Research themes

• Academic Profession in the Knowledge-based Society
   
• Study of complaint procedure
   
• Network behavior of professions
   
• Innovation Technology evolving Business Ecosystem 

The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey was based on a major international consortium of scholars, and the fact that it was state of the art was much based on the efforts of the country teams. Following the CAP survey, more than 600 peer review scholarly papers have been published, and members of the Finnish team were authors of 30 of them. There was also strong infrastructure and research consortium support for the survey, which has enabled the close connections between higher education research and institutions and to relevant publication channels. Previous results from the CAP survey and its successor project (EUROAC) reveal that a substantial gap exists between junior and senior academic staff. For this reason, the newly-devised APIKS survey has been divided into two parts: a General survey of Academic profession and a Survey of Formative Years of scholars.

From 2017, the University of Lapland has become a host organisation for work that extends on the Carnegie survey (about 19,000 respondents), the CAP survey (37,000) and EUROAC (7,000). The consortium has agreed that APIKS Survey data will be deposited in Finland, with an estimated 50,000 - 70000 respondents from countries around the world. European data are located in CSC IDA, and for non-European material, the location is EUDat. APIKS / CAP / EUROAC / Carnegie is the most extensive international time series on the changing scope and content of work in the academic profession.

The users of these data are scholars, authorities and decision makers looking for evidence in the reference countries, as well as higher education institutions and labour market organisations. The questionnaire, sample description and the codebook are attachemnts of this document.

All members of the ProSoc team have experience in studies concerning professions, and are spread across the University of Lapland and elsewhere. Assembling a research subject on the professions under the heading “Research on change in the Arctic and the North’ will enable the use of multi-disciplinary research funding to build capacity and a strong research infrastructure.

Along with the international surveys, the research group’s members have conducted numerous national case studies related to studies of the profession. As an example, the Humanly Effective Leadership research project (funded by The Finnish Work Environment Fund) examined the barriers and opportunities associated with the various professions in the public health care field.

Globally, patients' satisfaction with their healthcare treatment and the behaviour of nursing staff has been studied extensively. The concepts and form of the complaint have varied from country to country, but the purpose and subject of the complaints have often been similar. There are differences in the appeal processes in different countries, for example, with regard to procedural guidelines and the status of Patients' Ombudsmen. Research data is needed on handling complaints and related measures. Complaints form part of a knowledge base that the health profession can use as a starting point for self-reflection. Data collection methods include reports of complaints and feedback material, interviews and surveys.

The purpose of this theme is to find out what kind of maladministration is in the memories of patients and their relatives, and in the notifications of employees and clients of social welfare. The data from this study will explain how patients should be responded to from the point of view of specialised medical and social care staff. In addition, the purpose of the research theme is to find out how patient complaints and notifications are used in organisations (self-reflection) and what measures can be taken to process reminders and notifications to improve the quality of services. There are many reminders and complaints from patients and their relatives, but there is often a problem in how to manage the procedures and use the knowledge gained.

The patients can be seen as active actors and preference-generating resources. The latter role has grown in the 21st century, for example by means of co-production and service design tools. Clients, patients and staff can be defined by the concepts of internal and external stakeholders, where their role becomes visible. Disadvantaged personnel can then be seen in the role of an internal stakeholder with a more binding responsibility for addressing the problems of an external stakeholder or finding solutions to the problems that are being addressed. Solving problems as close as possible to their emergence brings efficiency and benefits that can be verified through impacts.

The principles of a profession’s network behaviour rest on the rise of complex theories around work and organisation research. Work contexts within knowledge intensive professions are gradually perceived in the light of “wicked problems” referring to open and suddenly emerging problems. (Pietiläinen, 2010.) From this perspective, expertise is not examined within a single profession. Instead, the emphasis is placed on recognising interfaces between the various professions to respond the complex challenges as a flexible network.

In the research literature, two traditions exist concerning social network behaviour. From the Complex Adaptive System (CAS) perspective, the focus is on a network’s constructional flexibility (Uhl-Bien, Marion & McKelvey, 2007). In comparison, Complex Responsive Process (CRP) theory stresses dynamics and interaction relations between the network members (Stacey, 2001).

Our research is targeted at network behaviour within a social and healthcare field. An essential dataset was gathered during the research project funded by The Finnish Work Environment Fund in 2014-2016. According to those data, the defects related to system penetration and regeneration are considered to be distinctive within the social and healthcare organisations (Pietiläinen & Salmi, 2017).

In particular, system inflexibility impairs client-oriented and humane service in the situations in which the patient has to deal with multiple organisation units. Concerning these situations, the professions that penetrate the organisation system have been proved to be the most salient. Another network challenge is associated with the profession’s different historical background. Within the health care field, employees’ identity is inexorably entwined with the professions basis, overpowering the organisational development needs (Koskiniemi, Perttula & Syväjärvi, 2016). According to these evidence-based challenges, we have placed the research aim on flexible network behaviour of professions. Consequently, the key research questions revolve around how the professions are capable of recognising the essential client demands from their point of view and supporting the client agency during decision making. In the dataset, we have availed in-depth research methodology (i.e. discursive psychology). Prosoc-network will expand the profession examination with statistical background analysis and open data.

