Wide-ranging, professional and innovative development work
Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) activity at Turku University of Applied Sciences (Turku UAS) is a combination of students’ creative ideas, teachers’ top expertise and project professionals’ vast experience in national and international funding possibilities.
The development work is firmly based on the needs of customers and communities, and projects are executed in collaboration with working life. Projects utilize the multidisciplinary know-how of Turku UAS; innovations and new operating models are often created at the interface between different areas of expertise.
Turku UAS has over 30 research groups that work to improve the welfare of the region. Strong regional, national and international partner networks support the development work of Turku UAS.
The projects can be anything from short development projects designed for individual organizations to international projects spanning several years and involving a wide network of partners. A successful project profits all participatory actors, and its results continue to live even after the project has been completed. Results often appear as different kinds of products, operating methods, innovations and trainings.
Innovations
Innovation activities at Turku University of Applied Sciences support the development of the region and provide added value. We serve to develop improved or entirely new products, services and operating methods.
Fresh perspectives from students
Students of Turku University of Applied Sciences are a creative and versatile resource for the RDI activities. Development projects are closely linked to teaching activities. Students’ active participation in the projects and research workshop learning environments guarantees the students to have the demanded skills needed in their field of work once they graduate.
Project learning environments
Various degree programs offer students practical and working life oriented environments, which enable students to develop their professional skills and abilities.
Advertising agency Guru
Advertising agency Guru is a full-service ad agency, where students work as advertising designers – they are the future of advertising! Guru designs a variety of marketing from single brochures to extensive concepts, while utilizing the possibilities of different media.
More info:
mainostoimisto.guru@turkuamk.fi
BusinessAcademy
TUAS BusinessAcademy in Salo and Turku is an innovative learning environment that promotes entrepreneurship and innovation among business students. Students learn by carrying out projects in teams. They support one another in learning and adopting an entrepreneurial spirit in terms of skills and content. Teachers serve as coaches, supporting students in setting personal learning goals and creating customised study programmes.
More info:
Capstone
The Capstone innovation project is a study module of TUAS, in which user oriented development, an entrepreneurial attitude, creative thinking and especially collaboration with companies and organizations in the region are highlighted. In addition, working life and studies are integrated in a realistic and concrete way to benefit both the students as well as the customer businesses. The ideology behind Capstone is based on CDIO, a concept developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The programme aims to bring engineering education closer to working life through active teaching methods and learning by doing. In practice the projects consist of three parts: 1) during the first six weeks teams get to ideate possible solutions, 2) the next sixteen weeks are used for practical execution; during this time period the company and the team meet every four weeks, 3) the final four weeks are used for debriefing of the project. The purpose of the project is to find solutions to existing hypotheses. The problem must be real and not fictional.
More info:
#factory
#factory is a project learning environment for Mechanical Engineering, Marine Technology and Design. It aims to generate multidisciplinary learning in an authentic design & product development environment within a real-life engineering works. At #factory, students become part of the activities and projects of Future Product Processes research group in the spirit of Innopeda. The project learning environment functions at Machine Technology Center managed by Turku University of Applied Sciences.
More info:
ICT Showroom – testing for product ideas
ICT Showroom is a concept developed by the three higher education institutions operating in the ICT Building: Turku University of Applied Sciences, the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University. Each spring, students present their innovations to representatives of business and industry to compete at the event. One of the purposes of the competition is to strengthen the abilities of higher education institutions to commercialize their research results. On the day of the competition, representatives of companies evaluate the viability of new applications.
More info:
Kunnonkoti
Kunnonkoti is a centre where visitors can familiarize themselves with products, solutions and assistive equipment that promote safety and everyday life management. The centre also offers design services for accessible living and construction. Kunnonkoti organizes seminars, trainings and themed events.
More info:
Meedio
Meedio is a learning environment for communications within the Arts Academy. Students are responsible for the Arts Academy’s media releases together with a supervising teacher, providing content on the TUAS website, Arts Academy’s communication through the different social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube) and consulting projects with their communications plans.
More info:
Project Café
The Project Café is an innovative way to instruct students with their project studies. Students are helped and instructed in a café environment via peer discussions. The café enables students’ own, independent and working life collaborated projects to be joined in their studies.
More info:
Project hatchery
Project hatchery is a learning environment, where students learn by working on given project assignments in multidisciplinary groups. Groups define the way the goal is reached, and appoint a project leader. The reporting style is separately agreed upon with the companies, and can include presentations and written reports. The assignment can be for example an event, a marketing campaign or a company’s wellbeing day.
More info:
Resource Efficient Business 2.0
The resource-efficient business research group of Turku University of Applied Sciences has collaborations with a wide range of companies. We offer the fresh expertise and innovation potential of our students as an asset for companies. We also unite companies to create new networks where resources and expertise can be shared.
