Background and history of the CS program

In Finland, the growth in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to scientific research — and to education and society — had already been addressed by several national research projects.⁷² This same development and its potential for innovation activities had also been identified as a future opportunity for Aalto University (see Aalto University, 2010), to be present in the form of

“multidisciplinary research and education” (Hyvönen et al., 2014, p. 445) and as an outreach toward outside society and business.

One such initiative in Aalto was the launch of the CS program in 2010, a new multidisciplinary Master’s degree program that sought to bridge the departments of design and architecture, business management, industrial management, and real estate business. The term describing the nature of interprofessional interaction has developed from “multi-professional” (e.g., Korpelainen, 2000) to

“cross-disciplinary” (CS web descriptions, February 2009; official documents in 2009), to “multi-disciplinary” (CS major program launch in Fall 2010), and finally to “inter-disciplinary” (CS web descriptions in 2013), almost in line with the trends in academic and popular talks at the time. By the end of 2015, this term reverted to “multidisciplinarity” in both official descriptions and online.⁷³ The CS study program was, naturally, preceded by several types of collaboration by different collaborators in the three formerly independent universities: the context it emerged from emerged through these. For these specific academics, the merger of Aalto University created a window of opportunity for a program such as CS to be developed from a minor, acting as a pilot, to a full-scale degree

72 For example, in projects by the Academy of Finland (Bruun et al., 2005; Huutoniemi & Tapio, 2014).

73 Unfortunately, this finding did not connect with other data in research, and remained as only an interesting notion, perhaps just resulting of practical reasons in connecting descriptive texts to com-munication.

program with less than two years of planning.⁷⁴ The aforementioned networks made the initiation of the CS program possible; they also partially made it into what it is today.

Earlier collaborations

The story of CS itself can be perceived to have begun in the mid-2000s in talks between academic professionals who all shared an interest in sustainability. These academics were from the three universities that would form Aalto University later on. Professor Eija Nieminen, head of Designium at the time (the design innovation research center at UIAH) was interested in developing a course on sustainable innovation with a focus on urban sustainability and sustainable business,

receiving support from Professor Helena Hyvönen, the department head and later the rector of the whole university (and, during the merger into Aalto University, dean of the School of ARTS). Together with researcher and lecturer Mika Kuisma from HSE, and Trevor Harris, professor of urban planning from the Department of Architecture at HUT (and later Maija Rautamäki from landscape architecture; see Table 9), Nieminen facilitated a multidisciplinary course on these topics: a study module called Sustainable Urban and Industrial Design (CS program documents for Ministry of Education, December 2009). The module was run during the academic terms 2007–2008 and 2008–2009, and more than 70 students took part. The experiences and feedback from this module “strongly encouraged” the creation of the whole CS study program later on (CS program documents for Ministry of Education, December 2009), and were revisited in a book with the same name as the forthcoming program itself (see Nieminen, 2009).

Table 9. The originators of the Sustainable Urban and Industrial Design module, 2007–2008.⁷⁵

Eija Nieminen (D.Sc. [Tech.]) graduated from Tampere University of Technology as Doctor of Science, and worked in several industry professions before academia, in-cluding the KONE Corporation. She worked as the head of Designium Innovation Center (at UIAH) in 2003–2010. Her CS-related publications include Green Impera-tive! (Nieminen, Kurki, Lönngren, & Sorvali, 2008) and Creative Sustainability – Case Studies on User-driven Business Innovations (2009). Since Aalto University, she has been active, for example, in a think tank called Helsinki Sustainability Center.

Mika Kuisma (D.Sc. [Econ.]) has been a member of the Corporate Environmental and Social Research (CESR) Group of HSE (later Aalto University) since 1995. The focus of his research has been on corporate responsibility performance and impact assessment, as well as innovative and eco-efficient business models and practices.

He has collaborated with several European research institutes and corporations in international research projects. He also teaches corporate responsibility in Bache-lor’s and Master’s level courses at Aalto.

74 In minor degree program the contents of study fit usually into some 20 ECTS of studies, whereas a major degree program consists of 120 ECTS, including a thesis work.

75 This information has been collected from personal bios available in Aalto University web, except with Maija Rautamäki, which bases partly on (Ikäheimo, 2010).

Table 9. (continued…)

Trevor Harris (MSc) has worked as a professor of architecture in urban design since 1999 (in HUT and later Aalto University), and later also as director of the De-partment of Architecture. He graduated as an architect from the Hull School of Ar-chitecture, Regional College of Art and Design in 1975, and has run an architecture agency in Finland since 1985, receiving renown with several large-scale projects.

Maija Rautamäki (MSc) has worked as a professor in landscape architecture and landscape planning and management since 1996 (in HUT and later Aalto Univer-sity). She graduated in 1978 from the same university. She describes ecological landscape planning and conservation as her specialist fields.

Preceding the Aalto University merger, an open call for funding was initiated for projects that would pilot new, multidisciplinary education in the new university. In early 2009, Nieminen, along with the other module originators, started to prepare an application to pilot a cross-disciplinary minor study program on sustainability that would include a portion of shared studies and then educational content offered by each participating department (CS web site, February 2009).

Launching CS minor and major

Following the earlier experiences in sharing education across schools,⁷⁶ such collaboration was natural to the involved institutions, and the merger into a common university offered an even better window of operation to test out new ideas. As Aalto University pilot funding was granted for the preparations of a CS minor (in early Spring 2009),⁷⁷ Eija Nieminen was nominated as the head of the CS preparation board. With the support of the funding, CS began as a minor study program at the beginning of the academic term in Fall 2009. As a result of the secured financial plan and the topical focus area of the program

(multidisciplinarity and sustainability), during this year the preparation board saw rapid expansion in the number of the academics (professors, researchers,

lecturers, etc.) involved.

