On 26^th of November, four Schools from Fudan University (Fudan) and University of Turku (UTU) had a kick-off meeting for a Pilot Capstone project at Fudan, which aims to prepare students and involved Schools for a new Double Master’s Degree programme in health technology which will formally start in next academic year. A Memorandum of Understanding for this collaboration has been signed most recently by the Presidents of Fudan and UTU as an extension of the ongoing FuTuRe programme (FDU-UTU double master’s degree programme in ICT)

Jointly run by the School of Nursing, the School of Information Science and Technology (SIST) from Fudan, the School of Nursing, and the Faculty of Science and Engineering from UTU, this cross-disciplinary double degree programme is a new try for both universities and the four Schools involved.

On the kick-off meeting, Lirong Zheng, Dean of SIST gave welcome speech and full day agenda. He shared a few words of gratitude towards the delegation from University of Turku. He said that he is so happy to start this four-School collaboration. Talking about the programme, he expressed his optimism in establishing strong relations between both the universities. “In this pilot project, we will experience how students with different cultures and majors (IT and Nursing) work together, and what will be the impact”, said Zheng.

The purpose of starting a pilot capstone project one year before the joint programme formally recruits is to build understanding between students and Schools to set out opportunities for collaboration and positive academic engagement. 2-3 students from each School have been selected into the project. Agenda includes one week hands-on experience and and a mid-term feedback at Fudan in Fall 2018, and one week intensive teamwork schedule to complete the project with a final presentation at Turku in Spring 2019. In between, students are supposed to keep close communication online when they are separate in their own countries.

This pilot capstone project aims to innovatively solve clinical problems using technology and nursing science. Intended learning outcomes including the improvement of critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and team working skills, etc. From engineering perspective, the upcoming IT-Nursing double degree programme will give engineering students cross-disciplinary study chances to meet real needs from users and society, so as the slogan of FuTuRe: Engineer Meets Human.