More than half of the applicants and admitted students came from southwestern Finland. What’s more, the admission points of students admitted to study mechanical engineering via the DIA (joint application for higher education in technology and architecture) certificate-based selection were the highest in the country in 2020, and the second highest in 2021, so we have done well, says Education Manager of the Faculty of Technology Sari Stenvall-Virtanen.
Getting started is always rough, except in Turku
Dean of the Faculty, Professor Jaakko Järvi describes the take-off run of the new faculty and the new fields of education so convincingly that one cannot help but be amazed.
There is enough money at the moment, although there could always be more, and experts for the faculty have been found all over the world.
– Most of the research at the faculty is done with the help of external funding. This year we have about 13 million euros of competitive external funding, which is slightly more than the basic funding allocated for the faculty in the state budget. We have the largest relative share of external funding from all the faculties at the university, says Järvi.
– The professorships endowed by companies, municipalities and foundations in the region have enabled the rapid extension of education in technology.
Five-year endowed professorships are critical for budding fields of education, because the university funding scheme is basically structured in a way that allows universities to receive substantial funding only in return for graduated students. The state currently pays a university just over 20,000 euros for each graduated Bachelor of Science in Technology and roughly 30,000 euros for a Master of Science in Technology.
A Bachelor’s degree normally takes around three years to complete, and a Master’s degree two years on top of that. This means that the students who have just now started pursuing a Master’s degree in mechanical and materials engineering will not start bringing in money until after a few years. Until then at least, the faculty has to make do with donations and other external funding.
But as mentioned, there have been plenty of donors, and several endowed professorships have been established at the faculty. For example, the Turku Chamber of Commerce, Turku Energia, Kiilto, Turun Osuuskauppa, the city of Naantali, Finnsementti, BE Group, Hesburger, Sarcodon and Lounais-Suomen jätehuolto donated a total of 600,000 euros to the university to establish a professorship in circular economy. This sum allows the university to appoint one professor for a five-year term.
According to Jaakko Järvi, there have been many good professor candidates, and not only from Finland. Six of the latest seven professors have come from abroad, the farthest from Brazil and South Korea.
What makes foreign professors want to come to Turku?
– One of the key factors is that they get to genuinely develop new research and instruction. There are no old structures or old set-ups here, says Järvi with a smile.
– The recruitment process must also be quick. We try to complete the process in less than six months. In the past, recruitment processes have sometimes lasted for a couple of years, even in our university. If the process is drawn out, it is often only the local applicants who remain. Also, there are not a lot of professorships available in certain fields.
Let all the flowers bloom
The new educational responsibilities have also allowed the university to establish new corporate relationships, says Timo Vasankari, Head of Corporate Collaboration at the faculty.
– Previously, we had little to give to the manufacturing industry, such as engineering workshops, but now several companies in the industry have contacted us and suggested that they come and introduce themselves. Companies are hoping to gain visibility and collaborate with the university.
University-industry collaboration therefore largely depends on what is taught at the university and which degrees the university can offer.
That is why the wish list of the University of Turku also includes educational responsibility for industrial engineering and management. In addition to experts in technology, companies in the region also need people who can combine technology and business. That is why the faculty is envisioning a minor programme in industrial engineering and management, with a focus on sustainable development.
Another common thought at the Faculty of Technology is that Master’s degree programmes in technology should be based on the needs of the region and the times, because needs vary. The current organisation of education in technology into 13 fields of educational responsibility also feels like too fine a division.
Dean Jaakko Järvi believes that universities could be given more autonomy to aim their education and award degrees more freely than at present.
– The business world is not divided into 13 fields of educational responsibility either.
So should we let all the flowers bloom?
– That’s not such a stupid idea. Degree programmes that are successfully built and work well would thrive and become stronger, whereas the unsuccessful ones would wither away.
“Educational responsibility system needs a reform”
According to Dean of the Faculty of Technology at the University of Turku Jaakko Järvi, universities could be given more autonomy to aim their education and award degrees more freely than at present, because successfully built degree programmes would become stronger and the unsuccessful ones would wither away. What do you think about this idea, TEK’s Director of Public Affairs Juhani Nokela?
– If we shift towards a market-based model, the funding should in practice come directly via the students, as is the case in higher education systems where students pay tuition fees. In Finland, education is funded by the state and the state decides who has the right to offer specific degrees. This ensures that education is also available in small fields that are important for the nation, but do not attract large numbers of students. We at TEK feel that the educational responsibility system needs a reform to strengthen the autonomy of universities, but in such a way that the whole picture can be managed to benefit Finland as a whole, not just an individual university.
How?
– The current system is a compilation that has taken shape over the decades, where different fields vary greatly in scope and the division under the decrees of the Government and the Ministry of Education and Culture is somewhat inconsistent. It would be beneficial to simplify and clarify the structure, in addition to reviewing the different fields of education in light of what is the right level of regulation and detail. I do not yet have any answers to this last issue, but we need more information, deliberation and discussion.
The University of Turku may want to extend its educational responsibilities to include industrial engineering and management. What do you think about this idea?
– The University of Turku is off to a great start with its new degree programmes and has just been granted educational responsibility in electrical and automation technology. We at TEK believe that it would make more sense to continue developing the new programmes for now, instead of starting any new ones. Education in industrial engineering and management is also widely available throughout Finland, so perhaps there is a need to extend the existing programmes instead of establishing a new one.
A key policy of the present Government is to improve the level of education and address the shortage of skilled labour throughout the country. Does TEK agree with this policy or not?
– Finland has fallen behind in the level of education and it looks like my generation, the one born at the turn of the 70s and 80s, may be the most educated generation, if no changes are made. This trend poses a threat to the prosperity of Finland, which is why there is good reason to improve the level of education. We also know that there are and will be jobs available for highly educated experts in technology, so we are not opposed to increasing enrolment. Unfortunately, national governments are often guilty of not providing the necessary resources for increasing enrolment, but instead offering individual temporary funds, which are not adequate to improve the situation.