When the funding application for the minor was in the making, the idea already was to develop the idea into a full-scale Master’s degree program, the educational content of which would be provided collaboratively. This plan was articulated clearly in the early CS planning documents (CS web site, February 2009). In early Spring 2010, as the reviews for the outcomes of the minor were positive and participating departments saw the collaboration as meaningful, the CS program was given the green light to be developed into a major. In reality, this consisted of several steps for approval by three different academic committees (in three participating universities) during the years 2009–2010, with the support of three departments. This process also faced further challenges, as the whole program

76 For example, the IDBM study program (see note 6) had been operating between UIAH and HSE since 1995. Another influential collaboration was the Product Development Project (PDP) course, in which many industrial design students participated each year, that was organized between the De-partment of Design at UIAH and the School of Engineering at HUT since 1997.

77 CS preparation was selected as one of the key projects of Aalto University in 2009 and was granted 200.000 € for its first two years (CS Master’s program application, December 2009).

was initiated while merging into a common university, but these administrative difficulties were solved on the way.

In this phase, new collaborators were invited to join the dialogue (the door was in a sense constantly open), and some joined along with several informal contacts.

Furthermore, the Department of Real Estate from the School of Engineering decided to join the participating departments of Design, Architecture, and Marketing and Management. As a result, the group planning the actual CS Master’s program expanded (see Table 10). Eventually, in Fall 2010, the first CS major students started their studies.

Table 10. Academics involved in the CS development in Spring 2010.*

Participating department Participants’ academic positions Design

Aalto University School of Art and Design**

Professor, Head of Department, Design

Professor, Head of Designium, Chairman of CS Advisory Board, Design

Professor, Dean of the School Professor, Vice Dean of the School Business Professor, Head of the Department, Organization and Management

Professor, Head of Department, Architecture Real Estate

Aalto University School of Science and Technology*****

Professor, Head of the Department, Real Estate Economics and Valuation

* In addition to the academic members, several people assisted as coordinators, secretaries, and planners, and the board had student members. | ** From 2012, Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture. | *** From 2012, Aalto University School of Business. | **** In 2010, a part of Aalto University School of Science and Technology; then, in 2011, a part of Aalto University School of Engineering; from 2012, a part of Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture. ***** In 2010, a part of Aalto University School of Science and Technology, then, from 2011, a part of Aalto University School of Engineering.

Development of leadership and funding

Between 2008 and 2010, the preparations for CS were mainly coordinated by the Department of Design and led by professor Eija Nieminen as head of the CS preparation board. By Spring 2010, there was an agreement that a program head would be hired to work in the design department as well. During Spring 2010, the management model for CS was refined further as a “program director-led model”

(CS preparation board minutes, February 2010), including a program director at the School of ARTS, a deputy director from another school, an academic steering group consisting of three or four academic professionals from each school, and an expanded group developing teaching, also including students (CS preparation board minutes, February 2010). Before the operation of CS as a major began in Fall 2010, a new head was chosen outside the program preparation group. Tiina Laurila, alumnus of UIAH and a former teacher of sustainable design at the university (2002–2007), was chosen as the head of CS for a two-year term.

Ultimately, she continued to work as the head until Spring 2015, for the first five years of the program itself (as a major) and the span of this research.

The other program mechanisms to govern the academic rigor of CS studies included the introduction of: 1) a Finnish Management Board, “to supervise and evaluate the quality […] and expertise of the teachers and the overall quality of the program, on a regular basis” (i.e., the academic steering group, as mentioned above); and 2) an International Advisory Board, “to evaluate the quality of the education,” consisting of “representatives from each School at the Aalto University and of internationally recognized experts” (CS Master’s degree program

application, December 2009). Only the former, however, started operations, and only in 2012. Also, the expanded developmental activity was dismissed at the beginning, until students initiated such activities themselves (see section 4.3.3).

After the initial funding for piloting CS as a minor program, a second raft of Aalto pilot funding was received for the CS major and its first five years of operation (2010–2015), after which the situation would again be re-evaluated. At the same time, the educational content and the management culture of the program were locked in for several future years. However, after the five-year period (by 2015), the CS pilot funding was dismantled, as all Master’s level educational content at Aalto University and in cross-school programs were again to be financed through department level budgets (see Table 11).

Table 11. The timeline of the development of CS program funding.

Time span Type of funding involved

2007–2009 Sustainable Urban and Industrial Design study module (offered to students of UIAH, HSE, and HUT), funded by Department of Design.

2009–2010 Aalto University one-year pilot funding for CS minor; funding coordinated by CS Preparation Board.

2010–2015 Aalto University five-year pilot funding for CS major; funding coordinated by Department of Design.

2015– CS funded through participating departments (Departments of Design, Architecture, Organizational Management, and Real Estate).

From the very beginning of CS preparations, the idea was to develop the minor into a major program by 2010. Furthermore, the idea was to continue the

development of the program to include a post-graduate (doctoral) study program by 2012 (CS Master’s degree program application, December 2009).⁷⁸ However, after a period of preparation in 2010, the application for future funding for the doctoral school was refused: initiatives to prepare a university-wide doctoral school on sustainability therefore gradually diminished. Instead, the collaboration in research at Aalto University would take place between the future doctoral programs located in each school and in collaborative projects between departments and units.