ProSoc enhances the future technologies that will change the structures of business ecosystems and innovation, production, logistics, and organizational processes and research and develops technology and software-based services increasingly crucial in business and innovation ecosystems acting in the evolution of these ecosystems with the participation of several companies and research organizations. The research carries out on ecosystem functions, from the management of innovation activities discussing methods and tools to support and facilitate service innovation projects in the formation of innovation ecosystems that benefit tools and techniques to help the evolution of a future vision in decentralized business ecosystems, IoT Technology Roadmap, and Innovation process.

Disruptive research areas

The research supported by the ProSoc research team is innovating technologies and making discoveries to improve the world we live in by developing digital solutions. The objectives' trajectories demarcate to design technologies with sustained impact, with partners business and industrial and service providers involved in our projects.

Sectors: Smart Transportation, Smart logistic, Smart Cities and Strategic Digital Technologies through pre-commercial procurement.

Expertise on the ICT agenda: Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Blockchain technology - Business Analytics - Technology Solutions - Logistic Solutions - Insurance Solutions - Enterprise Business Solutions, and Indoor-Navigation technology solutions.

Blockchain technology for Industry and governance

The Industry involves innovations with upcoming digital technologies, and blockchain is one of them. Blockchain can improve security, privacy, and data transparency for small and large enterprises. ProSoc synthesizes the new production methods that allow manufacturers to achieve their target more rapidly. Our research has been conducted on various technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT, Big data, and Blockchain. These create significant interruptions, providing multiple manufacturing and supply chain possibilities. This technology work to achieve amplified outcomes and work individually to enhance the process.

ProSoc also applies blockchain-based techniques focusing on the public sector as a potential solution to society's demands for transparency, citizen participation, and cooperation. Research generates disintermediation based on automated, transparent transactions, with responsibility and security. Implements procurement systems processes with tools to ensure optimal tradable public contracts and the optimal flow of works, goods, and services, creating essential transparency at every step, compliance and risk mitigation, visibility, control, contract creation, renegotiation, and automated notification alerts with guaranteed access to its history facilitating open cross-border public procurement, data control, and documentation.

The future with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)

ProSoc's pace for the new technological era drives changes by building autonomous systems and researching continuous innovation opportunities that impact industries. Our plan involves finance, healthcare, public services, manufacturing, retail, supply chain, and logistics sectors potentially disrupted by the onset of AI technologies and the transformative potential for augmentation and improving human tasks and activities with a wide range of industrial intellectual, and social applications. We are building a new generation of artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, with algorithms that far exceed human capacity and levels of intelligence, allowing us to understand the physical world. We make that AI no longer a high technology for experts. We will empower businesses to solve simple and complex problems they face every day through intuitive and easily accessible interfaces.

Logistic solutions with Intelligent Logistics Management Platforms

ProsSoc research the businesses plan and execute logistics processes in a multi-enterprise and multi-stakeholder environment, ensuring seamless and efficient goods movement without disruption, and developing an Intelligent Logistics Management Platform making logistics operations resilient, automating core delivery processes, gaining end-to-end logistics visibility, and ensuring delightful delivery experiences with enterprise-grade logistics management software.

Develop technology with dynamic routing tools, automate and schedule highly efficient multi-point deliveries, eliminate unnecessary delays, vehicle downtime, empty miles, improve capacity utilization, and optimize fleet utilization. Optimize fuel consumption, eliminate unnecessary diversions, minimize dependence on paper transactions and communications through the software. Our development Reduces loading and unloading times, makes logistics productive, increases auto-scheduling compliance and route optimization features, reduces loading time, and stops instances between stops on routes enabling companies to achieve higher delivery productivity.

Smart airports

ProSoc is committed to intelligent airports, basing connected technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, GPS, and sensors. We digitally carry out planning and operations tasks and support operational staff, optimizing passenger flows and airport activities and staff at airports worldwide. The applications for a Smart Airport include facial recognition to identify passengers at checkpoints, automation of immigration processes, digital wayfinding with 5G technology, automated baggage solutions, cleaning with intelligent management of waste at stations based on AI, remote tools, and equipment monitoring.

Our development for a Smart Airport improves operational efficiency by using data on the current condition of airport facilities reduces operating costs by improving productivity with better operations planning. Optimize demand at the airport by improving crowd control and automatizing passenger controls at checkpoints and enhancing economic, social, and environmental value, intensifying passenger experience at the airports with the availability of wayfinding and information in different languages helping international passengers to have a better journey and easily communicate. Accelerate check-in times and improve services for passenger processing. Improve monitoring of security and safety and reliability of operations and maintenance and health monitoring and ground services.

Cyber-security is the future

As information networks evolve, so make security threats. We are developing innovative security solutions to protect data from interconnected networks, hyper distributed cloud, and industrial IoT systems. In developing our projects, design and build trusted cybersecurity architectures that do not expose millions of points of vulnerability and provide continuous proactive security monitoring and mitigation of new and existing threats.

For further information: Researcher Alf Josefsen   alf.josefsen@ulapland.fi