Awards were presented to Project Researcher Ville Tahvanainen, UNITE Geotrail research project team, anniversary online communication of the School of Pharmacy, and Director of the Department of Health and Social Management Elsa Paronen.
The University of Eastern Finland’s Communicator of the Year Awards were announced in an award ceremony today. A winner was selected from each of the university’s faculties, and the 2023 Communicator of the Year Awards were presented to Project Researcher Ville Tahvanainen, UNITE Geotrail research project team, anniversary online communication of the School of Pharmacy, and Director of the Department of Health and Social Management Elsa Paronen. The selections were made by the university’s Communications and Media Relations.
The Communicator of the Year Award is presented in recognition of an outstanding attitude towards, or of efforts in, communication and marketing during the past year. The award is not tied to any professional title: the most important thing is a genuine interest in communication. The primary criterion is that the person or the group has understood the significance of communication and is determined to raise awareness of the university’s activities by means of communication.
The Communicator of the Year Award of the Philosophical Faculty was presented to Project Researcher Ville Tahvanainen for long-term active communications about teacher training development projects, related innovations, and new ideas. Additionally, Tahvanainen communicates extensively about department events and seek out a perspective that is particularly interesting to students.
At the Faculty of Science, Forestry and Technology, the 2023 Communicator of the Year Award is presented to the UNITE Geotrail research project and to the team involved, i.e., Project Researcher Tuulikki Halla, Project Researcher Harri Silvennoinen and Doctoral Researcher Philip Chambers. The UNITE Geotrail research project offers everyone a chance to participate in the collection of forest research data in a playful way – by finding geocaches in nature. From the researchers, this kind of an approach requires innovation and an adventurous mind, as well as new ways of communication, such as video. The UNITE Geotrail research project constitutes part of the UNITE Flagship on Forest-Human-Machine Interplay of the Research Council of Finland.
The Communicator of the Year Award of the Faculty of Health Sciences was presented to the online communication of 50th anniversary of the School of Pharmacy. The anniversary website, video interviews and anniversary book have highlighted a wide range of people and stories from the field of pharmacy in Kuopio. Multi-vocal and participatory online content has also brought the anniversary year within the reach of all interested.
The Communicator of the Year Award of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies was presented to Elsa Paronen, Research Manager and Director of the Department of Health and Social Management. She has actively developed the department's internal communications and encouraged the researchers to communicate about their research. In addition, Paronen has highlighted the importance of stakeholder communication in his work and introduced new channels to it.