Did you think that scholars in the humanities don’t collaborate with companies in terms of their research? Well, you thought wrong – and so did I, before talking to Heidi Kinnunen, my colleague at the University of Helsinki Research Services. Turns out that this collaboration does exist, but it is usually not named as such, and that’s why it also often goes unnoticed – and uncompensated. The Helsinki business collaboration team – like their colleagues in universities around the world, nowadays – help researchers build successful research partnerships, mostly with companies. Their job is to support academics who wish to…
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I believe you all heard of recent the trouble at Spotify? It started with vaccine misinformation but brought into bright daylight the platform’s tacit endorsement of racism and unfavorable treatment of content by Black artists, the company’s vague attempt to remedy the situation with money, and their stumbling approach to diversity in general. It also made glaringly obvious how badly prepared Spotify was to answer the public outrage that followed. It’s probably not much of a comfort for Spotify to know that they are hardly alone. A global movement for social justice has gradually brought issues of diversity, equity, and…
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Imagine you are an academic working on hate speech. You realize that your research could change the way people interact online. But how do you get your work out there? Or imagine your company hosts a popular online platform that has gone rampant with attacks on migrant communities. You are painfully aware that you should take action. But what action and on what grounds? Spanning boundaries agents are intermediaries whose job it is to help solve these problems. One of the gaps that exist between academic research and its potential uses is the lack of networks connecting academia and business.…
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Interest in solutions to pressing societal challenges is hardly limited to academia. And solutions that have been developed in the academia are usually put into practice somewhere else – by policy makers, by public organizations and NGOs, or as part of a business enterprise. At the same time, current global challenges are so complex that most solutions to them will have their roots in academic research of some kind. In fact, the quality of the solutions often depends on it. So it matters that academic research gets out there. This applies to humanities as much as it applies to any…
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