Vesa Taatila
In the past couple of years, we have gotten used to constant changes: some bigger, some smaller. In the global storms, the change related to the editorial responsibility of UAS Journal may not reach hurricane status, but inside our own bubble, it will certainly have visible impacts.
It is a great pleasure and honour for Turku University of Applied Sciences to accept the responsibility for developing UAS Journal to its next step. Over the years, the publication has gained significant foothold in increasing the visibility of universities of applied sciences and highlighting contributions. The team at Häme University of Applied Sciences has done a marvellous job, and for that, on behalf of all of us UAS enthusiasts, I’d like to express my gratitude.
At universities of applied sciences, research, development and innovation activities have rapidly become a central core task besides the educational mission, and the two are often intertwined in a very concrete manner. To introduce this new role, we have needed an influential channel of communication. UAS Journal has been a superbly influential communicator in highlighting this role.
Turku University of Applied Sciences gets to start its own season in charge from an exceptionally good situation. We will continue the Journal’s tradition as a publisher of research-based development and kindling for discussion. In addition, we will certainly highlight the integration of RDI activities and learning even more, because through that we can ensure the constant development of our world of work towards a better future.
UAS Journal’s strength has always been its multidisciplinary body of authors. In the future we hope that an even larger group of experts join in opening their ability to increase the competence of the community. At the same time, let’s hold on to the very functional tradition of co-writing, because that strengthens our internal networks and continuously creates better opportunities to do active RDI work for all of us. This way we can develop our publication into an even more interesting direction and always link it to the latest discussion and research.
Nowadays we also need to contemplate on different publishing formats. Carefully considered expert articles create a strong foundation for UAS Journal but, at the same time, we should contemplate how we could open the results to an even wider audience. For this reason, we will need communications on the contents of the publication in more channels than before. We also need to react more quickly to the phenomena highlighted in our journal. I’m excited to see the day when a thought originated in UAS Journal becomes a topic of discussion on social media.
Dear friends, UAS Journal has become a high-quality and esteemed publication. With the entire network, let’s make it an even more interesting and up-to-date source of information to develop the UAS sector for the decades to come.
Vesa Taatila, PhD, Rector and President, Turku University of Applied Sciences, vesa.taatila(at)turkuamk.fi
