2023 demonstrated the wide demand for Jamk’s expertise both nationally and globally

The rise in costs was a significant financial challenge last year. Despite this, Jamk achieved a balanced result, thanks to the entire organisation. Jamk’s good result was spurred by growing R&D activity, which rose to 22 million euros. A balanced economy is a basic prerequisite for high-quality and impactful operations.

Strategic areas of strength, bioeconomy, applied cybersecurity, and multidisciplinary rehabilitation, progressed as planned in their goals. The new expertise brought by the Research Centre for Physical Activity and Health (LIKES), which was attached to Jamk University of Applied Sciences in 2022, also played a role in the growth of R&D activity at Jamk.

Although Russia’s war against Ukraine launched in 2022 continues, its effects on the university’s operations have practically disappeared. At the same time, the importance of cybersecurity expertise has grown as Finland has been subjected to more cyber attacks due to Russia’s war of aggression.

Jamk’s solid role as a cybersecurity expert is known nationwide, and we can be proud of it. Cooperation with the state administration, which began as early as 2013, has continued intensively. Last year, Jamk played a central role in organising several national cyber exercises in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Security Committee. Dozens of large Finnish companies and organisations participated in them. In September 2023, Jamk organised the largest technical-functional cyber exercise in history, with over 200 people from nearly 20 organisations participating.

In April 2023, Jamk established the Finnish Center of Expertise for Cybersecurity (FICEC) together with University of Jyväskylä, which aims to strengthen regional vitality and support the entire Finnish cybersecurity brand. The center combines research, education, and business cooperation, aiming to rise as an international research and education center for cybersecurity. Long-term work for cybersecurity has yielded results, and the expertise of Jamk and the University of Jyväskylä in cybersecurity plays a very significant role both nationally and internationally.

The shortage of nurses and the situation in healthcare have been a concern in Finland for a long time. Jamk has tried to solve this problem locally. A good example of this work is the Nurse’s Integration into the Finnish Career Path (SaSU) project. Within the framework of the SaSU project, international nursing students’ professional Finnish language skills were supported. The great success of the project, which ended last August, is evidenced by the fact that all students who graduated or were just about to graduate during the project got a job from their own internship units.

Internationality is a broader part of Jamk: our role in the European Universities program as part of the EUDRES network was further strengthened when we moved from an associate member of the network to a full member following the decision of the European Commission. The Commission granted the network 14.4 million euros for the development of operations over the next four years, of which Jamk has 2 million euros available. The EUDRES network is building an offering for its more than 100,000 students, strengthening the importance of regional competence clusters. This provides Jamk with a strategic framework for education, research, business cooperation, and regional development, especially focusing on digitalization.

Thinking about the future, artificial intelligence, healthcare, and sustainable solutions come to mind as both opportunities and challenges. We at Jamk have already tackled all these topics through various development projects, and our work on them continues. We produce high-quality expertise that genuinely meets the needs of the future. Our expertise is in demand locally, nationally and internationally.

Bella Forsgrén, Chair of the Board