Meyer Turku, Elomatic, and Cadmatic announced that they are supporting developing the new degree programs in technology at the University of Turku by donating two professorships.
The companies’ donated professorships are directed at mechanical engineering and material technology, in which the University will start new degree programs in autumn of 20201, according to a press release
The other five-year professorship is donated by Meyer Turku, and the other by Elomatic together with Cadmatic under the same group.
The monetary value of the donated professorships is approximately €1.2 million.
“It’s very important for us to maintain our competitive edge in technology and we see this close collaboration with the University of Turku as one of the means to do so. We want to build Finland to be one of the leading innovation and science centres of the industry in the world. We are also very keen on a high-level engineering education, because it’s the ingenuity of our people to design our ships and find creative solutions for production optimizations, that makes us stronger,” said CEO of Meyer Turku Jan Meyer.
Director of the Technology Campus Turku, Professor Mika Hannula is the chair of the working group responsible for the planning of the technology education. The companies have participated in planning the contents of the degree programs from the start.
“The prerequisite for high-quality technology research and education is long-term collaboration with companies. Our goal is that our technology students will get to interact with companies already at a very early phase of their studies. In practice, this means course work and projects carried out with the companies, and summer as well as diploma work opportunities,” said Hannula.
In July 2019, the Ministry of Education and Culture granted the University of Turku educational responsibility in mechanical engineering and material technology. In August, the University started the reform of its entire technology education platform, according to a news release, and plans to have 273 new students in its technology program by 2020.
