Center for Software Business and Engineering CSBE
Abstract
The Center for Software Business and Engineering is a research unit comprising elements from both the University of Turku and Turku School of Economics, with the joint aim of collaborating on research with high-impact goals for both the academic body of knowledge and industrial practice.
The research themes of the Center revolve around software product development and software-based service business development, with support from various established research domains of business administration. Any research topics that deal with software development processes are supported by the software engineering research arm of the Center. Research projects will typically be conducted in close interaction with the industry. An important objective in the establishment of this multidisciplinary Center is, moreover, the Center’s activities will importantly support the further internationalization of its research groups.
Vision 2012
The center is well-established entity in the field of software business. It has connected existing and new foreign and domestic research partners and provided the industry an avenue to approach state-of-the art research. The center has, together with its partners, produced results from novel, cross-disciplinary research, which has opened new avenues for the academic and practitioner communities alike.
Organization
The Center is built from the following current units:
- Software Engineering Research Group, University of Turku
- Software Product Development Research Group, University of Turku
- Business Research and Development Centre (BRDC), Turku School of Economics
Position, Synergies of the Research Groups, and Industrial Relevance
The Center is well positioned to contribute importantly to Turku Innovation Platform in the ICT and Business area and especially to the Merger Project of the University of Turku and Turku School of Economics. Already since 2006, the research groups that participate in this Center have had pre-existing collaboration in the form of, for instance, the Southwest Finland Technology Entrepreneurship Program (SOFTENP), a minor subject provided for degrees of both universities. Turku Innovation Platform (TIP) aims at increasing research, education, and societal development collaboration activities in the region, which makes the TIP integration of research a fitting mode of operation for this Center.
It is possible to later append (in a rather flexible fashion) other groups to the Center, if there are mutual research interests such that there are significant synergies, such as joint externally-funded research projects, common research, or support for instructing doctoral students.
The research groups of the Center form a multidisciplinary entity with complementary focuses, having the union of software business and engineering as the unifying thread that binds their work in the Center together to produce a cohesive and synergistic whole. On the top level, the Center’s activities are multiparadigmatic, as they include technological and social-scientific research, as well as potentially formal science-based research. The classification detailed in an illustration (PDF) clarifies the position of the research activities that form the Center.
Being a highly practical field, the area of software business and engineering requires collaboration with companies to complement impact-ambitious basic research, and indeed, the quest of contributing to the competitive advantage of software businesses in practice can derive substantial benefits from a quality-conscious presence in the global scientific forums and vice versa. This is why both research and business development activities benefit from the general research-orientedness and industry-colaborating way of operating of the Center.
Upholding and further strengthening the current level of internationality of the groups of the Center is a major objective. The Center seeks to continuously improve its degree of internationality in terms of the following three factors: (1) nationality composition of the Center’s research faculty; (2) active researcher exchanges; and (3) active research collaboration. Turku Innovation Platform has been actively seeking research and education collaboration with Stockholm-based universities. Co-operation with the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm has been advanced in planning various education and research efforts, such as the entrepreneurship and innovation module for the Nordic ICT Masters Program.
Management
Director of the Center:
- Professor Markus Mäkelä
Management Board:
- Professor Markus Mäkelä
- Antero Järvi, Project Manager
- Professor Timo Knuutila
- Professor Pasi Malinen
- Professor Antti Paasio
- Professor Jussi Puhakainen
Please contact Professor Markus Mäkelä with questions.