Culture & Entrepreneurship Novia University of Applied Sciences Research and Development

(1)

ANNUAL REPORT 2015

Culture & Entrepreneurship

Novia University of Applied Sciences Research and Development

—

(2)

ANNUAL REPORT 2015

Culture & Entrepreneurship

Novia University of Applied Sciences

Research and Development

(3)

1—28

_The_Year₂₀₁₅₆

About R&D Jakobstad 8

Our Projects: Allegro School of Entrepreneurship 10

Our Projects: New Music Theater 14

Our Projects: Allegro Living Lab 18

Our Projects: The Digital Bridge 22

Our Research and Development Personnel, 2015 24

Our Funding and Our Publications 2015 25

Publisher: Novia University of Applied Sciences, Wolffintie 33, 65200 Vaasa, Finland

Editor: Linda Kass Layout: memento.fi

Photography: Karolina Isaksson, Jannike Back, Linda Tallroth-Paananen.

Culture & Entrepreneurship

Novia University of Applied Sciences – Research and Development Table of Contents

“The aim of art is to represent

not the outward appearance

of things, but their inward significance.”

—ARISTOTLE

(4)

A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE YEAR

2015 — The year when the puzzle

pieces fell into place

2015 was an exciting year for Novia University of Applied Sciences’ Research and Development within culture and entrepreneurship. Several new projects were started and the team grew.

Over the year, the project “Allegro School of Entrepreneurship” began pedagogical development work within Campus Allegro, in co-operation with Centria University of Applied Sciences, Åbo Akademi University, and YA! Vocational College of Ostrobothnia. The project “Allegro Living Lab” strengthened the department’s work with professionals, in close co-operation with Centria University of Applied Sciences and Jakobstad’s Region Development Company Con- cordia, and initiated a new Ostrobothnian network for the game industry.

The Swedish Cultural Foundation decided to fund Novia’s large investment into “NEW Music Theatre,” a project that exploded into life in 2015 and is soon achieving its first milestones with three newly-produced showcases during an intense 2016 spring season. Additionally, at the end of the year the Erasmus+ Project “The Digital Bridge” began, in which we work with Fotoskolan in Stockholm, Sweden, and Media College in Århus, Denmark, on the in-flux nature of the media world’s job market, and the rapid development of technology.

BUSINESS MODELLING FOR THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY At the same time, the department put effort into further strengthening its competency in business development and modelling. A goal of the department is to attain European expertise in business development within the creative industry. This work is already well underway, if one counts the interest the department has awoken among European project partners and consortia, as well as the year’s commissioned lectures and workshops.

In 2014, co-operation within research and development in Campus Allegro began under the name “Allegro Ink”, alongside Centria University of Applied Sciences, Åbo Akademi University, and YA! Vocational College of Ostrobothnia. During 2015, this shared brand has been further strengthened, and the region’s network of entrepreneurs and potential business owners has developed. The development of a creative environment on the second floor of the old “Lass- folkska” portion of Campus Allegro gained momentum when interest in renting office space in Allegro Ink grew among business owners, freelancers, and commuters.

During the year, the department’s project portfolio was 980,000 euros, a marked increase from the previous year’s, valued at 118,000 euros. This increase is a result of the department’s re- start after the EU program-switch in 2014. The project portfolio’s value is expected to increase further in 2016.

LINDA KASS

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

WITHIN CULTURE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

(5)

Culture & Entrepreneurship 2015 | 9 8 | Culture & Entrepreneurship 2015

WHO WE ARE

The department that wants to change the

world — Novia’s research and development

within culture and entrepreneurship

In 2015, the staff of Novia’s Research & Development Department in Jakobstad consisted of five people. The department is new, since Novia UAS chose to change the direction of their activities in 2014, and recruit new personnel to the department at the same time. The number of staff is expected to double during 2016.

