In his new book, a world-leading supervisor of doctoral dissertations shares how doctoral education should be developed in Finland
Pekka Neittaanmäki, professor emeritus of the Ģֱ, has worked in academia forover 50 years. He has now published a book where he presents his own views about how doctoral education should be developed in Finland. The book is entitled Suomi tarvitsee yhä enemmän huippuosaajia – kohti uudistuvaa tutkijakoulutusta (Finland needs more top experts: Reforming doctoral education). During his esteemed international career as a professor, Neittaanmäki also set one the highest records in the world for the number of doctoral dissertations supervised.
The book seeks to answer the following question: How should we use doctoral education to respond to the new educational and research needs of Finnish society?
“In this book, I share my thoughts, based on my own experiences and lessons learnt in international networks, as to how new innovative environments for doctoral education and international research are set up and developed,” Professor Neittaanmäki says.
The central theme of the book is doctoral education, which is approached from the perspectives of an individual postgraduate student and the development of the Finnish doctoral education system. The book discusses a range of viewpoints, from of choosing a topic and the supervision process to career planning and advancing in one’s work.
In the book, 16 former postgraduate students whose dissertations were supervised by Neittaanmäki describe how they ended up as postgraduates, how their work progressed, and how the dissertation process has influenced their careers.
“About a half of the postgraduate students I once supervised are now working in an academic career, more than 30 as professors in Finland and abroad,” Neittaanmäki says. He also had another title in mind for the book: Kuinka koulutetaan professoreita (How to educate professors).
The book also deals with new scientific paradigms as well as the ways in which the academic world has reacted to the new research needs of society. For example, emerging research fields pertain to security issues in social and health care, information technology and the cyber world.
Moveover, the book also gives voice to Neittaanmäki’s cooperation partners over the years, who discuss their collaboration with him.
Neittaanmäki also describes in the book what things influenced his own choice of a professional field and how his plans for a career as a mathematics teacher turned into doctoral studies at the Department of Mathematics at the Ģֱ.
“In my career,” Professor Neittaanmäki states, “I have regarded doctoral education as my most important responsibility.”
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Pekka Neittaanmäki has made a long academic career working at Lappeenranta University of Technology and the Ģֱ. At the beginning of 2024, Neittaanmäki became the professor with the third-highest number of supervised doctoral dissertations in mathematical fields in the world. He sees doctoral education as the most important responsibility of a professor and thinks that the expertise of doctoral graduates should be utilised more effectively in Finland.
