A new role for the university

In Finland, following the success of mobile and ICT technologies supported by design management processes (i.e., Nokia mobile phones), there emerged “a need to update awareness of design competence,” resulting in a new national design agenda (Hyvönen et al., 2014, p. 443) “based on competitiveness in industry and business, skills improvement and diversification, significant strengthening of research effort, and promotion of design opportunities”

(Hyvönen et al., 2014, p. 443). The Finnish government's Decision-in-Principle on Design Policy (later the Design 2005! program) underlined how design can contribute to the innovation system (Korpelainen, 2000). Policy objectives suggested that design be integrated into management programs and into undergraduate programs in business and technology, as successful (product) innovation was perceived to be the result of “multi-professional” collaboration (Korpelainen, 2000).

62 Aalto University is named in honor of Alvar and Aino Aalto, twentieth century Finnish designers.

63 ECTS refers to the European Credit Transfer System. In Finland, 1 ECTS equals 27 hours of work.

64 This funding was available in Spring 2009.

At the time, another development was also at hand. By the middle of the 2000s, discussions in Finland on business, politics, and education increasingly

challenged the leading role of disciplinary higher education and sought collaborations in which several disciplines would integrate to produce results more relevant to serve the economy. Part of this thinking was based on the idea of increasing the quality of university education, even at the cost of quantity, and better channeling the resources into areas with the potential for growth.⁶⁵ At the beginning of the new millennium, there was discussion as well as actual changes in legislation to add a new role for Finnish universities: creating practical

knowledge for the use of our society (Nieminen, 2004; see section 2.3.1).⁶⁶

Knowledge was considered to be an increasingly important factor in planning and production, and the demand for labor in knowledge-intensive fields was growing (Ministry of Education, 2003b, p. 5).

Innovation education for the future

The Prime Minister’s Office report from 2004, “Strengthening Competence and Openness,” identified increasing “R&D resources” and channeling them into

“innovative growth companies” as one main recommendation for new national policies (Prime Minister’s Office, 2004, p. 6). For education, the report suggested a reform to make “education more relevant to working life and more effective”

(p. 36). For tertiary level⁶⁷ university education, the report (p. 38) suggested (among others):

• Increasing teaching and research resources important for key sectors.

• Improving the capacity of universities to build “internationally competitive education.”

• Increasing the financial autonomy of universities.

• Strengthening “professional management and development” at universities.

• Implementing the “international commercialization of education services” in sectors where Finland has top competence.

• Participating in “assessments and in actions intended to improve the quality of […] teaching and research.”

In 2008, based on ideas for future innovation policy development, a Finnish Ministry of Employment and Education workgroup prepared a new proposal titled as the National Innovation Strategy (NIS). The proposal was based on an extensive series of eleven thematic workshops in 2007 and “an international conference

65 In 2004, a workgroup led by Anne Brunila of the Finnish Ministry of Finance concluded that Fin-land had too many universities and other institutes of tertiary level education, which should be con-solidated. Later on, Brunila worked as one of the seven members of the Aalto University Board, rep-resenting “a wide spectrum of sciences and arts, as well as the best social and industrial expertise on both national and international levels” (http://www.aalto.fi/en/about/organization/board/).

66 Sitra (the Finnish Innovation Fund), a national institution promoting research, elaborates upon the third role for Finnish universities in its publication Yliopistojen kolmas tehtävä? (Nieminen, 2004), translated as “universities' third role.”

67 Broadly speaking, primary level education refers to basic education, secondary to vocational edu-cation, and tertiary to academic education; however, the differences are not clear or even clearly articulated.

and national seminar” in 2008 (Aho et al., 2008, preface). It identified

globalization, sustainable development, new technologies, and the aging of the population as the key drivers of change (Aho et al., 2008, p. 3). As the two future strategic goals, it called forth “sustainably targeted […] innovation-based

development of productivity” and “pioneering in innovation activities” in carefully selected sectors of innovation (Aho et al., 2008, p. 4). As basic strategic choices, the proposal suggested developments in the innovation environment, supporting

“a world without borders,” “demand and user orientation,” and support for

“innovative individuals and communities,” with a broad “systemic approach”

(Aho et al., 2008, p. 5).

The report of Ministry of Employment and the Economy (2009) drawn from the proposal identified higher education as “the key to the public research system”

(p. 9). Suggestions for the forthcoming reform of university legslation were to

“provide universities with better opportunities to apply modern human resources policies, improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching and research, and strengthen creative and innovative research and learning environments” (Ministry of Employment and the Economy, 2009, p. 10).⁶⁸ The report (2009) also defined the “systemic approach” in detail as “a comprehensive method of aligning the business and policy sectors (horizontal) and their associated development activities at different levels (vertical),” referring “comprehensively, to the interconnection and mutual dependencies of various phenomena” (pp. 4–5).

