European Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 34, No.

3, June 2009, 251262

New openings in universityindustry cooperation: Aalto University as the forerunner of European University Reform
Markku Markkulaa * and Pia Lappalainenb
a Helsinki University of Technology, Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli, TKK Dipoli, PO Box 8000, FI-02015 TKK Espoo, Finland; b Helsinki University of Technology, Language Centre, P.O. Box 1100, 02015 TKK Espoo, Finland

(Received 18 January 2009; nal version received 16 March 2009 ) The Innovation University (IU) to be called the Aalto University after Alvav Aalto, a famous Finnish architect and MIT professor is a new university which will be created through a merger of three existing universities: the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) and the University of Art and Design Helsinki (TAIK). The commitment to this reform can be summed with one gure: start-up funding is 700 MEUR coming from the government and industry. The objectives set for the IU require long-term development of operations in a way that makes societal interaction and in particular, effectiveness serving working life an integral part of all the operations. This cannot be achieved without education and development services essential to working life competencies, meeting also shortterm competency challenges and representing international top level. Themes, research topics and ways of working crossing boundaries will be nurtured within the focus areas of the new university. These facilitate comprehension of how knowledge and skills acquired through various disciplines are to be integrated into the teaching and learning practices. The IU is the developer of new learning environments and a determined promoter of lifelong learning. The new university will position itself within the core of global competition, as an active interaction node and meeting forum for the international academic community and the most noteworthy networks formed by global companies. In selected key areas, the new university will volunteer to act and take a role as the network orchestrator. Keywords: university reform; innovation; universityindustry cooperation; continuing education; lifelong learning

1.

Introduction

The Finnish Government is on a mission to develop the worlds best innovation system, in which universities play the leading role. Basic research, which is one of the cornerstones of Finnish success and the bedrock of the innovation system and innovation policy, is largely conducted in universities. As the agship project in the reform, the Innovation University (IU) will lead the way and later on in many respects serve as an example for the other universities in Finland and internationally, as well (Misukka 2008). The Government has taken the decision to fund a foundation-based new university. The IU is a merger of three long-established and successful bodies the Helsinki University of
*Corresponding author. Email: markku.markkula@dipoli.tkk. This article was written in the planning phase of the new university in May 2008. Aalto University will ofcially launch its operations in January 2010.

ISSN 0304-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online 2009 SEFI DOI: 10.1080/03043790902902922 http://www.informaworld.com

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Technology (TTK), the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) and the University ofArt and Design. The university foundation will be given autonomy and a strong strategic role in resource allocation. The organisational structure promotes the academic communitys creativity and initiative, as well as scientic and artistic autonomy in all of its operations. The aim is to form an institution that hosts world-class studying, teaching and research activities. The three universities are jointly preparing a strategy for managing their teaching, research and social responsibilities and are working on setting up the new administration. The preparations for the IU started actively in May 2007 after having this new initiative included in the policy programme of the Finnish Government. The work is proceeding rapidly. The necessary changes in Finnish legislation and in the government steering system have been accomplished. The Governments Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy took a decision in December 2007 to allocate a total of 500 MEUR to endow the IU foundation between 2008 and 2010, on the condition that industry provides at least 200 MEUR. And now in May 2008 also, industry has made the required decisions. The Government and industry have made their decisions to establish the IU Foundation and the university will start operating in August 2009, when the new Universities Act comes into force. The IU is clearly a manifestation of what can be achieved through high-level commitment and dedication of all parties involved. Part of this IU reform is the restructuring of continuing education and other forms of development services focusing on industry, public sector and third-sector actors. The six organisations participating in the operations of the IU WLEDS (working life education and development services) activities described in this article are HSE Executive Education Ltd (HSEEE), HSE Small Business Center (HSE PYK), Institute for Art Development and Education in Finland (IADE), Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli (TKK Dipoli), TKK Executive School of Business Ltd (TKK ESB) and TKK Lahti Centre. Altogether these units employ a staff of 300 with an annual turnover of 30 MEUR. The WLEDS group is led by Markku Markkula (TKK), Teppo Turkki (TaiK) and Stiina Vistbacka (HSE). The Strategy Group invited Richard Straub (IBM, EFMD) to join the work as an external facilitator and appointed Tapio Koskinen (TKK Dipoli) as his co-editor/facilitator. The group has operated for 7 months and some of the major outcomes are described in this article (Straub and Koskinen 2008).