”

Having a new field to work in fosters an exciting dynamic and pioneering spirit, meanwhile, being a part of a larger organization gives stability and weight to operations. The atmosphere in the department is permeated by a strong sense of teamwork and a wish to develop and be developed. The department is a part of the nest of creatives that Campus Allegro contains, but we are simultaneously aware of being a part of a larger regional, national, and European development. We would be pleased to see that we strengthen Novia UAS’s good reputation, in both Jakobstad and Ostrobothnia, not to mention nationally and internationally.

We are here for the culture and creative industry. Our focus is on improving the business conditions for creative people. We develop and spread new knowledge regarding development within the creative field. We offer platforms where cultural actors can meet and develop together.

We want our region to become even more attractive. Our department is involved in creating workplaces and employment. We shape positive conditions in the region with a focus on the creative industry, with the help of said creative industry. Often, this industry is mentioned as a promising industry of the future, however, development does not seem to be accelerating. We want to join in shaping business conditions for the creative industry, allowing it to achieve its full potential.

We believe in the power of culture to change the world.

We work for creators who mirror society, make the unseen visible, and provide society with new stories and points of view.

We also believe in the power of entrepreneurship to change the world. Will and courage are needed to create change. The will to try something new, and the courage to choose one's own path. We all have it, even if we need to practice it.

Our vision. In 2025 we have helped 10,000 creators to live on their talents, and through that change the world.

LINDA KASS

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

WITHIN CULTURE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

(6)

Allegro School of Entrepreneurship

How can we adapt and develop Campus Allegro’s

educational programs so that they might better meet the high demands placed on both today and tomorrow’s job market?

At Campus Allegro in Jakobstad there are educational programs at several levels within mul- tiple fields, but cultural educational programs predominate. Under the same roof, one can find Åbo Akademi’s unit for childhood education, Centria University of Applied Sciences (Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Social Work, and Bachelor of Engineering), Novia Uni- versity of Applied Sciences (visual arts, design, photography, music, and music education), YA!

Vocational College of Ostrobothnia. (musician and visual artist), as well as The Music Institute of the Jakobstad Region, and the Children’s Art School Balatako. Campus Allegro was opened in 2013, and has over 700 students today.

ART ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION The project “Allegro School of Entrepreneur- ship” regards entrepreneurship within education in all branches of the campus, as well as co-operation between sectors. Since a large portion of the students at Campus Allegro are receiving a cultural education, the project has a certain emphasis on entrepreneurial development within cultural education.

The project adapt and develops Campus Allegro’s educational programs so that they might better meet the high demands placed on both today and tomorrow’s job market. The purpose of the project is to begin a long-term, common effort for entrepreneurial development at Cam- pus Allegro.

AN INTERNATIONAL AMBITION The objective of the project is to lay the foundation of long-term investment into entrepreneurship at Campus Allegro, with the ambition of, in time, becoming so professional that it awakes interest internationally. The project is to strengthen the entrepreneurial competence among teachers and other educational staff at Campus Alle- gro, while allowing entrepreneurship to become an organic part of the strategies, curricula, and institutional cultures of the educational programs.

The project’s most important target group is teachers and other staff of Campus Allegro’s educational programs. Students are affected by the project as well; in the long run they receive an improved education that meets the demands of the tough job market awaiting post-gradu- ation.

The project is working with two parallel development processes; the development of courses offered in common and entrepreneurial activities in Campus Allegro, as well as the pedagogical development of educational programs and skills improvement for teachers and other staff members.

SEBASTIAN WIDJESKOG

PROJECT MANAGER – NOVIA UNIVERSITY

OF APPLIED SCIENCES

(7)

When the project ends in December 2017, it is expected to result in the educational programs having been developed so that they, in addition to the program’s specific qualifications, also contain a wide set of entrepreneurial skills. The hope is that the teachers’ competency regarding entrepreneurial development will have been strengthened, and that they will have received support to develop entrepreneurial elements in their educational programs. In addition, a broader range of courses has been established for all students under the trademark “Allegro School of Entrepre- neurship.” At the end of the project, its lessons, experiences, and new educational concepts will be made available, so that other educational organizations can make use of them.