In the report (2009), the systemic approach was promoted as “a key concept in implementing a broad-based innovation policy” (p. 4).

Aalto University: a national project

Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), the University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH), and Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) already had a tradition of collaboration in the metropolitan region in Helsinki, Finland (see Table 8).

Furthermore, as they all collaborated already with business partners, it was natural that they could be essential parts of such an innovation university.

Following the dialogues that took place behind the scenes, a year later the president of UIAH proposed the merger of Aalto University's founding schools in his opening speech in 2005.⁶⁹

Aalto University became a national Finnish project. The idea of the new university was established by a governmental decision in 2007.⁷⁰ The Aalto University charter was signed in June 2008. In December 2008, the first President of Aalto

68 Some more specific actions in the renewal of the university legislation in Finland were to increase the financial independence of universities by granting them the ability to gather investments from industry and public, to introduce an optional foundation-based model (used in the merger of Aalto University), and to introduce a new tenure track system for Finnish academic professionals.

69 This acting president was Professor Yrjö Sotamaa. See http://www.aalto.fi/en/about/history/

70 A more concrete plan was presented for the establishment of a new university in February 2007 in the memorandum of the working group led by Secretary of State Raimo Sailas. Later the same spring, the initiation of the university was entered into the government program by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen. See http://www.aalto.fi/en/about/history/

University⁷¹ was selected; she started her work in April 2009. The governmental university renewal in 2009 transformed the Finnish universities from state-bound into independent or, then, foundation-based organizations; as part of the renewed legislation (among numerous other actions), the new Aalto University was

established. The university started operating at the beginning of 2010. The first students at the university began their studies in the new academic term

beginning in August in 2010. University operations continued, however, on three separate campuses and in separate programs — in many ways as before the merger.

Table 8. Three universities that formed the new Aalto University in 2010.

Helsinki University of Technology (HUT)

Helsinki University of Technology was originally established in 1849 as the Tech-nical School of Helsinki, close to the city center. The school was renamed the Poly-technic Institute in 1879, and as the university-level Technological University of Fin-land in 1908. The university began moving its activities to Otaniemi, Espoo (a city next to Helsinki and part of the capital region) in 1955, where the main campus of Aalto University is now located.

Helsinki School of Economics (HSE)

Helsinki School of Economics opened its doors as an independent university in 1911, after reorganizing studies at the Helsinki Business College, established only a few years before in 1904. In 1950, the School of Economics moved into its present premises in Töölö district near Helsinki city center, where the business campus currently operates.

University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH)

The University of Art and Design Helsinki was founded in 1871 initially as the Craft School, and renamed the Central School of Industrial Arts in 1885. For the first century (1887–1986), it operated in a central location in the Ateneum next to Hel-sinki railway station, but gradually expanded into several other locations as opera-tions expanded and space in the building grew very limited. The university moved to its current premises in the Arabia district in 1986, gathering all the departments under a common address after several decades.

Together, the three universities formed three Aalto schools: School of Art and Design, School of Economics, and School of Science and Technology. From the beginning of 2011, Aalto University School of Science and Technology was further divided into four new schools that were formed from the former university

faculties of Helsinki University of Technology. In 2012, the Department of Architecture was moved from the School of Engineering to the School of Art and Design, which was then renamed the School of Arts, Design and Architecture (ARTS). Later on, in August of the same year, the School of Economics was renamed the School of Business (BIZ).

71 The first president of Aalto University between 2010–2017 was Professor Tuula Teeri, a Finnish molecular geneticist and formerly Vice President at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Sustainability and interprofessional education in Aalto University

From its beginning, Aalto University as a project aimed at diffusing its different fields of study “Science and Arts with Technology and Business,” as the slogan originally stated — to induce innovation for society and business in line with the developments in innovation policies at the national level and in international educational research. Quite naturally, the topical challenges identified in NIS are also visible in the vision and aims of the university itself. In its first strategy document, Aalto University identifies relevant challenges and potential in relation to improving the quality of education and promoting interprofessional expertise and partnerships aiming at innovation activities (Aalto University, 2010). However, while in the beginning there were a lot of initiatives to share education among disciplines and topical issues between different departments of the university, the ability to take courses outside students’ own degree program is still rather limited to similar program structures to those before the merger, when there were already a number of collaborations across the three universities.