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Researchers rarely work alone. The moment you guide a project meeting, run a business workshop, or coach a student team, you're facilitating — and doing it well is what keeps a group moving instead of stalling. Across 6 hands-on sessions, you'll blend theoretical insights with contemporary methods, experimenting and reflecting them with professionals using them daily with business and academic teams. You'll be able to carry those approaches straight into your own meetings, project courses and interdisciplinary work.

Your facilitating faculty includes

• Hanna Maylett — Associate Professor of Film Directing,  whose research on shared artistic leadership explores the craft of leading creative collaboration — drawing the best out of a room without dictating to it.
• Robin Gustafsson — Associate Professor of Strategic Management and startup co-founder, whose visual strategy work uses hands-on techniques that get a group building, not just talking.
• Satu Rekonen — organizational design and leadership researcher and lecturer who has introduced and scaled several teamwork development methods across Aalto, bringing practical tools for coaching interdisciplinary teams and keeping group work moving through constructive feedback.
• Leni Grünbaum — a team developer and coach, whose work on collective leadership and group dynamics fosters facilitative presence: reading the energy in a room and turning it into shared action.
• Sonja Hilavuo – seasoned executive and teaching professional with wide background in companies like Mars, Nokia, Microsoft, VTT and several startups sharing insight from facilitating multi-stakeholder team outputs in international business and partnerships.

Who is it for?

• Doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and other academic stakeholders in e.g. Aalto Startup Center or collaborative company research teams. Join for the collegial, cross-school exchange of practices.
• If you already lead teams or facilitate project work — refresh your practice and pick up new moves from people who do this constantly across business and academic audiences.
• If you're simply curious — no experience needed. Add facilitation to your toolkit as a genuinely portable career skill.
• If you love teaching and wish to hone your skills — this course is designed to complement the Aalto pedagogical offering.  

Reserve your seat now

BIZ-L3000 From Expert to Enabler: Facilitation Skills for Researchers (1 ECTS). Six Thursday mornings in period I starting from Thu 3.9. to  Thu 8.10. 2026 at 9:15 - 12:30 in various locations on Aalto campus to explore also variety of settings we have. (Any questions to: sonja.hilavuo@aalto.fi)

Here perspectives from arts, business, and engineering come together in one practical career course — because facilitation is a skill every field needs, and too few people are ever shown how to use it. 

More doctoral career courses coming!

Built from ideas raised by doctoral researchers and scientists working in industry projects, and brought to life through the Doc+ Initiative, more courses are on the making. Registration will open later for:

TU-L1030 Design a Meaningful Doctoral Career, 1 ECTS

Reflect on who you are as a professional and how you want to shape your future working live. Learn to analyze your strengths, values, motivations, and transferable skills to articulate a doctoral-level professional identity. Offered in the spring term 2027.

TU-L1040 Making Research Matter, 1 ECTS

An online course where doctoral experts share real-life perspectives on turning research expertise into impact beyond academia. Course participants will formulate a personal action plan for increasing the relevance, application, or visibility of their research or expertise. Offered in the spring term 2027.

ABL-E2618 Negotiation for Shared Success, 3 ECTS

The course introduces contemporary negotiation theory and practice through real-world cases and hands-on exercises drawn from everyday, startup, corporate, and multicultural contexts. The course treats negotiation as a core career skill, relevant across disciplines and professions, from science and law to leadership, partnerships, customer work, and internal collaboration. The course is open for both Master's and doctoral students. Offered in the autumn term 2026.