Anna-Kaisa Nikkilä MNSc, MSSc–student
Team University of Turku, Finland
Since autumn 2019 I have studied in a new Master’s programme Social and Health Research and Management (MSSc) at faculty of social sciences in University of Helsinki, Finland. As part of those studies an internship including research and administrative work differing from one’s own previous work experience is highly recommended. I graduated ten years ago from the department of Nursing Science at the University of Turku as a nurse educator. Since then I have worked as a nurse educator at a vocational institute.
Through social media channels I became aware of this international Erasmus+ -project in which the Department of Nursing Science at the University of Turku was starting as a coordinator led by professor Leena Salminen. Project aiming to examine the education of nurse educators, their competences and work tasks at European level and seeking to harmonize nurse educators’ education in Europe aroused my interest. I contacted professor Salminen and on that road I am now writing this blog post.
New nurse educator -project plan was accepted and funding secured in July 2020 after which I commenced in the project in September 2020. Inthe beginning of my internship I participated in the webinars organized by Finnish National Board of Education, which included excellent examples of project work coordination, project work phases, financial management -and reporting of the project. The experiences of different actors in past Erasmus projects were also introduced and making acquaintance of their successes and stumbling blocks were in particular useful.
My very first task in this project was to prepare partner contracts between the coordinator and partner organizations. For that examining thoroughly the contents of planned work packages and previously created project plan was essential to get an overview of the project. Later on I have participated in the planning of the first work package both in terms of literature search and selection and evaluation of useful instruments for measuring nurse educators’ competences. Taking care of the communication between partner universities and University of Turku has also been my responsibility together with the project assistant. Project communication was brand new issue for me when starting in this project, thus I found the instructions of the Finnish National Board of Education very useful in familiarizing my self with it. At the heart of the project work have been the international team’s monthly joint meetings. They have helped everyone involved in the project to keep up with the progress of the project and enabled them to reflect ongoing and upcoming things together.
Scientific research always involves research ethics. In particular, since the entry into force of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, special attention has to be paid to the data protection of personal data in research. In connection with the research ethics preparing the annexes to the pre-evaluation of the research ethics of the first work package of the project was challenging but instructive task.
In today’s working life, project work skills have taken on a significant role. Although I have gained a rich work experience in nursing field as a midwife and a nurse educator I have found working in this project has enriched me with an excellent work experience in starting a project, promoting and managing it systematically–things that I can not consider to have mastered based on my previous work experience. Projects are often criticized for their temporariness and lack of dissemination of the outputs. As a potential advantage about a project taking place in an academic community I see a better likelihood in dissemination of its results. Scientific articles will be written about the outputs of this project as well. The articles remain in the databases and the information contained in them will benefit both the practical working life and the scientific community long after the project has ended.
It has been rewarding to have had a chance involving myself in commencement of this consequential project. I would like to use this opportunity to thank professor Leena Salminen and research assistant MNSc Imane Elonen of our fruitful co-operation and wish success in project work for all project participants!