THE PROJECT SO FAR The project began in March 2015. The initial phase of the project has focused on forming contact with teachers, listening to wishes and needs, and initiating activities based on those. The material from the interviews with the teachers is collected in an article regarding the development of a more entrepreneurial learning environment.

During 2015, a 1.5-year-long team coach education has been initiated for the staff at Campus Allegro in co-operation with Team Academy in Jyväskylä. The education gives the participants new tools for teaching that build on experiential learning and the students taking responsibility for their own progress. In connection to this, a new teaching space has been created in Campus Allegro, one which supports an increased dialogue between students, rather than lectures by the teacher. During academic year 2015-2016, the project has already offered an inter-institutional set of courses at Campus Allegro, where one of the courses is “Teamentrepreneurship”

(9sp) in which the students work as entrepreneurs for a year. For next academic year, exciting pilot processes for entrepreneurial development in separate educational programs are planned. In all likelihood, we will hear more about these experi- ments in next year’s annual report.

an increased dialogue

between

students

(8)

Sights set on

renewing musical theater in finland

The project NEW Music Theatre wants to create new,

sustainable production processes for musical theater, and offer young, promising composers and writers a platform where they can develop their artistry.

With this project we hope to push the limits of what musical theater can be, and pave the way for new forms of musical theater in Finland. There is often an equal sign placed between the concepts musical theater and musical. Nevertheless, the musical is merely a form of musical theater, and unfortunately, the art form has become a divide between music and theater, when it actually should be a natural bridge combining the best of two worlds. The project NEW Music Theatre will broaden the concept and demonstrate that musical theater can be more than a commercial musical, which is currently the case in Finland. But above all, the project will provide a springboard for new, young talents and give them the opportunity to write and compose. At the same time, the project will give young talents within the field a foot in the door.

IDEA AND PURPOSE Within the framework of the Swedish Cultural Foundation’s special investment into theater, Novia’s department of Research and Development in Jakobstad was, in the spring of 2015, granted 3 years of project support; with the purpose of challenging the field of musical theater in Finland and developing it in a new direction.

NEW Music Theatre challenges the dominant production structures of newly written musical theater. To- day, one often goes straight from order to production, without time to assess and develop the piece, and so giving them a chance to reach their full potential. This rapid process has its natural explanation in that it is an expensive and laborious art form, and theaters seldom have the ability to take the financial risk that staging a newly written piece of musical theater implies. Artistically, the art form would benefit from having longer processes. Thanks to the Swedish Cultural Foundation’s investment into the long-term development of theater as a field, Novia had an opportunity with NEW Music Theatre to test production processes other than those normally used in Finland when it comes to new musical theater works. Within

ELIN WESTERLUND

PROJECT MANAGER

(9)

create synergistic effects and make ever-expanding ripples

NEW Music Theatre we have the opportunity to work with other premises than theater houses have, and the goal is not based on financial success, but on an artistic development process of the art form in itself, and for the project participants.

THE PROJECT STARTS The project began during the spring of 2015 and got started with an extensive headhunt for young, promising composers and writers that could join to make the project a reality.

The project received help from a committee containing top people within the fields of both theater and music. The committee includes Erik Söderblom, Marina Meinander, Sebastian Fagerlund, Jakob Höglund, Markus Fagerudd, Sebastian Fagerlund, Dick Idman, Anna Simberg, Åsa Salvesen, Annika Mylläri, and the project’s initiator Sören Lillkung. The committee selected 16 people from the letters of interest that came in. During the fall, the committee and selected project participants met, after which another selection was made. In November, the six individuals considered the most suitable for this particular project were chosen. The choice was made, among other things, on the criteria of: new thinking, creativity, and potential. The chosen project participants are Sebastian Hilli, Maria Kallio, Eero Paalanen, Ulriikka Heikinheimo, Miika Hyytiäinen, and Sauli Zinovjev. During the fall of 2015, the project participants began their writing process by developing their production ideas.

