Enhancing Knowledge-Based Innovation in Finnish Higher Education

Higher Education Institutions (HEI) partner with government agencies and businesses to share knowledge, develop new technologies, and drive innovation in society and the economy (Etzkowitz, 2003; Roth et al., 2024). In education policy, this is often called ‘impact.’ Research shows that the push to create impact leads to building long-term infrastructures for sharing and managing knowledge (Power, 2015).

An example is the Arcada AI and Human Interaction Hub; a space where digital solutions are designed and tested to improve safety and accessibility (Arcada, 2023). It’s a place where students, researchers, and business professionals come together to collaborate, with “curiosity and knowledge as the driving forces (Ibid).”

Bringing different groups together like this has enormous potential, but there’s still a big challenge: ensuring that all this new knowledge is transferred, used, and turned into something practical.

Piloting models for higher education – work-life collaboration

In a new project called FOR-MER, the authors of this text explore and examine the potential for work-oriented professional doctoral programs to pilot new collaboration models. We discuss the intricate dynamics within HEI-work-life collaborations, identifying the processes and practices that facilitate the effective transfer, creation, and application of knowledge.

Our project draws from two case studies. The first describes how an intermediary organisation (Demola) actively builds knowledge sharing between students and external partners. The second focuses on healthcare settings where master’s students apply a co-creation approach. Working within healthcare organisations, these students engage in developmental projects in collaboration with the workplace and HEI to address real needs within their workplaces.

A challenge in higher education–work-life collaboration is facilitating the effective transfer, creation, and application of new knowledge.

At least in theory, this kind of collaboration enables HEIs to meet academic goals and meet work-life needs while advancing socio-economic progress and innovation (Hughes & Kitson, 2012). Currently, we examine our empirical material through the conceptual lenses of absorptive capacity (AC) and proximity. Absorptive capacity is interesting in the context of HEI since it problematises assumptions regarding knowledge-sharing networks. The concept emphasises that an organisation’s ability to leverage external knowledge extends beyond mere exposure (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Organisations must be able to recognise, assimilate, and effectively transform external knowledge into value. Thus, AC pushes us to examine whether the knowledge produced by our students or researchers is turned into value by work-life.

Innovation collaboration and absorptive capacity

In the context of UAS, students are constantly involved in collaborative innovation initiatives, ranging from hackathons to longer projects (e.g., Demola or Minno at Metropolia.) Building on a foundation of knowledge management (KM) enablers—such as trust-building, knowledge-sharing networks, and motivational structures—UASs and their partners aim to integrate and apply knowledge effectively, generating solutions to address complex societal issues (Quarchioni, et al., 2020). Given the number of such initiatives, the number of students involved, and the amount of work, it is surprising how weakly HEI and work-life partnerships register regarding innovation performance. For example, in 2023, over 400 Arcada undergraduates worked on a 5 ECTS innovation project, pitching 20 ideas for using reeds to benefit the Baltic Sea. However, the Baltic Reed project utilized none. We should, however, not be too harsh in our self-criticism. Research shows that even global tech heavyweights struggle with absorptive capacity (e.g., Träskman & Skoog, 2022). Ultimately, students and work-life learn in collaborative ecosystems (Hero & Lindfors, 2019).

So, as part of FOR-MER project, , we established interventions within the context of higher education–work-life collaborations at Arcada. The project focused on structured knowledge-sharing mechanisms in such collaborations. The interventions were process-oriented and developmental, aiming to improve how students, HEIs, and external stakeholders engage in co-creation and knowledge transfer. Structured feedback loops were made to facilitate continuous reflection among students, other students and external partners. In the first case study, we designed and implemented structured knowledge-sharing workshops where participants and other students articulated learnings, barriers, and insights from Demola projects. This spring, follow-up meetings will be organised to assess longer-term impacts of knowledge transfer and co-creation.

