Creating New Ways to Partner Up

The Institute is piloting an employee exhange programme and has welcomed Heli Leinokoski from the City of Jyväskylä, Finland to work from its premises for three months. The aim of the exchange is to create new and inspirational partnerships and networks both for the Institute and the participants.

Heli Leinonkoski works as director of finance and administration for the City of Jyväskylä and she is researching service design in the UK. Heli Leinonkoski is examining how service design might help involving the customers in a dialogue about the services they use. Service design is focused on methods to plan and organise services so that they are customer-oriented, but at the same time economically beneficial and lucrative for the service provider. A large service and organisation reform is being put into practise in Jyväskylä in 2013 and Heli Leinonkoski is part of this process, and she feels the service design model can greatly benefit the reform.

"This is an excellent opportunity for me to concentrate on the part of my work which really aims to improve the services, and that is extremely important to me. In addition, the contacts I am able to make with the Institute help facilitate my work not only here but also in Finland", Heli Leinonkoski says.

Alongside her research Leinonkoski is working on her MBA for the University of Jyväskylä on service design.