An important aspect of the project has been to embed the project beyond Novia UAS, in the form of co-operations and guest performances. As an example, the project co-op- erates with University of the Arts Helsinki, and The Theatre Academy in Helsinki, where Bachelor students of Acting do a musical theater production directed by Jakob Höglund.

NEW Music Theatre pays for dramaturgist Tobias Zilliacus and composer Robert Kock. The performance will premiere on March 22, 2016, in Lume.

SHOWCASE AND THE PROJECT’S CONTINUATION The modern performing arts often spring from conceptual thinking rather than text and story. In NEW Music Theatre, the beginning springs from form and music. That music takes a unique po- sition in the project came naturally, since the project is strongly connected to Novia’s music education in Jakobstad.

During the process, the project participants receive continuous support and help from professional directors, composers, and dramaturgists; partly through the project’s committee, and partly through outside experts.

In May 2016, a first glimpse into the production process will take place when we open it up to an audience. Then the project participants will, together with their production teams, show parts of their work in the form of short showcase productions in the Schauman Hall in Jakobstad. The idea behind making showcases rather than going straight to complete productions is that the works will have the chance to be developed and revised, so that they might reach their full potential. After the showcase phase, the committee will select two works to receive continued funding within this project and be developed into so-called “whole evening performances.”

NEW Music Theatre will continue until 2017, and aims to create synergistic effects and make ever-expanding ripples; ensuring that the project will be as widespread and visible as possible.

(10)

Allegro Living Lab – an innovative connection between cultural and creative businesses, and the engineering

culture in Ostrobothnia

Project partners:

· Centria University of Applied Sciences (Project owner)

· Novia University of Applied Sciences (Project partner)

· Jakobstad Region Development Company Concordia (Project partner)

AN UNUTILIZED POTENTIAL Ostrobothnia has a strong engineering culture, meanwhile, the creative industry is growing quickly. This, combined with a highly educated population and a strong tradition of entrepreneurship creates good conditions for new, fast-growing crossover industries, e.g. the game industry. Nevertheless, the game industry is still small in Ostroboth- nia. The few actors that exist are isolated and spread out, and have not organized themselves into a network or come together for broader co-operation.

Ostrobothnia has an advantage with its well-developed and extensive research and development environments. The challenge, however, is to maintain constant contact with the businesses, while being an active actor in the development of new fields, and creating meeting locations for cross-fertilizing innovations.

ALLEGRO LIVING LAB The purpose of Allegro Living Lab is to develop the innovative environment in the Jakobstad region and form close ties between industry and research and development environments. Within Allegro Living Lab, companies, universities, and regional development organizations co-operate to create dynamics, growth, and new thinking. The project is a co-operation between Centria UAS, Novia UAS, and the Jakobstad Region Development Company Concordia.

Novia’s role in the project is to contribute with its regional network of creative business owners, and its good contacts with potential new business owners in the region. Novia creates meetings and supports cross-fertilization between entrepreneurs within the cultural and creative industries, and other fields. In particular, the work focuses on the game industry, which means supporting those actors that already exist, building up a network for interested ones, and promoting co-operation between actors and engineers.

Centria is testing new concepts within online-based company development and how companies can learn from each other (co-creating and co-learning). Centria also arranges events that build unity among the companies that are part of the Allegro Ink hub.

Development Company Concordia coordinates evidence-based development measures, which means that they examine how the industries’ needs can be met, and how more co-operation between the companies and different research environments can be created.

EXPECTED PROJECT RESULTS When the project ends in 2017, an increased interest in the game industry in Ostrobothnia will have been created, both among actors and interested partners, as well as among the general public. The project will have initiated meetings and co-operations between companies, educational programs, and research and development departments; enhancing awareness of each other’s needs and work cultures.

