Knowledge, knowing, understanding at the core of the university

Knowledge, knowing, understanding. Skills based on knowledge. Thinking, generating ideas, debating thoughts and ideas. Building new ideas on top of the old ones. And teaching these through dialogue, by demonstrating and debating – thinking. Centuries on, these principles still define the fundamental purpose and core of the university.

When one Margaret Lucas fled a war to Oxford, she soaked up everything the old university had to offer: the debates, the thinking, the atmosphere. She consequently became a philosopher and much more.

What made Margaret Lucas’ path to becoming a natural philosopher and writer special was her gender, as she was born around 1623 and 400 years ago young women were not admitted to the University of Oxford. As a royalist, she had fled to the university town to escape the civil war and was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Henrietta Maria, who had also fled the war. These undoubtedly privileged women wanted to absorb every morsel of knowledge and understanding, even though the academic world was largely closed to them in principle and in practice and their ability to think was questioned because of their gender.

Margaret Lucas married William Cavendish and eventually became the Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Margaret Cavendish spent much of her time in Paris, where she met some of the great thinkers of her time. She knew philosophers and writers and corresponded with them not only at home but also abroad. She published widely, mastering genres from philosophical essays to novels, from poetry to science fiction. She was an original thinker and, for instance, her idea that all living things have a soul was ahead of its time – and has made her relevant again in many discussions.

Margaret Cavendish is a stirring example of how knowledge has been an object of passion throughout the ages, also for those who have been denied access to it. Four hundred years after her birth, her tenacity and passion serve as a wake-up call for us, especially as we consider the knowledge-hostile environment of the 2020s. It is difficult to find parallels to the current contempt of highest understanding from the past, except from the worst dictatorships.

The universities’ mission remains. Today, they are open communities of dialogue. At the University of Turku, we have just renewed our strategy. Our vision is to dynamically build a sustainable future and social well-being through research and education – and we believe strongly in our vision. We improve our world by searching, exploring, developing, reflecting, and teaching. Our responsibility is to build the future actively and, to the best of our ability, proactively.

We improve the world from global to local and vice versa: from local to global. For us, acting locally is a matter of pride, whether we operate in Turku or Utsjoki. Global problems, such as the climate crisis, are also very much local problems. And because global challenges are not likely to pass us by, as a university we need to be prepared for anything – and with knowledge we can achieve that. Therefore, we must have the intellectual capacity to face new disasters. Knowledge and understanding create mental security and resilience. It is good to see that we can also offer a genuine ability to put matters into context, to connect their different aspects, to explain them, their historical background and their development, and then to create solutions to problems. Multidisciplinary dialogue improves our understanding of different backgrounds.

Knowledge therefore has intrinsic value, but it is first and foremost a tool. The University’s mission is to nurture knowledge and understanding. In the current, often even anti-scientific climate, knowledge and understanding are under constant attack and, worst of all, researchers as individuals are also the targets of hatred and online attacks. It is important – essential – to support them in their work so that these attacks do not succeed in preventing the creation of knowledge. Moreover, improving the position and working conditions of early career researchers in particular, and enabling and securing the career development of the most talented researchers must be a matter of common concern for the entire university still today. How else can we ensure the future of knowledge?

The cornerstone of our brand-new strategy is a focus on high quality. This means doing things thoroughly and taking the necessary time. Deep understanding, much like long time series, often requires time. Ambition is also a strong theme in our strategy: the University of Turku wants to be an ambitious visionary. It is important to recognise our own distinctive features. We are a unique university community, characterised by our special multidisciplinary approach. As a strategic choice, ambition also means having the courage to follow our own path, which for us means not only respecting and embracing our diversity, but also respecting each other in our multidisciplinary community.

High quality requires doing things well, which is crucial for the well-being of a university community, where the essence of our activities is that we often study issues precisely because they are challenging, complex, and difficult. The University is full of people who are passionate about their work – creating knowledge and teaching it – and who have a genuine desire to work for the University, whatever their role. I want to continue to strengthen the sense of the University as a community.

There is also enormous power in collaboration across university borders. In Turku, collaboration with our dear neighbour Åbo Akademi University and the universities of applied sciences is on a very strong basis. This is reflected in the joint facility and infrastructure projects, but also, of course, in the increasing co-operation in teaching and research.

This collaboration is an important element in attracting students to this great university city. Providing our students with the highest quality education and top learning experience is essential to building the future. I hope that we can offer our students the most vibrant campus culture and a student campus that facilitates both everyday life and celebrations.

Turku is a true student city, and our students are positively involved in building the city’s image. We are a major actor in Turku and in the entire region, and our impact is particularly strong through our students. For example, through student collaboration and internships, we create significant impact in the areas where we seek to collaborate. The attractiveness of our student community also plays a major role in meeting the challenge we have been set: Finland must be able to raise the share of people with higher education degree to fifty percent. In this respect, we have fallen alarmingly behind many of our peer countries. We need to attract new talents from abroad and find ways to retain them. Here too, co-operation with regional actors and business life is vital. In Satakunta, our presence and collaboration with regional actors will be further strengthened when the University of Turku starts to coordinate the University Consortium Pori at the turn of the year.

The University of Turku is academically very successful, and according to the funding indicators set by the Ministry of Education and Culture, its prospects are currently very good. The number of graduates is great and the number of applicants is positive. Our brilliant researchers have achieved significant international and domestic funding, with more on the way.

By definition, research is international, and so are the researchers. Although internationality is a matter of course for a university, we must actively influence, for example, the research policies of the European Union as well as national policies. This must be done actively and constructively, in line with the values of our University. These are creativity, openness, ethical principles, critical thinking, and strong community. I would like to highlight in particular the values of openness and strong community, through which we can achieve an even better cycle of positive impact. I believe that openness is not only at the heart of research and scholarship, but also the key to community. I see equality as both a measure of community as well as a measure of well-being. I believe that a resilient, community-based university will also overcome its financial challenges.

It is important that we approach all our endeavours with the passion that has always been a common characteristic of those of us who pursue knowledge. Let’s remember the young Margaret Cavendish who followed in the footsteps of Oxford scholars. She lived passionately in a world rich in education. Education is indeed a privilege. Knowledge is a privilege. Let us remember that this privilege is unusually accessible today compared to the course of history. Although knowledge in our modern society is available to anyone who is interested in it, the value of knowledge does not diminish as the amount of knowledge increases – fortunately, the opposite is true. Let us therefore remain firm in our commitment to learning, research, science and scholarship, and the promotion of education. These are the foundations of Finland’s success, of our success.

Marjo Kaartinen

Rector of the University of Turku

The text is based on Rector Kaartinen’s speech at the Opening Ceremony of the University’s Academic Year 2024–2025.