Search results

Universities are expected to accelerate and optimize their role as economic growth engines. Technology transfer is a traditional way of expanding knowledge exchange, and it is typically used in hard sciences. This paper aims to discuss academic consultancy as a novel way to bring especially social sciences, humanities and arts (SSHA sciences) knowledge into the society. In addition, it seeks practical ways to combine both university’s and individual researcher’s needs in consultancy.

A case study comprising interviews at two Finnish universities was conducted. Literature on academic consulting was used as background knowledge. International benchmarking was done through interviews and desk top studies. Some background statistics was extracted from the financial database for received research funding from businesses and ministries.

Corporate funding is most prominent in hard sciences, and SSHA sciences seem to get their funding mainly from public sources. SSHA researchers provide services for firms, but these relationships are generally private. According to interviews, there is will to consult firms through university, but researcher’s time limitations, remuneration and academic merit related to consultancy are important factors when consultancy guidelines are drawn. The administration view is expanded from only research staff to include the entire university knowledge production ecosystem and its members.

Acknowledging the value of SSHA sciences is topical because the respect towards humanities and social studies seems to be in decline in some developed countries. However, according to this study, academic consulting could have great potential in bringing the human perspective into the digitalized society. The quantification of knowledge exchange would benefit from formal, institutionalized consultancy sales. More studies are needed to assess the impact of academic consultancy on society.

The challenges arising from the reform of the social and healthcare sector call for efficient, effective and novel processes in both public and private health and medical care. Facilities need to be designed to suit the new processes and to offer usable workspaces at different levels of healthcare services. Along with traditional construction, modular facility innovations could be one solution to these pressures. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This case study analyzed the different usability characteristics of the work environment in modular and non-modular healthcare facilities (HCFs). The qualitative research method was based on semi-structured interviews of employees and observations of the case buildings.

According to the results, the usability characteristics were divided into four main categories: functionality, healthiness, safety/security and comfort. The main differences between the modular and non-modular facilities appeared to be room size, soundproofing, safety issues and the utilization of colors and artwork, which were all perceived as better realized in the non-modular facilities. The staff highlighted functionality as the most important characteristic in their work environment. They even considered functionality as a feature of a comfortable work environment.

This paper presents new knowledge and a detailed description of the opinions and experiences of healthcare professionals concerning a user-centric, usable environment in the context of modular and non-modular HCFs.