Since 2020, Jamk has partnered with four Uzbek universities and two EU universities, creating a Bioeconomy Master’s Programme to address Uzbekistan’s bioeconomy capacity building needs. This programme aims to fulfil in some extent the bioeconomy capacity building needs in Uzbekistan. By now, the Master Programme has been piloted in for Uzbek universities.
The Uzbekistan’s university staff involved with freshly created bioeconomy programme have upgraded widely their knowledge about European bioeconomy. During the past two years they have got acquainted with European bioeconomy higher education along bioeconomy teaching pilots in Uzbekistan. Those were implemented by three European higher education institutes in collaboration with four Uzbekistan’s universities. The professors have gotten new perspectives in pedagogy with the pedagogical experts from Jamk University of Applied Sciences. Furthermore, the professors have participated in the study visits in European countries with high economic importance of bioeconomy.
The study visits were aiming to share understanding about national and regional policies and introduce European bioeconomy higher education in general. The target was also to present examples of research, development, and innovations (RDI) activities as well as ecosystems and business models. Furthermore, those were also targeting in inspiring the Uzbekistan’s university staff with the examples of European bioeconomy business, innovations, and innovation development in general. The study visits consisted practical knowledge about bioeconomy activities in Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.
The study visits in Finland took place in September 2022 and in May 2023. In this article we are focusing especially the second visit findings and experiences. It was focusing especially in RDI activities. This is because during the first visit the Uzbeks have already gained understanding about the Finnish education system in general and about Jamk University activities and management.
The innovations were explored from different perspectives. The Uzbek professors learned about the development of the entrepreneurship skills with knowledge with training and mentoring in Startup Factory. It was most interesting how the concept as a whole works: How the factory itself is financed? Where are the start-ups getting funding? The feedback collected after the study visit highlighted that the Start Up Factory concept could also be suitable for Uzbekistan.
In VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland the visitors got fascinated about the fibre materials technology research and innovative use of wood in clothing and packing presented by the senior scientist Elina Pääkkönen. The Uzbek professors had many questions regarding why VTT doesn’t carry out more research about cotton that is very much produced and processed in Uzbekistan. But, as you know, Finland is known for its forests, and therefore, VTT has a focus on researching wood instead of cotton.
Jyväskylä University hosts the Center of Expertise for Circular Economy. The center and its laboratories were introduced by Dr Ari Väisänen. The research infrastructure interested especially the Uzbek participants having technical background. However, the idea of separating valuable metals out the municipal waste waters surprised and inspired the study tour participants.
In Uzbekistan, the food production is an essential part of the bioeconomy. The senior scientist Marjo Keskitalo from Natural Resources Institute Finland introduced the latest research finding related to the new protein crops production and possibilities of intercropping. The topic stirred some excellent conversation about replacing meat with alternative protein crops.
Sustainable city planning was explored in Kangas area with the guidance of liaison manager Tanja Oksa. This former industrial site is in the heart of City of Jyväskylä and has now been converted to modern and sustainable living and working place for thousands of people. It is an environment that considers people’s different needs from daily life to social and cultural needs, e.g., innovative waste management system as well as the trampolines embedded in the ground. However, the real-size elephant made from recycled car tires was the most admired one! The Uzbek study visit participants were also interested how to involve city citizens in a sustainable way of living. This was introduced by the deputy executive director Minna Kankainen of JAPA Association of Sustainable Development.
Waste management and wastewater management were much waited topics due to challenging goals of Uzbekistan’s Solid Waste Management Strategy for the period of 2019-2028 as well as lack of water in general due to Uzbekistan’s hot and dry climate. The strategy considers widely different sectors and covers the whole national territory and the whole population. It focuses on domestic solid waste management, transportation, storage, disposal and recycling. Therefore, we focused the last study day on domestic waste management widely considering solid waste and waste waters. In Jyväskylä Region Wastewater Treatment Plant Ltd managing director Petri Tuominen introduced the plant, its processes as well as circular economy solutions replacing essential processing chemicals with the by-product of the industrial processes. In Mustankorkea waste management centre, the participants got perspective especially in Finnish domestic solid waste management. The roles of public entities, the private waste management service providers and producer liability rose some confusion and a lot of discussion.
Examples of higher education were explored during the study visit. Team coach Anu Manner from Jamk’s Team Academy introduced their exceptional format to learn business skills in practice while getting qualified in higher education business administration degree. The education was introduced also by the perspective of three students, who shared their experiences about the projects they have been working with and studies in general. The Uzbeks were especially interested how the students create their business plans and how they decide their roles as the project team members in different business projects.
The feedback showed that the study visit week was a success, and the participants enjoyed the activities. The most enjoyed activity was visiting Southern Konnevesi national park by boat. The visits in the wastewater treatment plant and waste management centre also gathered a lot of positive feedback. Most of the participants are going to use the information and experiences to compete their teaching contents and share with their students what they learned about Finnish bioeconomy. They also hoped that in the future there would be collaboration between universities in Uzbekistan and European universities.
This study visit was part of the BioEcUz project that has been supported by European Union Erasmus + Programme as well as by the Ministry of Agriculture of Republic of Uzbekistan. The four Uzbek universities offering higher education related to bioeconomy are Taskent State Agrian University, Taskent Institute of Irrigation and Agriculture Mechanization Engineering and Bukhara State University, Samarkand branch of Tashkent State Agrarian University. The collaborating European higher education institutes are Jamk University of Applied Sciences from Finland, Lithuanian Vytautas Magnus University and Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies that has coordinated project activities.
There is a blog about the first visit available in Tarvaalan tarinoita blog site. Unfortunately, that is in Finnish. Uzbekkiryhmä saapuu tutustumaan Suomen biotalouteen | Tarvaalan tarinoita.