Turku Åbo

kuv., 10 x 20 cm

Turku-Åbo

kuv., 10 x 22 cm

Turku ja Varsinais-Suomi

kuv., 12 x 23 cm

Provinz und Stadt Turku-Åbo

kuv., 12 x 20 cm

Turku (Åbo)

kuv., 21 x 22 cm

Varsinais-Suomi ja Turku

kuv., 12 x 20 cm

The Role of Universities in the Triple Helix model of innovation management within the biotechnology industry, Case example: Turku Science Park Network

Biotechnology has been recognized as the key strategic technology for industrial growth. The industry is heavily dependent on basic research. Finland continues to rank in the top 10 of Europe's most innovative countries in terms of tax-policy, education system, infrastructure and the number of patents issued. Regardless of the excellent statistical results, the output of this innovativeness is below acceptable. Research on the issues hindering the output creation has already been done and the identifiable weaknesses in the Finland's National Innovation system are the non-existent growth of entrepreneurship and the missing internationalization. Finland is proven to have all the enablers of the innovation policy tools, but is lacking the incentives and rewards to push the enablers, such as knowledge and human capital, forward. Science Parks are the biggest operator in research institutes in the Finnish Science and Technology system. They exist with the purpose of speeding up the commercialization process of biotechnology innovations which usually include technological uncertainty, technical inexperience, business inexperience and high technology cost. Innovation management only internally is a rather historic approach, current trend drives towards open innovation model with strong triple helix linkages. The evident problems in the innovation management within the biotechnology industry are examined through a case study approach including analysis of the semi-structured interviews which included biotechnology and business expertise from Turku School of Economics. The results from the interviews supported the theoretical implications as well as conclusions derived from the pilot survey, which focused on the companies inside Turku Science Park network. One major issue that the Finland's National innovation system is struggling with is the fact that it is technology driven, not business pulled. Another problem is the university evaluation scale which focuses more on number of graduates and short-term factors, when it should put more emphasis on the cooperation success in the long-term, such as the triple helix connections with interaction and knowledge distribution. The results of this thesis indicated that there is indeed requirement for some structural changes in the Finland's National innovation system and innovation policy in order to generate successful biotechnology companies and innovation output. There is lack of joint output and scales of success, lack of people with experience, lack of language skills, lack of business knowledge and lack of growth companies.

Key factors in transforming university internationalization into commercial activity in Finland. Case of University of Turku

Globalization, developments in ICT, emergence of knowledge society and other changes have reformed the environment for international higher education during the past few decades. Consequently, higher education sector has moved towards more marketing-oriented system, and universities have started to undertake commercial activities as part of their internationalization. This development has emerged to Finland as well, which forms the basis for this study. The purpose is to examine commercialization in Finnish university landscape and to investigate the ways Finnish university could capitalize its international activities and educational knowledge for export. The research question of the study is: What are the key factors in transforming university internationalization into commercial activity in the Finnish university landscape? The main problem is further divided into three sub-questions: 1) How can a university internationalize; 2) what are the motivational factors behind university internationalization and commercialization; and 3) how can higher education be developed into export services and products? The research was conducted as a qualitative case study of University of Turku. Methods used for gathering and examining data were interviewing and document analysis. Primary data was collected through four individual semi-structured interviews, which were conducted face-to-face. Secondary data that included reports, articles and electronic materials such as university web pages, was used to complement the primary data. The results were analyzed by theming the data into three broader categories of internationalization activities; drivers and motivations and; education export activities. After the data was organized in themes, analysis continued by comparing different parts of data and finding patterns that would explain the phenomenon in Finnish universities. According to the empirical data, University of Turku is currently on the growth state of internationalization with strategies such as internationalization of curriculum, establishment of international research groups, mobility of students and academics, international networking and support services. Commercialization phenomenon is still rather new to the case university, but it has already developed educational products and services for export. The study concludes that university internationalization cannot be directly transformed into commercial activities in the Finnish context, but the universities need to be active in actually creating educational products. The key factors found in this study include: 1) the Finnish government policies behind the current hype of export education; 2) the potential and knowledge capacity of universities for exports; 3) need for additional profits; 4) further internationalization through commercial activities; 5) recognizing and exploiting the specific areas of strength and 6) establishing of cooperative partnerships for better products.

Cultural distance and negotiation behavior : Perception of entrepreneurs operating in Turku

This thesis investigates the influence of cultural distance on entrepreneurs’ negotiation behaviour. For this purpose, Turku was chosen as the unit of analysis due to the exponential demographic change experienced during the last two decades that has derived in a more diversified local environment. The research aim set for this study was to identify to what extent entrepreneurs face cultural distance, how cultural distance influences the entrepreneur’s negotiation behaviour and how can it be addressed in order to turn dissimilarities into opportunities. This study presented the relation and apparent dichotomy of cultural distance and global culture, including the component of diversity. The impact of cultural distance in the entrepreneurial mindset and its consequent effect in negotiation behaviour was presented too. Addressing questions about the way individuals perceive, behave and interact allowed the use of interviews for this qualitative research study. In the empirical part of this study it was found that negotiation behaviour differed in terms of how congenial entrepreneurs felt when managing cultural distance, encompassing their performance. It was also acknowledged that after time and effort, some of the personal traits were enhanced while others reduced, allowing for more flexibility and adaptation. Furthermore, depending on the level of trust and shared interests, entrepreneurs determined their attitudinal approach, being adaptive or reactive subject to situational aspects. Additionally, it was found that the acquisition of cultural savvy not necessarily conveyed to more creativity. This experiential learning capability led to the proposition of new ways of behaviour. Likewise, it was proposed that growing cultural intelligence bridge distances, reducing mistrusts and misunderstandings. The capability of building more collaborative relationships allows entrepreneurs to see cultural distance as a cultural perspective instead of as a threat. Therefore it was recommended to focus on proximity rather than distance to better identify and exploit untapped opportunities and better perform when negotiating in whichever cultural conditions.