2. The role of Finnish economic life in this reform The Finnish economic life has demonstrated commitment to the IU process, among others, in the form of expectations regarding competence development. On the one hand, the corporate sector calls for highly educated engineers and others with Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees; on the other hand, those already in working life need to update their competencies through continuing education and development services. Additionally, in order to materialise this with high quality, the economic life emphasises top-notch research and multidisciplinarity as the means of providing the required prerequisites for innovativeness. Working life insights into competence development need to be constantly elaborated by the universities. Mr Timo Kekkonen, Director of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, EK, crystallised these insights as skills needed to enable knowledge-based economic growth in his presentation at the TREE (Teaching and Research in Engineering in Europe) dissemination seminar at Dipoli on 7, March 2008 as follows (Kekkonen 2008): management of innovations development of knowledge-intensive services new business models

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management of a globally networked businesses the role of intellectual property in business foresight activities development of new technologies management of R&D activities in open innovation systems and within a non-linear innovation process

Innovations are not isolated inventions but a culturally bound way of perceiving problems as challenges with various feasible solutions. In addition to technological innovations, we are talking, to a growing extent, about social and administrative innovations where technology is often the central element facilitating change. The emphasis on innovations can be explained through the benets that can be gained: innovations lead to higher added value, increase productivity and open up new business opportunities, thereby serving entire society. In the attempt to transform innovation into competitivity, Mr Kekkonen stresses the importance of focusing more on long-term R&D activities, to make better use of expertise within universities and research centres and long-term commitment to cooperation, to establish national and international networking in a more and more open innovation system (access to more and more knowledge) and in overall to network and innovate in order to cover the total value chain from supplier to customer. According to Mr Kekkonen, in order to meet working life needs, the new university should educate experts with a knowledge base, an attitude and skills which correspond to the future needs of a globally networked industry. They need to be able to create knowledge and combine different areas of expertise to promote radical innovations. The new university needs to be a high-level, innovative and exible partner for industrial development activities and be an excellent environment for the promotion of entrepreneurship for knowledge-based growth companies. Society at large and especially companies require innovations for diverse development needs. The central prerequisite for achieving the objectives is to understand that different innovations necessitate different R&D and learning processes. Director Lars Gdda presented the illustration of different kinds of innovations (Figure 1) in the IU workshop in April 2008 representing the Forestcluster Ltd, which is the network entity planned to operate as one of the ve Finnish strategic centres for science, technology and innovation (Gdda 2008). Traditionally, the Finnish universities, especially in engineering, have cooperated closely with industry. Now in Finland, we want to proceed even further. The IU aims to address the above challenges by establishing a closer and more formalised partnership with Finnish industries in order to engage in dialogue with the sectors of working life it serves while accomplishing its missions as the scientic research university and the provider of basic and post-graduate education and also through its societal role, i.e. through continuing education and other forms of the third mission. To materialise this goal, WLEDS units have operated as in-house change agents within the IU development. WLEDS are a broad spectrum of training and development services provided by the existing units within the IU. The foundation of WLEDS activities lies on IU-hosted research and development activities as well as basic and continuing education. The clientele comprises individuals and companies as well as public-sector organisations to which the operations will offer universitylevel knowledge services based on the systematic development and application of lifelong learning. The activities serve the competence needs of working life within 15 years time span and simultaneously supply concepts serving working life inside the IU. Boundary-breaking IU-based research and education with their international network contacts play a signicant role.

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Figure 1.

Innovations and the life cycle of a product or a business.

3.

Changes in the business and operational environment

Universities are facing enormous challenges through the changes in society in general and business life especially. The following phenomena are those impacting continuing education and other services provided by the universities for working life. This educational environment is characterised by fundamental shifts of the economic, societal and demographic basis on which its services are provided. In this article, we will review in more detail only the outcomes focusing directly on the teaching and learning environments and within them our focus here is on lifelong learning and professional development. In addition, we have analysed, among others, the impacts of demographic changes and globalisation especially from the perspective of industrial development and economic life, where global value chains and networks and the increasing role of SMEs and entrepreneurship play a signicant role.

