Universities are increasingly
expected to be more open in their research and innovation. Senior research
adviser Erika Lilja explains how the University of Turku has embraced an open
approach.

Lilja’s top tips

• Embed an open research culture, starting with students and postdocs:
  it takes time to change.
• Create spaces to bring people together (pitch events/science battles/festivals/hackathons) and build digital platforms
  where all interested parties can join in.
• Consider new areas such as business disruption where your university
  operates as an open research community and facilitator for researchers and
  partners.
• Involve researchers in any policy change planning process so they
  embrace it.
• New incentive systems should promote or shift towards an open research
  culture.

In this information-intensive era, universities are seen as having a
crucial role to play in improving the economy and advancing society.

Digital technologies and digital information are altering the ways in which
research can be done. This openness of information and availability of new
digital technologies calls for universities to rethink their societal role,
working more with the society ‘outside’ university walls and creating new
cultures of open interaction and collaborative ways of working.