TOBIAS BJÖRKSKOG

PROJECT MANAGER – NOVIA UNIVERSITY

OF APPLIED SCIENCES

(11)

In the hub concept developed in Campus Allegro, the region’s start-up and growth potential will have been utilized, and a broader view of entrepreneurship will have been established. In the long term, the project will result in more companies and a further will- ingness to grow among companies in the Jakobstad region. In addition, the project will also inspire closer co-operation between universities, and new forms of networking.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2015 In Novia’s part of the project, a new network for the game industry in Ostrobothnia has been initiated under the name “Ostrobothnia Game Indus- try.” The network has, with the help of social media, been able to increase dialogue between actors in the Ostrobothnian game industry, while creating an information channel for news and events. At the end of the year, the networks’ Facebook group comprised 103 members. Over the year, Allegro Living Lab has also arranged reoccurring game industry networking events, where both business owners and hobby programmers have met up.

The project participated in the arrangements around “Vaasa Game Days” in December in Vaasa. Novia’s project manager Tobias Björkskog gave a lecture on the game industry, and actively participated in the recruitment of indie game developers, who had the opportunity to present their games during the event. During the year, the project also visited the startup event Slush in Helsinki, which generated new inspiration, knowledge, and contacts. In order to further spread information about the game industry among creators, Björkskog gave an “Allegro Talk” lecture in Campus Allegro in November on how the game industry works and what is needed in order to begin working with graphics in the game industry.

Allegro Living Lab was started in March 2015 and Novia’s part will end in March 2016, while Centria and Concordia will end the project in 2017. However, the development of the game industry in Ostrobothnia will continue in the new development project “Reply+,”

which starts in April 2016 and is a co-operation between MediaCity at Åbo Akademi University, and Muova at Vaasa University of Applied Sciences. The goal is to create a new startup process for cross-industry innovations, with the game industry in mind particularly.

new, fast-growing crossover industries

(12)

The Digital

Bridge – a virtual

competence center within photography and digital image

processing

How can educational programs within photography and image processing meet the demands of visual communication’s ever-changing job market?

The Digital Bridge is a Nordic competence center specialized in professional image processing and business modelling within visual communication. The Digital Bridge is aimed at professional photographers and image processors, as well as students. In addition, the project offers teaching and inspirational material for teachers of educational programs within photography and image processing.

The project was granted funding in the summer of 2015 and began operations in September 2015.

EMMA WESTERLUND

SENIOR LECTURER, NOVIA UNIVERSITY

AN EVER-CHANGING JOB MARKET AND ITS DEMANDS In a society where we in- creasingly communicate with pictures, the need for deep visual communication competence becomes important. The demands for quality within image communication are high, when complex realities and stories are to be conveyed. At the same time, we are facing significant changes in today’s media landscape. Digitalization has moved a part of media consumption from paper and TV to the internet and smartphones, the proceeds of advertisement are divided between more media, and media companies are streamlining and digitalizing their operations. Many media companies are forced to cut back, and an industry in deep crisis is discussed; one where newspapers give notice to their entire photo staff, and storied media companies are shut down or merged.

The job market within photography and visual communications is no longer what it used to be, and the number of permanent positions within some areas are shrinking. Still, the need for pictures remains, or even increases. Professionals within the field constantly need new tools and enriched skills in order to navigate in a job market where you yourself must identi- fy work opportunities and be prepared for even more genres than before.

Today, a photographer needs to maintain a high quality when it comes to content and many technical aspects. It is no longer enough to have strong imagery and be visually talented, nowadays one also requires significant digital competence, for instance, within image processing and revising.

THE BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT The educational program in photography at Novia UAS is at Campus Allegro in Jakobstad and has a 20-year-long history. Much has happened in that time, within both the program and the field. The educational program has seen a need for a Nordic competence center for visual communication;

one with expertise within well-functioning field-specific business models, and advanced technical knowledge. That is why Novia UAS initiated the project The Digital Bridge in 2015.