Learning takes place on the job The key trends include a shift of learning events from distinct activities towards learning on the job. According to some estimates, more than 80% of all learning occurs or at least will in the future occur on the job rather than in the tertiary and post-tertiary education. Already today, for instance, the Lisbon Council estimates that over two-thirds of the human capital of a work is accumulated on the job rather than in the education. To stay relevant and contribute to the human capital of future workers, WLEDS will need to be tightly integrated into organisational work processes and become an integral part of workers and managers everyday activities.

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Changing institutional environment The key trends include an increased direct and indirect public funding for lifelong learning. Given the difculties the often rigid labour markets in Europe have experienced, legislation is moving increasingly towards a model that emphasises career change, up- and re-skilling instead of job security and lifelong employment. As a result, the role of lifelong learning will dramatically increase and public support in the form of direct funding but also tax incentives is likely to become the norm rather than the exception in the future. Emergence of new providers of educational and development services Over the past years, a whole set of new providers of educational and development services have emerged. For instance, corporations have started to establish corporate universities managing and orchestrating training and learning within companies and increasingly their partner organisations. Software companies are increasingly developing software often in new formats such as games that allow for learning and competence development. Consultant companies have expanded their offerings from basic consultation to a service portfolio that also includes competency development. IT infrastructure and service providers increasingly include technology-based solutions for learning and competency development. Given these blurring boundaries between formerly independent sectors, WLEDS units will have to position themselves against these learning organisations which have signicant skills and knowledge to dene requirements and to design learning events and processes and to move from transaction-based selling towards consultative approaches and nally into partnering, i.e. co-creation of learning programmes. Technology-enhancing learning The problem with e-learning systems has been that they lack the necessary interfaces to business information systems needed when aligning learning with business processes and thus enabling organisations to faster improve the competencies of their employees according to continuous changes in business requirements. To solve this problem, open and standards-based serviceoriented applications are today used in order to connect business process management systems together with learning repositories, market places and mobile and location-based technologies and to provide ambient content management and ambient learning networks. The new learning systems will understand the skills and competencies required by the new business processes and match them with learning experiences in a way that will be transparent to the user. Therefore, the third-generation e-learning systems will have the possibility to offer wireless, broadband and mobile networks, transparently delivering ubiquitous, nomadic and mobile learning experiences and rich media contents, while supporting userspersonal knowledge development plans. The systems draw from semantic web convergence and interoperability, generation of learning content from information sources and the web, integration of media and learning management for mobile and instant learning, business learning games and simulation, as well as embedded learning, performance support and collaboration (Kamtsiou et al. 2006).

4.

IU WLEDS vision

Our IU WLEDS vision, as agreed by the units in October 2007, is to be among the top ve European actors in the eld of continuing education and development services provided for working life by 2013. The IU is a recognised multidisciplinary networker implementing and

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Figure 2. This illustration depicts the role and position of IU WLEDS services as the foundation on which further, in-depth expertise can be built.

developing the lifelong learning principle. The university has assumed a societal role of developing and supplying to enterprises as well as public- and third-sector organisations internationally highquality WLEDS. The development and conceptualisation of these services has leveraged the IU to operate on the level of Recognised European Leader (Figure 2). Being one of the rst actors in this combined services eld of business, the IU WLEDS have the chance to take the role of a change leader. We have an advantage to be the rst to contact the potential customers by offering them new possibilities and development paths. Using versatile methods and mastering entities creates great possibilities for our business. Our high quality has been proven by accreditations, which gives us clear advantage compared with our competitors in the eyes of our customers. The IU WLEDS will create a link between business community and the university and gives a forum for knowledge sharing. Global operations, especially on the Baltic Sea area, Russia and in Asia, provide us with an opportunity to operate globally.

5.

