From silos to seamless integration of teaching and RDI activities at universities of applied sciences
Keywords:
higher education, research and development, integration, project-related learningAbstract
The aim of our explorative case study is to qualitatively clarify the views of a university of applied science’s staff regarding factors related to the integration of teaching and research, development and innovation activities, as well as the utilization of the RDI project results in teaching. The material consisted of written views produced by staff from one Finnish university of applied sciences (n = 64). From the design phase emerged the main themes of curriculum and project plan alignment and studification of the project plan as well as their subcategories: curriculum, common understanding, resources and project outputs. From the implementation phase, the main themes of implementation of project-related teaching and implementation of project-related learning and their five subcategories community involvement, resource allocation, process clarity, curriculum implementation, and funding constraints were identified. The utilization of project results resulted in two main themes outputs and integrative RDI and pedagogical culture together with four sub-categories results, study material, experimental culture, and profiling. The results show that there are many aspects and issues regarding integration. The staff sees integration to be possible both through project studies and RDI projects. The challenge of conceptualizing studies and projecting also contributes to the difficulty of implementing integration. The challenges of integration, as well as the solutions, vary depending on whether integration from the perspective of the preparation, implementation and collaboration of RDI projects is considered solely within the university, or from the wider viewpoint including external stakeholders and outcomes.