More info:
The FIRMA
The Firma is a project based learning environment operating within the framework of Turku University of Applied Sciences. It gathers all the project workshops functioning at the ICT-City campus under one roof. Students who work at the FIRMA work just as they would in a real life company, mainly doing customer or development projects (servers, gaming industry, websites, programming, testing, training). Students gather study points by working on practical customer projects. The FIRMA provides ICT services for companies as student work. The services consist of different kinds of ICT related products, such as programs, maintenance services, websites and small databases.
More info:
Turku Game Lab
Turku Game Lab is a joint working environment of University of Turku and Turku University of Applied Sciences which provides services in game education and development, using the latest technical developments in facilitating research, needs of the industry and decisive user experience.
More info:
Tutkapro
Tutka is the news media of journalism students of Turku University of Applied Sciences. It observes the environment from the perspective of young adults and university level students. Tutka releases
every Friday.
More info:
Vivian’s Academy
Vivian’s Academy is a learning and development environment of the health and wellbeing services, and consists of entrepreneurship, product development and service production.
More info:
The objective of open science and research is that all information and knowledge produced by public funding is openly accessible within the limits of research ethics and legislation. The openness of the operational culture enhances the quality, reliability, visibility and societal impact of research as well as promotes cooperation and the creation of new innovations.
The Ministry of Education and Culture (MINEDU) as well as many research funding authorities require openness of research from higher education institutes. Regional cooperation is done with the Health Campus Turku knowledge cluster and the Open science network coordinated by City of Turku.
In Turku UAS’ publication series and other publishing channels of Turku UAS, the focus is on open access publishing. The publications by Turku UAS staff members are self-archived, if possible, in Turku UAS’ open access repository Theseus to be permanently available.
Open RDI activities at Turku UAS
Turku University of Applied Sciences (Turku UAS) is committed to promoting the practices of open science and research: our RDI activity must be as open as possible and as closed as necessary.
We recommend Creative Commons 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licensing for sharing. RDI activities are to follow good data management methods, the principles of research ethics, legislation as well as funding conditions and agreements applying to RDI operations. Confidential and sensitive information shall be protected, and the principles of data security and protection are followed. Turku UAS’ Legal Services maintains a knowledge database for agreements which is also used in cooperation with external parties.
Turku UAS’ open science support services are coordinated by Library and Information Services. The open science support team promotes open science practices and offers guidance to Turku UAS’ RDI operators as well as students in questions related to open science. You can contact the open science experts by sending an email to openscience@turkuamk.fi .
The principles of open science and research at Turku University of Applied Sciences (pdf) have been adopted through the decision of the Vice Rector on 10 February 2023.
Open research data
During the research and development processes, different types of research data are used and gathered. The materials, methods and results produced in the RDI activities of Turku UAS shall be openly accessible, unless otherwise case-specifically agreed, e.g. due to the requirements of data protection or objectives relating to the commercialization of the data.
The principles of research data management at Turku University of Applied Sciences (pdf) describes the principles and policies regarding the handling of material generated in research, development and innovation (RDI) activities.
Strengthening open science competencies
The open science support team visits research groups and units to discuss and promote open science practices. Open science experts give talks in seminars, for example in the Doctorate Accelerator (Tohtorikiihdyttämö in Finnish), as well as teach open science practices on the Open Studies course Academic Writing.
Open science guides (in Finnish) offer further guidance on how to promote open science practices. The open science experts can be reached by email ( openscience@turkuamk.fi ) for help and guidance.
We carry out RDI work in an ethically sustainable manner and in accordance with the responsible conduct of research. Research ethics and responsible conduct of research are an important part of Turku University of Applied Sciences' teaching and research activities. The management of research ethics is one of the basic skills of researchers and people doing development work, and the consideration of research ethics issues is a key part of each RDI project. Nationally, research ethics are guided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, TENK. Turku University of Applied Sciences is committed to following the guidelines on responsible conduct of research and the handling of suspicions of violation drawn up by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK.
The Research Ethics Committee of Turku University of Applied Sciences is responsible for the ethical ex ante evaluation of non-medical research in human sciences. The ex ante evaluation ensures adequate protection of research subjects and strengthens the legal protection of the researcher.
Responsible conduct of research
Responsible conduct of research (RCR) is part of the self-regulation of the higher education community, to which legislation sets limits. Compliance with responsible conduct of research is primarily the responsibility of each member of the research group itself, but responsibility also lies with the entire scientific community.
Responsible conduct of research should be followed by researchers, teachers, instructors, applicants for funding or research jobs, as well as in expert positions. In addition to research activities, the guidelines also apply to teaching materials, opinions, evaluations, merit and publication lists. The publication format can be printed, oral, or electronic. Researchers must also follow the responsible conduct of research in societal interaction situations, such as social media.
