Our societies require talented engineers, who are trained in different engineering fields. Simultaneously these students should have the ability to collaborate and work with people of different disciplines and be able to look for innovation. Engineering programs have been developing different approaches to enhance these required skills, for example through capstones and hackathons. Capstones projects, which are often several months long, aim to prepare students for the transition from school to work. Frequently, these projects are designed to serve companies or startups. Hackathon events are intense and short sessions where students solve a challenge in short periods of time, often between 24 to 36 hours. However, it is needed an approach that exposes students, of different disciplines, to a wider number of industries with a more collaborative approach. We need interventions in which students can experience how their knowledge contributes to the innovation and visions of different stakeholders. Furthermore, these learning interventions, where we promote a collaborative experience among the participants where everybody learns from everybody, should require less time than with capstones or hackathons. The University of Turku developed the Industrial Seminar on Future Technologies course for master and phd advanced students, where we address: multidisciplinarity, collaboration, connection with engineering industry and innovation. Students in this course are exposed to challenges and visions of different companies in diverse domains, e.g. biotechnology, metal industry, maritime. Each seminar session focuses on one company, and we work together to address the session's aim in at most four hours. For each session participants have a pre-assignment, which is aligned to the objective of the session, and a post-assignment that focuses on the session's reflection. An important aspect to make each session successful is the preparation of the session with the local company. Hence this course addresses different objectives: (i) Expose students to industry, (ii) Students gain awareness of how their knowledge is relevant for different industry challenges and visions, (iii) Collaboration between session participants (from different backgrounds and from the guest company), (iv) Possibility to innovate (“think out of the box”), (v) University of Turku builds bridges with the local industry, as together with each guest company we go through a process of “sharpening” the company's challenge or vision for this particular seminar session. In this paper we analyze this course with its outcomes, utilizing the final results of each session, and the feedback from students and industry representatives.

Our societies require talented engineers, who are trained in different engineering fields. Simultaneously these students should have the ability to collaborate and work with people of different disciplines and be able to look for innovation. Engineering programs have been developing different approaches to enhance these required skills, for example through capstones and hackathons. Capstones projects, which are often several months long, aim to prepare students for the transition from school to work. Frequently, these projects are designed to serve companies or startups. Hackathon events are intense and short sessions where students solve a challenge in short periods of time, often between 24 to 36 hours. However, it is needed an approach that exposes students, of different disciplines, to a wider number of industries with a more collaborative approach. We need interventions in which students can experience how their knowledge contributes to the innovation and visions of different stakeholders. Furthermore, these learning interventions, where we promote a collaborative experience among the participants where everybody learns from everybody, should require less time than with capstones or hackathons. The University of Turku developed the Industrial Seminar on Future Technologies course for master and phd advanced students, where we address: multidisciplinarity, collaboration, connection with engineering industry and innovation. Students in this course are exposed to challenges and visions of different companies in diverse domains, e.g. biotechnology, metal industry, maritime. Each seminar session focuses on one company, and we work together to address the session's aim in at most four hours. For each session participants have a pre-assignment, which is aligned to the objective of the session, and a post-assignment that focuses on the session's reflection. An important aspect to make each session successful is the preparation of the session with the local company. Hence this course addresses different objectives: (i) Expose students to industry, (ii) Students gain awareness of how their knowledge is relevant for different industry challenges and visions, (iii) Collaboration between session participants (from different backgrounds and from the guest company), (iv) Possibility to innovate (“think out of the box”), (v) University of Turku builds bridges with the local industry, as together with each guest company we go through a process of “sharpening” the company's challenge or vision for this particular seminar session. In this paper we analyze this course with its outcomes, utilizing the final results of each session, and the feedback from students and industry representatives.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents a nationwide university collaboration project to complement regional demand for Master degree engineers. Technology industry with sufficient ability and investment in research, development and innovation is in the core of economic growth and success at both national and regional level. Higher education institutions should produce the needed new engineering professionals and serve as platforms for university-industry collaboration in research and innovation. Due to phenomena such as globalisation of industrial activities and growing demand for sustainable energy solutions, the regional development of different technology industry sectors, e.g. marine technology, telecommunications and battery technologies, can take diverting directions and change the need for skillsets of new engineers. While innovation activity of a local higher education institution can on long term provide the platform for new growth businesses, investment-heavy industries often have other drivers for the location of their activities. Establishing new degree programs, or even further, new educational institutions, contains its potential challenges, financial and in availability of qualified researchers, teachers and students. Furthermore, these efforts are not sufficiently fast to address the fairly rapid changes in the need for the workforce. FITech (Finnish Institute of Technology) has been a five year project to address the demand of qualified engineers in Southwestern Finland, the region with the fastest growing technology industry in the country. The project consortium contains the seven Finnish universities providing engineering education, with the budget for the 5-year project period (from 2017 to 2021) being 18 million euros, from which 70% is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, and the 30% is covered by the universities themselves, This paper analyzes the quantitative (e.g. master thesis elaborated in companies in the region, plans and agreements to take the collaboration forward after the funded project period) of the project. In addition to reflect upon the follow up, three new education projects (FITech ICT, FITech Energy Storage and FITech 5G), materialized from the collaboration within FITech consortium, are introduced. The discussion summarizes the detected challenges and areas for improvement to enhance the success of such systematic university collaboration at a national scale.

Technology industry with sufficient ability and investment in research, development and innovation is the core of successful growth of several national economies. Higher education institutions need to provide a wide range of engineers with an increasing level of cross-disciplinary skills. An active, local presence of a university providing degree programs and research in technology has a strong link with the volume and development of the technology industry in the region. While modern technologies, especially information and communication technology (ICT), allow research and development activities to be independent of the location, other sectors of technology industry, such as maritime industry, require significant investments in physical facilities, bound to the region. Governments face two main challenges to maintain their industry's engineering competitiveness: (1) to prepare engineering graduates across expanding ranges of skills and knowledge, and (2) to provide the engineers in the regions where these skills are needed. Southwestern Finland is a region with the fastest growing technology industry in the country. Without a university with a full range of opportunities for academic engineering education in the region, there is an increasing number of job openings that cannot be filled. In Finland, students in engineering connect with the industry already during their studies and, after graduation, tend to stay in the region where they studied. To expose engineering students to the challenges of Southwestern Finland without creating new permanent higher education engineering structures in the region, the Finnish government in 2017 launched FITech, a 5-year project including all the seven Finnish universities offering engineering education. The purpose of FITech is to offer a nationwide cooperative solution to coordinate and provide engineering education and research in all domains of engineering to support the growth of Southwestern Finland region. This paper introduces the foundations and objectives of FITech and using the early indications of its results suggests a framework to evaluate the success of this complex nationwide project. Preliminary outcomes from the perspective of the University of Turku, one of the seven FITech partners, utilizing an adapted version of Hevner et al design science framework, show the challenges in achieving sufficient regional impact by the FITech approach and provide guidance for its ongoing development and implementation.