Evaluation area II assesses the procedures used to manage and improve societal engagement, strengthen the impact of the HEI’s research, development and innovation as well as artistic activities, and support an innovative organisational culture.
Based on the audit team’s evaluation, the evaluation area II is at the level good.
The audit team identified the following as key strengths and recommendations:
Strengths
- Societal impact is seen as the UTU community’s shared goal and direction.
- UTU is building a robust strategic profile with innovative initiatives in research towards societal impact, open science, and multidisciplinarity. The University of Turku has an advanced position in renewing research assessments aligned with these strategic priorities.
- UTU has a solid awareness of the importance of bringing in international talent.
Recommendations
- UTU should consider further utilisation of the potential embedded in its strategic emphasis on the Baltic Sea Region and consider the same type of advanced cooperation with the Cities of Pori and Rauma as with the City of Turku.
- Considering the relatively small number of international experts, extra efforts should be made to bring in international expertise and attract foreign talent.
- UTU should build stronger ties between faculties to achieve multidisciplinarity. It would be imperative to increase horizontal collaboration between all bodies representing different research areas, including provisions for doctoral training, which still mostly happens within disciplinary boundaries. Cross-faculty steering could be further promoted by internal funding for multidisciplinary work and doctoral education.