The Teenage Terbio is Looking For Nordic Partners
A Nordic Master’s Degree Programme in Biosciences. University of Northern Lights. The universities of Turku, Eastern Finland, Stockholm, Bergen and Copenhagen in collaboration. One programme with teachers and researchers from five universities sharing information. This is a dream that truly was resurrected at the 15-year anniversary celebration of the education programme in Health Biosciences.
Professors Markku Koulu (right) and Sari Mäkelä won’t rely on past accomplishments neither in the 15-year anniversary of Terbio nor in the everyday life, but look firmly ahead. A joint Master’s Degree in Biosciences of four different nations is being developed
–Our goal is to establish a Nordic Master 2020, but that does not mean we are going to wait until 2020. We have already launched student and teacher exchanges and this is our second researcher meeting. The last one was organised in Bergen in August, explains Professor Sari Mäkelä from the University of Turku.
The speed is fierce as the planning of the joint master programme began in the spring. Even the youngest participants were put to work at the meeting in Turku. Pasi Soidinsalo from the University of Turku, Henrik Vaherto from Eastern Finland, Ian Olson from Stockholm, Inger Ødum Nielsen from Copenhagen and Eilen Henriksen and Jan Kurzaliski from Bergen collected ideas during a few hours to get the programme working.
–Different universities could organise short few-day intensive courses on their own specialities and we could have joint online courses and video lectures. If only a few people at one university would want to take a certain course, a survey could be put on the common web page questioning how many people altogether would be interested in taking the course. In the summertime, innovation summer camps could be organised to solve questions that have blocked researches from advancing, listed Nielsen and Henriksen some of the proposals of the task force.
Vice Rector Riitta Pyykkö was pleased with the plans of the Health Biosciences.
–We have 16 international master’s degree programmes, but only five of them are joint degrees, stated Pyykkö.
Text: Erja Hyytiäinen
Translation: Jenna Sjöholm