Guiding principles

Multidisciplinarity and lifelong learning contribute towards the guiding principles of the WLEDS operations in the IU. Our research-driven orientation with a focus on applied research interconnects Arts, Culture and Design with Economics and Technology. Such orientation equips us with a broad knowledge base, a wide range of methods and a unique cluster of competencies that together give us long-term competitive advantage in relation to other providers. Further, it contributes towards a multi-faceted service portfolio that meets the needs of our varying customer base. We nurture an ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders to comprehend holistically the changes in different sectors and the development needs that emerge from such changes. We provide added value to our customers by exploring the questions at hand not only in relation to their immediate contexts but also in relation to wider social, cultural, economic, environmental and technological frameworks and foresight.

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We engage in joint ventures by co-researching, co-developing and co-creating with our customers. This win-win approach yields us real-life cases that can be moulded into projects and programmes while our customers gain in increased competency in nding solutions in the complex and rapidly evolving world. In this way, we help our customers strengthen their position in the global economic ow and succeed in competition. We apply user-centric principles also on our own innovation journey. We focus on glocal approaches. That is, we aim to leverage the local strengths and the image of Finland as a leader in innovation while positioning ourselves globally with new partnerships and alliances. On a more concrete level, the IU WLEDS activities can be described by three different activity types or levels, which are based on and even connected tightly to the foundation of the IU, that is, its basic missions. (1) The most extensive and simultaneously also the most traditional activities consist of continuing education courses, programmes and services which will be further developed based on the IU strategy and on lifelong learning principles. These will help the units and communities to develop their competencies on a need basis in a more or less persistent way. (2) The second form of operations integrates development into education. The WLEDS units will be responsible for the operations and their orchestration, but the development effort will largely derive from other university units. The objective is to create and maintain research, development and service activities providing the prerequisites for the strategic and operative competence required in the work of knowledge professionals and other white-collar workers, particularly the development of work methods, ways of working and competence development promoting innovativeness, productivity, work motivation and coping at work on the level of work community. This in-depth and profound development work will be the sole means of helping the IU and its WLEDS activities to manage the change pressures prevalent in working life and described in this report. (3) The third form of operations comprises internationally unique service concepts that represent strategic levels both for the customers and the IU. Most typically, these represent such innovative activities that were called for when creating the new university. These mega entities dene the quality level of the operational image of the IU WLEDS.

6.

Mega-endeavours

The potential of IU WLEDS units can materialise through effective collaboration and networking within the IU and with their strategic external partners through, among others, the so-called spearhead projects. The spearheads are targeted mega-endeavours (large projects, operational platforms or other similar multi-actor entities) characterising the multidisciplinary and innovative strategic nature of the IU. They have a clear target to meet the IU challenges and bring added value to the customers and to the IU itself. The following guiding principles, which are characterised, in particular, by multidisciplinarity, form the starting point for the spearhead operations: Multidisciplinarity contributes to the guiding principles of our new services that meet the increasingly complex customer needs. Our services bring added value to the customers through tailor-made solutions that consider the customer needs from a contextual and holistic perspective. The role of WLEDS as an opinion leader and innovator in the areas of professional learning and organisational development is strengthened through active nurturing of multidisciplinarity

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inside our organisations and in interaction with our stakeholders. This provides foresight on societal, cultural, environmental, economic, and technological development. We provide a multidisciplinary interface and a dynamic platform for networking nationally and internationally with decision-makers in the public, the private and the third sector. The aim of this process is, as well, to generate profound understanding about innovative solutions and innovation leadership supporting the desired future development. What are those networking entities through which the IU creates new developments in research, education and different services and through which it proves usefulness in accordance with the objectives set for this reform? In dening these, we need to remember that the IU hosts a diversity of activities. Entirely new-creating activities are based on a careful selection process. We want to stress that only a part of university activities form the stars, i.e. mega-endeavours or elds described in Figure 3. The preparation phase has brought forth diverse elements usable when pondering on what the IU should focus on. They can be analysed through the following dimensions: x-axis = amount of value added generated by the IU to working life and y-axis = depth and degree of difculty of contents and/or operations. This gives us Figure 3 depicting the activities on a principle level. One can locate in the gure all functional entities of the IU that, when managed prociently, help contribute to the objectives of a top-quality university. At least the following functional types can be positioned within these dimensions: (1) research and teaching within one discipline, (2) research and teaching of several integrated disciplines, (3) development projects focusing on multidisciplinary, corporate-related knowledge and new innovations and (4) global, network-like mega-endeavours. In teaching, as an example, different levels are required in all these areas: teaching of fundamentals, teaching integrated into development activities and research-based and research-enhancing teaching. All these functional levels and types are needed both as permanent activities and as temporary stages while developing the IU towards the intent.