The Effects of the Breast Cancer Mammography Screening Programme in Women aged 40 to 84 years in Turku, Finland (1987-2009)

The objective of this thesis was to evaluate whether a more extensive mammography screening programme (TurkuMSP) conducted by the city of Turku, had an effect on breast cancer (BC) incidence, survival, or mortality in years 1987 to 2009. Despite the fact that some studies have suggested a 20 percent reduction in BC mortality due to mammography screening, there are findings of harm to subjects, which are claimed to negate the benefits of screening. Thus, the aims of this study are most pertinent. A total of 176 908 screening examinations were performed in 36 000 women aged 40−74 during the years 1987−1997. In all, 685 primary BCs were found in the screened women, either screen-detected (n=531) or during screening intervals (n=154). Survival and BC recurrence rate of women with screen-detected BC was compared to 184 women with clinical BCs detected among individuals who did not take part in the screening. The invitation interval, which may influence the outcome, was studied in the age group 40 to 49 by inviting those born in even calendar years annually for mammography screening and those born in odd years, triennially. In addition, BC incidence and mortality in the total female population of Turku aged 40 to 84 years was compared with the respective figures of Helsinki and the rest of Finland, both during the pre-screening era (1976-1986) and the screening era (1987-2009). The study was designed to compare women by age groups, because women aged 50 to 59 were generally screened in all of Finland, whereas only in Turku women aged 40 to 49 and 60 to 74 were screened in addition. Data regarding cancer recurrence were derived from the Finnish Cancer Registry and data on deaths were collected from Statistics Finland. In survival analyses, screened women with invasive BC had a significantly higher survival rate than the women with clinical BC. The survival benefit started to appear already during the first follow-up years and was evident in all age groups. A marginal survival extension was also seen in screened women when BC had spread to ipsilateral axillary nodes already at diagnosis. Recurrence-free survival rate after BC treatment was significantly more favorable among the screened women compared with women with BC found clinically. The screening invitation interval did not significantly influence BC mortality in the subset of women aged 40 to 49 years. There were no consistent differences in the changes of BC incidence between Turku and the comparison areas during the screening era. In Turku, the BC mortality incidence in women aged 55−69 years was significantly lower during the screening era (from 1987 to 1997) compared with the pre-screening era, whereas no such change was found in the city of Helsinki or Tampere. When comparing the changes in incidence-based BC mortality during years 1987 to 2009 in Turku to those of Helsinki and the rest of Finland, there was a suggestion of more than 20 percent lower mortality in Turku among oldest age group (75-84 years) compared with the reference residential areas, but the differences were not consistently significant. Interpretation of the study results should be made with caution because there were no random control groups, and on the other hand, the number of cases in subgroups was fairly low to yield definite conclusions. Also due to the many statistical analyses, some of the findings may be due to chance. The results are, however, suggestive for a decrease of BC mortality in the elderly age groups due to wide mammography screening. This finding needs confirmation in further studies before recommending an expansion of mammography screening to women up to the age of 74 years

Characteristics of urban heat island (UHI) in a high latitude coastal city - a case study of Turku, SW Finland

The term urban heat island (UHI) refers to the common situation in which the city is warmer than its rural surroundings. In this dissertation, the local climate, and especially the UHI, of the coastal city of Turku (182,000 inh.), SW Finland, was studied in different spatial and temporal scales. The crucial aim was to sort out the urban, topographical and water body impact on temperatures at different seasons and times of the day. In addition, the impact of weather on spatiotemporal temperature differences was studied. The relative importance of environmental factors was estimated with different modelling approaches and a large number of explanatory variables with various spatial scales. The city centre is the warmest place in the Turku area. Temperature excess relative to the coldest sites, i.e. rural areas about 10 kilometers to the NE from the centre, is on average 2 °C. Occasionally, the UHI intensity can be even 10 °C. The UHI does not prevail continuously in the Turku area, but occasionally the city centre can be colder than its surroundings. Then the term urban cool island or urban cold island (UCI) is used. The UCI is most common in daytime in spring and in summer, whereas during winter the UHI prevails throughout the day. On average, the spatial temperature differences are largest in summer, whereas the single extreme values are often observed in winter. The seasonally varying sea temperature causes the shift of relatively warm areas towards the coast in autumn and inland in spring. In the long term, urban land use was concluded to be the most important factor causing spatial temperature differences in the Turku area. The impact was mainly a warming one. The impact of water bodies was emphasised in spring and autumn, when the water temperature was relatively cold and warm, respectively. The impact of topography was on average the weakest, and was seen mainly in proneness of relatively low-lying places for cold air drainage during night-time. During inversions, however, the impact of topography was emphasised, occasionally outperforming those of urban land use and water bodies.