Dean Jussi Ryynänen recruits different people for good balance

What do you do at work?

I strive to ensure that our personnel can focus on their core tasks: teaching, research and, if possible, also societal impact. I have also worked as a professor for a long time and thought a lot about how to promote equality, community spirit and common ways of working.

Can you give one example how you promote equality, diversity and inclusion? 

When I started my studies at the Helsinki University of Technology, we were a very homogeneous group of students and postgraduate students. With the founding of Aalto University, my own research group also became international, which required re-evaluating and renewing some common practices.

The diversity of research groups is important to Aalto. This is why it is good to have a group of people from different backgrounds. When I worked as a professor, I noticed that a good balance was often achieved by recruiting bachelor's students who had moved on to postgraduate studies, as well as master's students and other international people from outside our own university. This way, the group dynamics works well, and members of the group learn different things from each other and by working together.