Figure 3.

Mega-endeavours within the IU.

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The determined management of change could be facilitated by dening characteristics and criteria steering development activities so as to motivate the required change processes on the way from the current state to the intended one and to provide instructions and allocate resources for this process. The properties are unique for each functional level and type but their forms should contribute to a consistent entity. Change criteria differ on the various levels and types. The criteria are sketched on the following list. They, among others, manifest educational and political intentions to link education and working life, to increase the new-creating innovativeness of the activities and to act in a way that reects and develops the global network culture. The preparation of the IU functions can be steered by means of criteria that promote the targeted characteristics and development measures. The change processes from the current state to the intended must be motivated, instructed and resourced consistently. The following list based on the general IU endeavour objectives manifests the diversity of the criteria. In the different activities, one or several of these criteria become(s) more accentuated: create new scientic and/or art-based knowledge, develop practices for applying technology, art and/or business, increase innovativeness and innovations, enhance productivity, manifest and develop the networked working culture, promote the enriching of the IU working culture, create new by breaking the boundaries between disciplines, and between teaching and research, and involving different student groups in learning processes, prop up lifelong learning, acquire funding and manage effective project management. For instance, in teaching and learning, the criteria for basic, continuing and supplementary education differ from each other. But despite that, it is appropriate to implement the overall system through the close collaboration of the target groups and several teachers and researchers. The IU WLEDS units have developed the spearheads according to the above guidelines focusing on forming something new, i.e. the mega-endeavours, which are an answer to the most common change needs dictated by working life. These alignments could well be beneted from also in other IU-related activities. New types of delivery and change capabilities are required as the complexity of projects constantly increases. Well managed and systematically progressing work that is often a part of one or several projects managed by individuals or communities is a cornerstone of productivity, and through that, the basic element of success. Projects are no longer separate and isolated, which makes synergy a necessity. A culturally rich and at the same time productive working culture emphasises synergy between diverse functions and tasks. The effort put to work serves several tasks and processes simultaneously. The decisive prerequisite for the targeted change is the intensication of information and knowledge dissemination and ICT-enabled development of work methods. The simultaneous management of several projects in an effective and new-creating way is a requirement set by the working life. WLEDS units are ready to respond to these challenges, outstandingly. For one, the IU itself requires an efcient process-like working culture and project management capability. The divergent cultures and working methods of the three universities and their numerous departments must be integrated while aiming to supply even higher, top-notch quality. Second, the IU wishes to meet working life needs, at the core of which lies high-level project management, in other words, a culture characterised by working in collaboration and by using advanced ICT-enabled management and leadership methods.