In the FOR-MER project, our early findings show that intermediaries like Demola help students and other stakeholders connect, leading to better collaboration. However, while these connections are valuable, they don’t automatically boost innovation within these partnerships.

The real challenge is building platforms that strengthen collaboration between universities and workplaces, ensuring that knowledge-sharing benefits everyone involved. Ideally, these partnerships should give master’s students (and future work-life-focused doctoral students) a bigger role in improving workplace services, sparking innovation, and driving meaningful change. But making this happen depends on strong collaboration and close connections between organizations and universities. It requires intensive proximity and also preparedness for new innovative solutions.

Proximity and Innovation

From an innovation perspective, proximity is often viewed as a key precondition for successful collaboration. Villani et al. (2017) identify various dimensions of proximity—such as cognitive, social, and organisational—as essential for building trust, reducing coordination costs, and enabling efficient communication and learning. UAS, as a part of HEI, can be approached in terms of a drive for proximity as they were, as Virolainen and her colleagues (2024) observe, “created to fill the existing education–working life gaps (p. 2).” In this context, proximity is carefully structured: healthcare education, for example, employs teachers with real-world healthcare experience and uses simulation environments that mimic hospitals to prepare students for their professions.

Students face the tension between a curiosity-driven agenda for research and a productivist valuation of research for its use-value.

An example of proximity at work and the need to facilitate it can be found in videos produced by Arcada students for the Projekt liv rf association. This association aims to bring joy to children with long-term illnesses and their families. In the video “Linnéa går på magnetkameraundersökning”, (eng. Linnéa goes for an MRI scan. fig. 2) children and families are prepared for an MRI scan, while “Allergi på kalaset (eng. Allergy at the party)” introduces children to the EpiP.

The Arcada examples are noteworthy because these healthcare-focused videos were created by film and media students. The output from the collaboration between the health and media fields results from carefully coordinating proximity dimensions. The collaboration started from social and cognitive proximity between Projekt Liv and personnel at the Healthcare department. While proximity is often necessary to establish trust and facilitate knowledge sharing, maintaining distance can introduce fresh perspectives and foster innovation. In this case, online media students were introduced—two bodies of knowledge were thus successfully integrated, which resulted in knowledge absorption.

The success of these videos also underscores the role of knowledge sharing beyond the physical boundaries of UAS. For example, the video “Linnéa går på magnetkameraundersökning” has garnered over 37,000 views on YouTube, illustrating that learning and impact extend far beyond the campus.

Absorptive capacity and learning are intertwined and can result in better collaboration, but they do not necessarily drive the innovative performance of these collaborations. Successful innovation often requires a balance between proximity and distance. While proximity facilitates collaboration, maintaining some level of diversity or dissimilarity ensures the introduction of new ideas and perspectives. The challenge for UAS is to find partners at sufficient cognitive distance to tell something new but not so distant as to preclude mutual understanding.

Balancing the tension between academic and productivist valus

The idea of work-life-oriented professional doctoral studies is currently being floated around in popular debate and policy documents. The idea is not new, and it relates to a longstanding cultural tension between two underlying logics of HEI research work, or as accounting scholar Michael Power (2015) puts it: “on the one hand the logic of academic autonomy and a curiosity-driven agenda for research and, on the other hand, a productivist valuation of research for its use-value. (p. 44)” In HEI–work life collaborations, it is widely recognized that academic scientists and practitioners use different routines, cultures, values and norms. In our project, observations show situations where students have to face and tackle tensions between, for example, organisational culture and different views on value. Students develop cognitive and social proximity to work-life partners in collaborative ecosystems and create prototypes that meet societal needs. However, our preliminary findings suggest that the students struggle to pitch thesis ideas that draw on their collaboration and prototypes. Empirical evidence reveals cases where students are guided away from further developing solutions co-created with industry and instead encouraged to pursue research projects aligned with traditional academic values.

This indicates that we still have much to do regarding HEI work-life collaboration to uncover innovation opportunities that provide value to all stakeholders.

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