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Research, Development and Innovation Operations and Services

We addressed some of the topical challenges experienced in society through our RDI activities. Our focus was on sales, service, entrepreneurship, pedagogy, business development and emerging technologies. We defined phenomena and competences that are becoming increasingly important in society and that we can influence.

In particular, we strengthened our international RDI connections and became a member of the Helsinki EU Office. We defined three focus areas for the 3AMK cooperation: well-being of people in a safe community, sustainable urban development, and the transformation of work and competence.

In our Master’s level programmes, we worked towards a unified operating method in accordance with the new curriculum. Key aspects of these changes were the development of the process of and guidance in thesis work, establishment of new specialisation tracks and development of the quality and contents of teaching.

The first Master’s programme students started their studies in accordance with the new curriculum in the autumn of 2019. We also started our first international implementation in Tshwane in South Africa.

StartUp School offers students an individualised path of advancing their studies and promoting entrepreneurship. Our offering is also open for continuous learning needs. We piloted new digital modules, and our brand reform strengthened StartUp School’s commercial opportunities.

Entrepreneurship education was developed and implemented for our international customers in South Africa and Ukraine. We presented the takeaways of StartUp School in entrepreneurship conferences in the USA and Qatar and at the Entrepreneurship Education Conference in Finland.

Our core competencies define our project and research operations

Since the beginning of 2019, six groups from our core competence areas have been working to draft project applications, to participate in RDI projects and to help strengthening our competencies in the chosen areas. Our core competencies are related to entrepreneurship, service, sales, pedagogy, business development and emerging technologies. Towards the end of the year, the six groups outlined emerging themes from their own fields, from which we chose our top competencies. In the future, our research operations, among others, will focus on these competencies.

NOCCA - Novel opportunities for new company creation and accelerated growth

We participated in multicultural Nocca project that was funded by EU’s Interreg Europe structural funds. The goal is to provide enterprises with networks, resources and know-how which would facilitate their international growth. Nocca is implemented as a new curriculum, which started with multidisciplinary hackathons and continued with developing business ideas on different intensive courses and boot camps. The two-year project is a joint project with Haaga-Helia, Tallinn Science Park Technopol Foundation, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and TalTech Mektory Innovation and Business Centre.

MODe provides theoretical knowledge about self-management and self-organization for companies

We launched a Minimalist Organizational Design project (MODe) with Business Finland’s and enterprises’ funding. Haaga-Helia, in cooperation with Aalto University and Tampere University, studies what are the structures and management practices that make self-management and self-organization possible. The guiding vision of this two-year project is that an increasing number of Finnish companies would be known as progressive organizations of Minimalist Organizational Design and Finland would emerge as a model country for human-oriented organizational thinking. Haaga-Helia is coordinating the project.