Pool of Experts

At the Aalto University School of Business, we collaborate actively with companies and other organisations in teaching. We are now piloting a new, simple tool to facilitate in making contacts for the collaboration.

The Pool of Experts offers:

• Our external collaborators an opportunity to share their expertise to the students of the School of Business
• Our lecturers a means of finding new corporate contacts to participate in their courses in different ways
• New learning opportunities for our students as well as the participating external experts and our faculty

If you are interested in participating, please submit your proposal in our Pool of Experts. The information will stay valid for six months (unless refreshed) during which our lecturers will have access to it. Our lecturers will contact you when they find a topic suitable for their course.

Please note that not all proposals are likely to be reacted upon however interesting the topic may be, as there are a limited numbers of courses ongoing at any given time. Also please note that the School does not pay a fee to the external participants.

Pool of Experts (opens in a new window)

Altogether several hundred

• real-life cases (i.e. typically concise challenges for our students to work on during a course),
• student projects (often longer and more complex projects involving a fee to be covered by the participating company) and
• guest lectures (lecture provided by an expert in one session)

from external organisations are included in our courses each year. Below you can find more detailed descriptions of each of the modes of collaboration. From the bottom of the page, you can also find links to our different study programs.

Topics / themes in which teachers are currently looking for cases, lecturers and projects: 

• Business model research, user / customer research on automated and/or sustainable traffic and transport 
• Digital transformation and change management

For more information, please contact

Annemari Rautio
Senior Manager, Corporate Relations
[email protected]

Real-life cases

In real-life case teaching, students deal with an actual real-life business challenge. The process varies somewhat between courses, and the responsible teacher will provide more detailed instructions, but a typical way for companies to participate is the following:

The company provides a short description (with the relevant background materials) of the problem or challenge faced in their business, which the company wishes to resolve. During the course, students work in groups on the case, apply their knowledge, and finally present their conclusions and recommendations to the company.

The method advances students’ working life skills by developing their capacity to conceive complex real-life challenges, to apply knowledge obtained from education in practical situations, and to present solutions. For companies, in addition to the students’ suggestions, the method offers opportunities for interaction with students.

There are usually two lectures where the company representative is present – presenting the case and finally the student presentations on the conclusions and recommendations.

The use of the method and its specific implementation is always at the discretion of the responsible teacher and needs to be agreed with the teacher in advance to meet the learning objectives of the course.

Student Projects

In some courses, students solve larger business-related cases as projects. Participation for companies through these projects often involves a fee. The project courses usually follow certain timelines and topic requirements, with the exception of Customized Student Business Projects.  The length of the projects varies between the different project concepts from a couple of months to a whole study semester. More information about the different concepts and programs, such as the International Design Business Management, the Information Technology Program and the Digital Business Master Class, can be found here.

Guest Lectures 

Guest lectures are a common way for external experts to share their perspective on the subject at hand in many of our courses.  Guest lecturers are often invited to the courses by the teacher in charge. Proposals for new guests and topics are also welcome.

A good guest lecturer does not use time on giving a “company presentation”, except as needed to present the context of the lecture (e.g. industry, size, environment). It is important to agree on the content of the lecture in advance with the responsible teacher to ensure it meets the learning objectives of the course.

Thesis, jobs and internships

If you have a topic you are interested in that would be suitable for a thesis assignment, you can post your proposal in the Aalto JobTeaser targeted to the students of Aalto University. You can also post jobs and internships there.

Studies at Aalto University School of Business

The Pool of Experts currently only concerns studies at the School of Business. You can find all the study programs available at the School of Business as well as the detailed information on them here: https://www.aalto.fi/en/study-options?field=biz