News

A new course by AVP helps communicate impact to enhance your career

Published: 8.4.2022

Impact With Research, a new course by Aalto Ventures Program, targets doctoral students, researchers, and faculty who want to make an impact. The course’s first question to participants is, “What can we do for you?”

Illustration of Impact With Research course visuals

Impact With Research by Aalto Ventures Program is a professional development training course for researchers that aim to enhance and strengthen their skills in exploring and communicating their impact and gain skills and resources for career progression, both inside and outside academia, and perhaps even mixing the two.

Course teacher Paul Savage, D.Sc. (Econ.), explains why the course is necessary and what makes it unique.

Picture of course teacher Paul Savage — Course teacher and D.Sc. (Econ.) Paul Savage wants to ask the students "What can we do for you?"

”In the scientific method, you observe, question, test hypotheses. You experiment and draw conclusions, or troubleshoot and experiment again. With the world changing quickly, experimentation is a useful method outside the lab, as well. It allows us to figure out what’s going on and even see glimpses of a future we build. In this course, we would like to question and experiment in other areas of life. This should be driven by the question, ‘What can we do for others?’”

The course takes a personal approach to education, with methods including personal reflection, fireside chats, and hearing stories of people’s paths after completing their doctoral studies.

“We’re trying to strip away stereotypes of what we’re supposed to do and instead figure out what’s best for us and society. The first question we ask our students is, ‘What can we do for you?’ We want the participants to think about how their personal goals and futures are woven into the communities we live in,” Dr. Savage explains.

There’s also a heavy focus on discussions and sharing expertise. As the course is offline – away from the keyboard – participants will be communicating their research and their ideas on impact to a “live audience” throughout the four sessions.

“Everyone can learn something by listening to one person, but you can learn so much more by talking to other people and wrestling with ideas together,” says Dr. Savage.

The course is open to all doctoral students, researchers, and faculty working at Aalto University. It is a prerequisite to have a research topic to work on during the course.