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In most cases, mega-endeavours managed or assisted by the WLEDS units are prototyping the change. They are complex projects creating an all-round entity which facilitates studying, collaboration and research, with the participating students representing the various phases of studies (basic, post-graduate or lifelong learning studies). The selected spearheads where we will especially focus our joint development activities are dened in brief as follows. Entrepreneurial university model. The overall aim of the IU is to achieve an Entrepreneurial University status, meaning that the IU translates into a world-class actor in promoting academic entrepreneurship and a key player in producing services for growth entrepreneurship through the combination of three competencies (representing business, technology and the creative sector). The operations focus, especially on entrepreneurial learning, on incubation development along the Start Up Centre Model and on further development of the existing career and other services to form a Virtual SME Service Platform. Executive education. We are aiming to become a facilitator that enables organisations to develop the competencies for systemic change and strategic renewal. Therefore, we will develop new learning environments (ref. management laboratories) that are based upon future-oriented action research and learning and integrate a large variety of partners from traditional learning institutions but also consultants, software companies and ICT infrastructure providers. In these new learning environments, public and private organisations will be able to interact in creating new services such as well-being services but also to experiment in a safe environment with new management approaches. Rather than just engaging in knowledge transfer and sharing of existing practices, our approach will allow for the creation of new knowledge and new practices by engaging in open-ended yet strongly facilitated development processes. International training, education and development services. The IU WLEDS will develop a systematic approach for international design and delivery of education, training and development services through a global university network. This will contribute to the long-anticipated opportunity to leverage from the Finnish know-how and good reputation in quality education. Strategic ongoing initiatives under this mega-endeavour are large-scale trainings for international corporations, the establishment of Confucius Business School and other activities with our Chinese partners, as well as the training activities in Russia, especially in the St Petersburg area. Virtual laboratory of applied creativity. The IADE-hosted Virtual Lab of Applied Creativity (VLAC) is a networking mega-endeavour within the IU and its several strategic external partners. It provides a exible platform for practising multi- and interdisciplinary research, working life development and learning. It operates at the interface between the IU, enterprises as well as public- and third-sector organisations. It provides solutions for the pragmatic development needs of these organisations by moulding real-life cases into projects and programmes. VLAC focuses on the utilisation of art- and culture-based skills and competencies as a means, in the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieus sense, to produce cultural, economic and social forms of capital. Eco Factory. Eco Factory (EF) creates a exible and networked platform where the innovative operations of students, researchers, experts and enterprises are integrated. The goal is to acquire profound knowledge of needs of environmental and sustainable development and to create new solutions and practices to meet these needs through education and research. In EF, ideas are turned into concrete activities, products and models with special focus on innovations. EF acts as a learning environment where the academic teams are in an effective interrelationship with companies, municipalities and other public communities.

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7.

Conclusions

The emergence of the new IU concept in Finland challenges the traditional role of universities, addressing all the three missions of universities. Working life is increasingly posing societal requirements that must be met in order to secure the nations competitiveness in a situation where globalisation on the one hand and ageing of the large age cohorts on the other hand are jeopardising the current structures. This presentation highlights the fundamental factors in this university reform. The most important all-permeating factors in this reform are multidisciplinarity, creativity and abilities to increase intangible capital both inside the universities and through them in society. Of universities, this requires commitment to become experts and change agents especially in lifelong learning and competence development. The experiences gained from continuing education and continuing professional development activities within working life take a decisive role in light of the pursuit and development of new solutions for university research and teaching. We would like to raise the following observations and alignments to the spotlight in European discussions and development measures. Foresight and radical innovations are one extremely important area where signicant improvements of university service offerings are needed. This necessitates linking with systems thinking. Despite corporate demands and universitys third mission as a societal developer, the academia has in many areas neglected its role as a detector of phenomena, thereby failing to interpret signals within industrial environments sufciently to provide corporate operators with predictions, forecasts and guidelines helping companies to deal with future trends and innovations up to the level of radical innovations. Quite the contrary, science too often seems to follow in the steps of industry, seldom foresightful enough to proactively offer knowledge or observations that could serve as valuable indications of industrial and technological tendencies. The accessibility of this knowledge should also be improved. Second, as educators universities should not merely function as institutes pumping out experts in subject matters, but they also take on a role as incubators hatching future employees that possess the capabilities to perform in conformity with entrepreneurship and corporate long-term development. In other words, the graduating masters should not only be t in terms of substance knowledge, but also their attitudes should make a good match with entrepreneurial, cultural and global demands. By shifting the focus of teaching from one-sided information delivery to overall aptitude-enhancing information processing and knowledge creation and to hands-on training in interaction and in cross-cultural communication, we could provide working life with cosmopolitans that are apt and skilful members of multinational communities. The core of the skills and abilities of every young graduate should be the basic competencies for learning to learn. This, with many respects, can only be reached through transforming teaching methods to the learning-centric forms, such as learning by developing and learning by research. Third, an important element in mastering the on-going change is the deep understanding of the logics of global value chains and networks with underlying business operations and the related nancial implications. With respect to this, universities should assume a role not only as educators of individuals, but also as developers of competencies of teams, work communities, organisations and networks. This would require, more than ever, deeper and multidisciplinary understanding of team and organisational learning. Implicit, on-the-job learning could be bolstered with the support and in collaboration with expertise nestled in higher-education institutions. The desired future of universities and companies entails the joint creation of effective concepts and methods with which university continuing education providers develop into experts in facilitated work-based learning. In here, universities could serve as forerunners and exemplars in the adoption and application of sophisticated technology and systems as a means to enhance ways of working and learning.Yet, the use of e-learning and on-line facilities in universities lags behind, but when in use, it serves

