Meet the team: Turku University of Applied Sciences

🎉 Happy New Year everyone!

TourEdu has many exciting people working on the project, so we thought it would be great for you to learn about them. So we are launching a weekly hashtag#meettheteam series!

🌟 Meet the TourEdu Team from Turku University of Applied Sciences

Say hello to Timo Halttunen, Susanna Saari & Telle Tuominen!
🔹 Timo Halttunen – Senior Adviser with an M.Soc.Sc in Sociology. Expert in competence-based curricula reform, recognition of prior learning, and university-business collaboration. Steering committee member at TourEdu.

🔹 Susanna Saari – Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Wellness Business, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Lapland. Leads EU-funded RDI projects and represents Turku UAS at Turku Tourism Academy, contributing research and industry insights to tourism education.

🔹 Telle Tuominen – Senior Lecturer focusing on tourism management, wellness services, marketing, and service design. Coordinates curriculum, teaching, and industry collaboration for the Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Tourism and Wellness Business.

🏛 Did you know? Turku UAS has invested extensively in pedagogical modernisation of higher education, focusing on working-life orientation, strong RDI activities integrated with studies, and flexible curricula.

This team leads Work Package 2: Mapping Job Profiles for Future Tourism Professionals. They update proficiency and competence profiles to match green and digital transitions and emerging labor-market needs. Outputs include a systematic literature review, a Curricula Reform Toolkit, and an interactive workbook for teachers and developers, which directly informs the design of the stackable micro-credential courses we will be creating later on in the project.