The project is being carried out during 2015-2018 in co-operation with the Fotoskolan in Stockholm (Stockholms Folkuniversitet), and Medieskolerne Media College in Denmark.

The project works on a long-term and well-functioning business model for a competence center within visual communication. The project creates a virtual education environment where both students and professionals can strengthen their technical and entrepreneurial competences. The target group for the project consists of both students and professionals within visual communication. At the same time, the actors that actively work with the competence center are an important target group, i.e. teachers and other staff at the educational programs at Novia in Jakobstad, Fotoskolan in Stockholm, and Medieskolerne in Denmark.

Novia is responsible for entrepreneurial development in the project. The virtual teaching environment will consist of two main parts; one that offers an advanced education within digital image processing, and one that focuses on inner and outer entrepreneurship for actors within photography. Some of the Nordic countries’ leading experts within the field will be responsible for the digital expertise and education modules within image processing.

(13)

LINDA KASS

Research and Development Manager Within Culture and Entrepreneurship Linda Kass has a sound knowledge of project work and development of the creative industry. As early as 2006 she established a competence center within cultural entrepreneurship at “Juthbacka kulturcentrum” cultural center. Now, she works on a daily basis with business development and modelling for the creative industry, and she has particularly focused on the use of Lean Startup theories.

TOBIAS BJÖRKSKOG

Project Manager, Allegro Living Lab

Tobias Björkskog moved home to Jakobstad at the beginning of 2015 after having lived in Falun, Sweden, for 12 years. During his time in Sweden, he has worked with both the education of game developers, and with development projects within the game industry. Nowadays he works with business development for the game industry and is the founder of the Ostrobothnian network for

“Ostrobothnian Gaming Industry.”

ELIN WESTERLUND

Project Manager, NEW Music Theatre

With wide experience as a theater producer in both Finland and abroad, she was finally ready to return to Jakobstad. In 2014, Novia’s research and development was bolstered with Elin Westerlund’s burning passion for culture and sense of the logistics and project leadership involved in advanced, creative processes.

She is, along with the Dean of Cultural Programs Sören Lillkung, the driving power behind the project challenging Finnish musical theater – NEW Music Theatre.

SEBASTIAN WIDJESKOG

Project Manager, Allegro School of Entrepreneurship

Sebastian Widjeskog is the teacher that became a priest, who then became an entrepreneur, and that today uses all of his broad skills when he leads Allegro School of Entrepreneurship. His ability to sensitively inspire and coach young people to challenge their own limits and develop their entrepreneurial abilities has already set in motion exciting waves of change within Campus Allegro.

KATARINA DAHLIN

Research and development assistant

Since the beginning of 2015, Katarina Dahlin serves as the department’s assistant. She has a master’s degree in developmental psychology, which is something that she surely benefits from daily when she, like a silent rock, pilots the department through thorny project administration and spreads calm in the stressful everyday life of project work.

Funding and publications 2015

Total value of the project portfolio: 984,981 €

NEW Music Theatre (total budget 437,500 €) 437,500 € Allegro School of Entrepreneurship (total budget 380,000 €) 226,964 € The Digital Bridge (total budget 326,627 €) 79,680 €

TaideART (total budget 600,000€) 86,467 €

Allegro Living Lab (total budget 341,189 €) 50,752 €

Additional (smaller) projects 103,618 €

Sources of funding:

EU funding

Private funding Own funding

Local governmental funding

€ 35 %

€ 39 % 19 %

7%

EU funding 345,204 €

Private funding 382,100 €

Own funding 185,063 €

Local governmental funding 72,613 €

State funding 0 €

(14)

Being Good in Business is the Most Fascinating Kind of Art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

—Andy Warhol

(15)

ANNUAL REPORT 2015 Culture & Entrepreneurship

Novia University of Applied Sciences Research and Development www.novia.fi