From 15th to 17th November, the Director of the V. Kavolis Institute, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė, together with the Institute’s Board Member Prof. Natalija Mažeikienė and a group of researchers visited the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH). This visit aimed to broaden knowledge and discover new ideas on how the Institute’s activities can contribute to strengthening researchers’ competencies and skills, development of transdisciplinary research, and its impact on society. Prof. Hannu Nieminen, Research Fellow of the V. Kavolis Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Helsinki, kindly facilitated and helped organise the meeting.
The V. Kavolis Institute team met with Prof. Jouni Hirvonen, Vice-Rector for Development of the University of Helsinki, Prof. Risto Kunelius, Director of HSSH, and Dr. Pekka Mäkelä, Deputy Director, as well as with the Institute’s Research Coordinators and researchers from the Methodology Unit. The meeting addressed how transdisciplinary research can be best organised and developed, how the Institute can equip itself with institutional, financial, and administrative resources, and how to maintain relations with the founding faculties.
Developing transdisciplinarity
HSSH Director Prof. Risto Kunelius said that the University of Helsinki Institute’s activities focus on solutions to societal crises, ways of developing infrastructure, activities to implement sustainability, efficient use, and improvement of datafication and computational methods and processes, as well as implementation of open access to scientific resources and impact on society.
The HSSH supports research transdisciplinarity through joint research projects by inviting visiting lecturers and professors and implementing a datafication research program. It is a transdisciplinary research program that explores the changes, challenges, and possibilities in an increasingly data-driven society.
Methodology Clinic
Researchers from the Methodology Unit of the HSSH presented one of the most developed HSSH activities related to methodological knowledge – the development of the Methods Clinic and consultancy (on method selection, data collection, computation, and analysis). According to the HSSH Methodology Development Unit, the Methods Clinic provides advice, seminars, and workshops for researchers at the University of Helsinki. These consultations do not always solve problems directly but very often direct the researcher to the sources that allow the researcher to solve the problem by himself and deepen knowledge and competencies in methodologies.
Academic Leadership Course
The HSSH focuses on early-career researchers and their career development through an interdisciplinary course on academic leadership and career planning. This course aims at postdoctoral researchers starting their independent research careers and setting up their research groups. The Academic Leadership and Career Planning course aims to help researchers develop their leadership skills and strategic planning of research topics. In addition, the course helps build a good research team and makes full use of the University of Helsinki’s research services and facilities.
Finnish Flagship Programme for University Science Ecosystems
V. Kavolis Institute team also met with Jyrki Hakapää, Director of the Department of the Finnish Research Council, and Science Advisors Liisa Huovinen and Maiju Gyran. The current Finnish research programs focused on interdisciplinary problem-solving were presented during the meeting. One of the most interesting research programs was the Finland Flagship Scheme, which has been running since 2017. It is an instrument to support high-quality research and increase its impact on the economy and society. The program supports university research ecosystems and clusters on a competitive basis, emphasising the long-term planning of research topics, scientific breakthroughs, and the university’s institutional commitment to contribute to its investment. One example is the INVEST research ecosystem developed by the University of Turku and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, which focuses on welfare state issues and inequalities. This program effectively combines close cooperation with business and society, adaptability, and strong commitment from host organisations.
Further cooperation
The visit to the University of Helsinki helped establish the first cooperation contacts between the V. Kavolis Institute and the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities in transdisciplinary research development. According to the Director of the Kavolis Institute, assoc. Prof. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė, “The experience of our Finnish colleagues shows that effective research results come primarily through an organisational culture that fosters openness, knowledge sharing, trust, and co-creation of public value among research teams. So, we hope that our Institute will gradually adopt these lessons. We plan to expand our joint activities by developing our thematic group, “Methodology, Research and Methods”, which builds on the horizontal competencies that create value for all the units of our university”.