See the Guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK , the responsible conduct of research and for handling alleged violations of conduct in co-operation with the Finnish research community.
Research misconduct
Research misconduct refers to unethical and dishonest conduct that harms scientific research. At worst, it invalidates the results of the study. Research misconduct are broken down into fraudulent scientific activities and disregard to responsible conduct of research. Scientific fraud includes making up, misrepresenting observations, plagiarism and using us. Scientific disagreements do not violate the responsible conduct of research.
The suspicions of research misconduct process, i.e. the handling of suspected violations of responsible conduct of research, proceeds in the same way in all Finnish higher education institutions. The process consists of three stages: notification, preliminary study and actual investigation. At Turku University of Applied Sciences, the Rector is responsible for investigating suspicions of research misconduct. Take a closer look at the process .
It is recommended that the suspicions of research misconduct be made using a form drawn up by TENK. The notification is sent directly to the rector of the higher education institution or university concerned. Please note that an untrue and malicious notification of suspicion of research misconduct can in itself be considered a research misconduct.
Research Ethics Committee
Turku University of Applied Sciences is committed to following the guidelines drawn up by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK on the ethical ex ante evaluation of research in human sciences, as well as responsible conduct of research and dealing with its misconducts. At Turku University of Applied Sciences, compliance with responsible conduct of research is supervised by the Rector. Nationally, research ethics are guided by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK.
The Research Ethics Committee of Turku University of Applied Sciences is responsible for organising an ethical ex ante evaluation of non-medical research in human sciences for the university's research projects. In exceptional cases, an ex ante evaluation may also be carried out on project partners if the partner does not have an ex ante evaluation process at its disposal.
The Ethics Committee of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland issues opinions on medical examinations of humans and human embryos and foetuses in the Hospital District of Southwest Finland’s special area of responsibility.
Composition of the Research Ethics Committee 2023:
Chair of the Committee
Draftsman of the Committee
Members of the Committee
- Jaani Kuusela, Data Protection Officer (DPO) (until 28th February)
- Ursula Hyrkkänen, Executive Lecturer
- Samuel Raunio, Head of Education and Research
- Hannele Kuusisto, Lecturer
- Jani Vanharanta, Lecturer
- Anne-Marie Tuikka (1.2.2023)
Meetings of the Research Ethics Committee in 2023
- 9th January 2023
- 6th February 2023
- 6th March 2023
- 3rd April 2023
- 2nd May 2023
- 5th June 2023
- 11th September 2023
- 9th October 2023
- 13th November 2023
- 12th December 2023
Research permits
An organisation outside Turku University of Applied Sciences needs a research permit for research targeting Turku University of Applied Sciences. The following studies require a research permit:
- The research will focus on Turku University of Applied Sciences, the teaching and/or services provided there, or the students or staff of Turku UAS.
- The working hours of Turku University of Applied Sciences’ staff (e.g. materials assembled specifically for research at Turku University of Applied Sciences), the intranet newsletter service or other resources are used for the research. This is therefore a project that has direct or indirect costs for Turku University of Applied Sciences.
- The research requires Turku University of Applied Sciences to disclose personal data.
Applying for a research permit
Research permits are granted primarily for scientific and/or thesis-related studies and/or research that develop Turku University of Applied Sciences or the activities of fields of study at the University of Applied Sciences.
The researcher must commit to complying with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and its supplementary National Data Protection Act on the processing and protection of personal data. The author of the research must follow responsible conduct of research in accordance with the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK. Any materials generated by the research concerning the data of individuals must be destroyed or archived in accordance with the law. The research permit may be revoked if the terms of the permit decision are violated. In such cases, the research permit holder shall return the information received for the purposes of the research.
The research permit is sent to the draftsman of the permit application to the e-mail address: tutkimusluvat@turkuamk.fi
You can also send an application for a research permit by post:
Turku University of Applied Sciences / RDI Services / Research Permit
Joukahaisenkatu 3 A
20520 Turku
Research permit application Turku UAS
Granting and information on research permits
The research permit is granted by the person responsible for the research or development field. Permission to research the activities of the entire Turku University of Applied Sciences is granted by the Vice Rector responsible for research at Turku University of Applied Sciences. Decisions relating to a whole field, educational unit, degree programme or function shall be made by the head of that unit or by any other person responsible for the activity.
The unit, function or degree programme concerned is responsible for carrying out the implementation and reporting of research and development work with the holder of the research permit as agreed in the research permit decision.
Additional information:
Elina Vuorio, +358 40 355 0526
tutkimusluvat@turkuamk.fi
