Finland also has a suitable environment and a modern approach to university and business cooperation. Multidisciplinary cooperation between companies and universities is widespread there because of the high respect for science and a common understanding that this relationship between businesses and universities plays a substantial role in prosperity of the society.
On 13th of June, the Embassy of Finland and AirFaas (a Finnish company) invited representatives from Law Faculty of Vilnius University (VU) to discuss the future of business-science cooperation in Lithuania.
A few days ahead of the global launch of AirFaas at the Embassy of Finland in Vilnius, the CEO of this Finnish company, Edward Blomstedt, took part in one of the biggest industry events in Estonia – “Industry 4.0 in Practice”. During this international conference the importance and the future of business-science cooperation was also mentioned.
“Traditionally led by technical universities, university-business cooperation in Finland has also recently been adopted in classical universities, which focus on social sciences. As with any major shift, there are challenges inherent in adopting an Industry 4.0 model and sometimes those challenges connect specifically with social sciences. For example, data security issues (which increased greatly by integrating new systems), diverging customs procedures, tax and VAT procedures differ in different countries. That is why social sciences and law in particular play a crucial role,” Edward Blomstedt said.
Holding an M.Sc. in industrial management and mechanical engineering from Aalto University, E. Blomstedt, who was voted Finland’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010, says that people are key in building future innovative factories. It is important to attract bright young minds and not concentrate on just those, who have a technical background.
“AirFaas, through our mother company Combi Works, has many years of experience, dating back to 1980s, and in recent years invested several million euros in development. We feel that Industry 5.0 will require different kinds of specialists, coming from different educational backgrounds and working in different fields of science. Hopefully, AirFaas’ cooperation with Academia in Lithuania can start through common projects with VU Law Faculty”, E. Blomstedt said.