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not only as a pedagogic tool and teaching dimension but also as an environment that simulates closely the ways of working cultivated in todays corporate life. For some students, this type of practice may offer the rst contact with hitech-aided work. Another aspect mimicking corporate operating models is the fact that the environment promotes learning and working in collaboration, in real-time, with all the participants equally contributing to a common goal. The use of e-learning environments not only promotes higher quality of the work at hand but also communality, sense of togetherness, networking and exchange of expertise and sharing of knowledge, and even joint knowledge creation. Similarly, when work is carried out in a process-like way, with opportunities for ne-tuning and reviews, it forces the actor him/herself to go through a process, that of learning, while critically analysing incomplete output and striving for improvements and development. Initiative and interaction turn the traditional learning context into a highly effective learning experience where the process itself is as much an end as the end itself. The IU attempts to address all these challenges by establishing ever more solid partnerships with Finnish industries in order to engage in dialogue with the sectors of working life it serves while accomplishing its missions as the high-level research community and as the provider of basic and doctorate education and also through its societal role. To materialise this goal, WLEDS units have started their deep-going joint operations as internal change agents within the IU operations. The mega-endeavours depicted in this article take a centre stage as an enabler of the targeted cultural change, drawing on the boldness to break the boundaries and implement complex, demanding projects and the larger entities they contribute to. Acknowledgements
This article continues the work of the IU WLEDS Strategy Group and disseminates the results achieved so far in the on-going development process. We have already had more than 40 active employees in these six WLEDS units who have contributed to the work Painting the Potential. With this article, we want to thank all of them and open more international discussion on this university reform. Within our own core area of business continuing education and other working life services, we are a global forerunner and through that role we encourage other similar university actors to interact towards strategic partnerships.

References
Gdda, L., 2008. Seminar April 25, TKK Dipoli (unpublished). Kamtsiou, V., et al., 2007. A glimpse at the future of technology enhanced-professional learning: trends, scenarios and visions. In: A. Boonen and W.V. Petegem, eds. European networking and learning for the future. Garant: The EuroPACE Approach Antwerp, 293313. Kekkonen, T., 2008. TREE dissemination seminar, March 7, TKK Dipoli. Available from: www.uni.it/tree Misukka, H., 2008. TREE dissemination seminar, March 7, TKK Dipoli. Available from: www.uni.it/tree Straub, R. and Koskinen, T., eds., 2008. Painting the potential working life education and development services offered by the Finnish innovation university. Espoo: TKK.

About the authors

Markku Markkula, MSc (Tech) (born in 1950) is the Director of the Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli of Helsinki University of Technology (TKK). He is in charge of one of Europes largest university-based continuing education providers. Mr. Markkula was Member of the Finnish Parliament 19952003. He has developed new learning and innovation concepts through his different roles, among others part-time Secretary General of the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education IACEE (19892001) and the chairmanship of the SEFI Continuing Education Working Group. He is a SEFI Fellow (from 1995). Pia Lappalainen, MA (born in 1968) is currently a lecturer of English and communications at Helsinki University of Technology (TKK). Before her transfer to the TKK Language Centre, she worked as a lecturer at the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE) and as a communicator in IT industry. She is currently conducting her PhD research in technology at Lappeenranta University of Technology. Her thesis Primal leadership in engineering communities focuses on identifying such features of leadership and managerial communication that promote organizational success through intelligent application of emotions.