Corporate collaboration is a big opportunity for the university education

One of the university's basic tasks is to provide society with specialists who have the knowledge, means and attitude to solve the challenges of the rapidly changing business environment. Educational cooperation with business, combining theory and practice, offers students the opportunity to become actively involved in solving real challenges already during studies, but what resources will it require from the universities and businesses and how should the cooperation be carried out in practice? Tommi Vihervaara, M.Sc., BTh, provides answers to these questions in his brand-new book, which is the first handbook on the subject in Finnish.

The examples in the book analyse strengths and challenges of the different forms of cooperation from the perspective of both educational institutions and businesses. For example, student projects carried out in teams enable the company to take advantage of a number of student skills, sometimes even in different sectors, in the project, but their organisation requires from universities and companies a wide range of expertise and understanding of the process. Theses, in turn, must take into account the openness policies required by the Act on the Openness of Government Activities.

Benefit to the entire society

To the experts responsible for corporate collaboration in the universities, this book gives a complete picture of the cooperation opportunities in education. To the teachers who design and implement courses based on corporate collaboration, this book gives practical advice and examples of different forms of cooperation. To those who represent business world, this book explains what a company has to take into account in the implementation of educational cooperation.

– A scientific research on the corporate collaboration in education have been conducted, however, the results of this research do not provide answers to the practical issues and needs that ultimately determine the success or failure of the university-business cooperation, says Tommi Vihervaara who is responsible for the students' multidisciplinary corporate collaboration projects at the Aalto University School of Business.

In addition to the Aalto University the book project was supported by the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland (TEK), The Finnish Business School Graduates, Finnish Science Foundation for Economics and Technology and HSE Foundation.

– Not only businesses and universities, but also students and surrounding society benefit from the promotion of cooperation. We would definitely want to support this development, says Pirre Hyötynen, Advisor at the Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK.

This view is also shared by Suvi Eriksson, Special Adviser in Education Policy at The Finnish Business School Graduates.
– Such a practical book brings to light good practices as well as potential pitfalls. Hopefully, this will also encourage corporate collaboration in the fields where this is not yet an everyday practice.

Corporate collaboration in education – Practical Handbook for universities and businesses can be ordered at shop.aalto.fi.

Further information:
Project Specialist Tommi Vihervaara
Aalto University
tel. 050 383 7388
tommi.vihervaara@aalto.fi