Three New Expertise Workshops, or “Factories”, have been launched as the first projects of the innovation university. They provide the basis for research and teaching and are open also to participants from outside the scientific community. The workshops are learning, teaching, research, and cooperation environments where academic teams and projects as well as companies and public communities collaborate.
The development of the new university requires both the strengthening of individual academic fields and organizing genuine encounters with leading experts. The fields are reinforced by providing them the adequate resources and a sufficient amount of academic freedom and responsibility.
The workshops test new modes of practices utilized in operational planning. They promote internationality, open innovation, new teaching and learning methods, and an interdisciplinary approach. The aim is to transfer the workshop research data seamlessly into teaching. The presence of societal actors offers fresh perspectives and, in part, ensures the high quality of these activities.
The workshops are based on fields that have already seen strong, interdisciplinary cooperation between the three universities. The fields of technology, economic science, and applied art can face upcoming challenges together. The selected main project areas are product development (Design Factory), the media (Media Factory) and high value added services (Service Factory).
Other research projects are also under preparation alongside the New Expertise Workshops. In addition to these, the internationally successful IDBM program (International Design Business Management) will be further extended to provide a model for teaching and research activities.
Design Factory is an internationally networked research and teaching environment for product development
Design Factory provides a testing ground for product development and unites students, teachers, researchers, and experts in the field. Design Factory aims in its part to expedite changes in the learning and working cultures. The idea for Design Factory was created by international cooperation projects and programs carried out by HSE, TKK, TaiK, and various businesses. These projects include, among others, Future Lab of Product Design (FLPD), International Design Business Management (IDBM), Product Development Project (PDP), and Helsinki School of Creative Entrepreneurship (HSCE).
The architecture, operational forms, and methods of Design Factory support interdisciplinary, problem-based project learning and research. Theory meets practice in the workshop: large, common proto workshops, galleries, and library and recreation facilities form a versatile meeting place. The workshop’s teamwork facilities and rooms are designed for flexible, 24/7 use, and companies may also use the facilities in the spirit of open innovation.
Design Factory, spearheaded by Helsinki University of Technology, educates leading product developers of the future.
Media Factory faces the need for change in the media
Media Factory is based on the idea that the media expertise in the three universities covers the entire communication chain from sender to recipient. It begins with the research of the raw material and media technologies, continues on to the formation of messages and the creation of new communication concepts and finally extends to the utilization of communication tools and customer behavior research. Based on this, it is possible to create entirely new kinds of joint research projects to keep up with the rapid technological and cultural changes in the field of media.
Media Factory’s content focuses on media technologies, media economics, media concepts and design and communication behavior. There is a pressing need for research data, which could be used to draft guidelines for the future, in a time when all these fields are undergoing a period of great changes. Media Factory rises to this challenge by presenting a fresh research and teaching framework which can be used to identify the distinctive characteristics of change and to consequently develop corresponding innovative research in cooperation with the domestic and international media industry.
The Factory is also true to its name as it operates as the production site for brainstorming and developing new media concepts and aims to launch the best concepts into the market as ready-made products. Media Factory is spearheaded by the University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Service Factory expedites service research, customer-based development and service processes
Service Factory promotes the development of service innovation research and teaching. It creates, combines and refines knowledge concerning the service industry and its needs, technological applications in service innovations, as well as the interaction and behavior models of humans and technology.
Service Factory focuses especially on high value-added services, digital services and services that can be digitalized, mobile services, and industrial service business. Examples of these services include information and communication services, the media and communications, trade and logistics, banking and insurance services (including electronic invoicing), and knowledge intensive services. Also public services such as transport, education, and health care may be included into Service Factory. Service Factory uses the Living Labs research approach, which is an open research, development, and innovation environment program (RDI) with a user-centric approach to research and product development.
The importance of service innovations is rapidly increasing in a globalizing world. Service research is a central field of interest for companies in the future. Service Factory, spearheaded by the Helsinki School of Economics, comprehensively combines the research and teaching of HSE, TaiK, and TKK.