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TAMK International

International networking matters

— Riikka Kramer
Five people looking at the phone and smiling.
Picture 1: The lecturers of the UManresa and the University of Ljubljana get to know the application shown by Emma Tonkin.

Eye on TAMK 2022 Multidisciplinary International Week focused on the digital education but at the same time provided excellent opportunities for overall networking. Eye on TAMK event is a great possibility to meet colleagues and share ideas and experiences. The topic of Genomics Informed Nursing Care during 2022 event raised interest and started collaboration with University of Manresa in Spain.

The GenoNurse Erasmus+ Cooperative Partnership project aims to enhance educators’ and students’ competency in genomic informed nursing care. Through collaboration with European partners from University of L’Aquila (Italy), University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and University College Cork (Ireland), the GenoNurse project can impact on the content of genomic informed nursing care and thus, improve healthcare professionals’ competency in a fast evolving and complex area of genomic nursing. Potentially, this will reflect on nursing field through nurses advocating genomic competencies and committing to improving their genomic expertise with the support of nursing leadership.

In particular, the countries where genomic informed nursing care is hardly present or totally absent from nursing curricula, international collaboration and networking is fundamentally important. We all need global and European collaboration to achieve consensus and strengthen competency in novel and fast revolving nursing care areas. One option to connect and network with in genomic nursing, is to participate in international events organised by foreign higher education institutions. The Eye on TAMK event 2022 opened doors to our project team’s further networking opportunities. The GenoNurse team had a presentation during TAMK international week and audience welcomed our topic warmly. Participants stayed behind to discuss with GenoNurse team members and expressed their interest to join the future GenoNurse community and collaborate with us further. Also, an invitation to participate and have presentations in the international week of Catalonian UManresa University was extended to GenoNurse project team.

People standing outside of Umanresa Campus.
Picture 2: The lecturers from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, University of South Wales, University of Ljubljana and UManresa at the of Manresa Campus.

The effect of in-person participation and networking

The GenoNurse TAMK team held three presentations in the international week of University of Manresa: GenoNurse Project Progress (Nina Smolander), Case TAMK – Integration of Genomics into Curricula (Arja Halkoaho), Aspects of Ethics in Genomic Informed Nursing Care (Mari Laaksonen) and GenoNurse partner from University of Ljubljana (Marija Milavec-Kapun) presented Bringing the Genomics in the Nursing Education: Slovenian Perspective. The whole program including presentations by Emma Tonkin (UK), Kathleen Calzone (USA), Jacqueline Limoges (Canada), created lively discussions of curriculum developments, generated new funding ideas and exchange of opinions.

The participation in the international conferences created snowball effect after Eye on TAMK and Manresa events. The intention and involvement in future funding avenues have already been started, under development and even applied. Also, the work of GenoNurse project has more channels to disseminate its outputs and therefore, increases its impact potential. Attending and presenting in international conferences and communities enhances opportunities for widespread dissemination and sustainability to all projects and in addition, it is at the same time fun and challenging. The international networking truly matters.

 

Text: Arja Halkoaho, Nina Smolander and Mari Laaksonen

Pictures: Picture 1: Nina Smolander

Picture 2: Eduard Maldonado

 

Read more about the project: https://projects.tuni.fi/genonurse/

Read more about Eye on TAMK 2023: https://events.tuni.fi/eyeontamk/

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