Cooperation between the higher education institutions in Turku to be enhanced and expanded in technology

This agreement complements the extensive Turku Future Technologies cooperation, launched in 2016, by introducing the educational dimension to the cooperation, in addition to research and development activities.

In Turku and Southwest Finland, the central challenge in the cooperation within higher education in the field of technology is that compared to the region’s strong position as a cluster of technology industry and compared with other large cities and provinces, the numbers of graduates with a Master’s degree in the field of technology are quite insufficient.

In cooperation with the rest of Finland and foreign higher education institutions, the purpose of the strengthening cooperation is to enhance the extensive development of competence and education in Turku, to meet the needs of business life and to guarantee the competitiveness of the region. A special focus is on serving the multidisciplinary and developing competence needs of the technology industry which is undergoing rapid growth in Turku and Southwest Finland.

The cooperation enables implementing and managing, for example, ongoing and future Master's degree programmes and other joint programmes and projects of the higher education institutions in the Turku region and Southwest Finland. In addition, infrastructures required by education and research can be developed, implemented and managed.

The new cooperation can be applied, for example, to the significant investment in Turku, published by Rolls Royce today, and to solving the related recruitment and educational challenges. As a part of launching the new model of operations, the higher education institutions have the ability to immediately start developing extensive multidisciplinary and long-term cooperation with the enterprises in the region.

“In the Turku region there is a strong and increasing need for higher education, especially in the field of technology. The extensive engineering education of TUAS provides excellent opportunities for expanding the education in technology in the region. For the development of long-term competence capital in Turku and Southwest Finland, it is absolutely necessary to expand the M.Sc. education in technology, especially in the fields of mechanical engineering and material technology, in addition to the prominent degree programmes in chemical engineering, information technology and biotechnology currently run by Åbo Akademi University and the University of Turku”, says Rector Kalervo Väänänen from the University of Turku.