• Small & well-defined or explorative? Both are fine. Motivating
• Doable
• ”Typical” for the company
• No technical limitations

Interesting topic

• Understandable
• Interesting technologies – learning new
• Doable, but enough challenge

Real business need - software will be used

Support from the company:

• Product Owner, technical experts
• Excitement
• Needed tools/software, workspace...

• Motivating topic & good pitch
• Product Owner
  • ParticipatesinALLsprintplanningmeetings, reviews and feedback sessions!
  • Accessible also in between
• Possibly technical experts
• Possibly some tools, software, working space....
• Virtual collaboration?
  • Students located mainly in Lappeenranta and Lahti, some in Uusimaa

• Send your project topic by Dec 20th, 2021 to maria.paasivaara@lut.fi using the Project Proposal Template (max 2 topic per company)
• Course starts: Jan 12th
• Present your topic to students online & interview student teams: Jan 21st
  • -> projects start
• Projects end: April 22nd
• Final celebration event: May 5th

Please fill in the brief application form provided on this website. If you are not sure of the suitability of your company to participate we are more than happy to discuss the eligibility issues with you.

After the application period has ended the IEC team will go through the applications. Our aim is to provide you the information of the possible acceptance by June 2022 at the latest. If you do have specific requirements about the communication methods please let us know.

If there is any more availability in the IEC programme for the late applicants we may follow other schedule. In any case, we hope to discuss about the more detailed issues with the programme participants in August before the actual kick-off day in September 2022.

The company representatives need to visit LUT/Lappeenranta twice, that is, for the kick-off meeting in September 2021 and on the final presentation day, December 2022. In addition to these dates there are several phases in the programme in which the contact with the student team is essential.

The preferred method of communication can be discussed with the student team. In general we require that top management should have time to meet with students and respond to their emails regularly during the three month working period.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) can be written and IEC rigorously maintains strict confidentiality standards regarding each field study project. The participating firms are more than welcome to discuss about our policies regarding this and we will also provide templates for NDAs to be used.

In principle the programme is free of charge for the selected companies. The company has to dedicate its own time for the programme meetings, however. Furthermore, the company managers participating the events need take care of their own travelling costs.

If the fulfillment of the project task requires specific investments (for example, if travelling is considered a must for the student team for the successful completion of the field project in primary market research phase) the firms, participating in the IEC Programme, have to be ready to compensate the student team costs. This will be discussed separately case-by-case and can be decided by the participating companies, however.

The student body in the IEC-programme is highly international representing a mixture of nationalities. The Finnish students have spent considerable amount of time abroad prior to participation to IEC, either through study exchange or internship. The students possess wide array of knowledge in business functions, especially in marketing, international business and technology management.

The IEC Programme operates in co-operation with the Master in International Marketing Management (MIMM) programme which is a specialized two-year EFMD-accredited programme provided by the LUT School of Business and Management and also with a newer programme at LUT, i.e. Master in International Business and Entrepreneurship (MIBE).

EFMD accreditation is an international programme accreditation system operated by EFMD. It aims to evaluate the quality of any business and/or management programme that has an international perspective and, where of an appropriately high quality, to accredit it. MIMM Programme at LUT received the EPAS Accreditation (now calleed EFMD accrediation) for five-year period as the first Nordic business school in 2012 and has been accredited since then.

IEC Student Profile (an example from 2011): Average age: 24,5 years o Male / Female: 43% / 57% o Approximately 40-50% are international students, 14 nationalities. The students of LUT who participate the IEC focus on marketing, international business, entrepreneurship and technology/innovation management related topics in their studies.

The aim of the LUT School of Business and Management is to provide them with relevant skills and capabilities to be able to analyze, plan and implement international business operations with the focus especially on the management of global knowledge-intensive innovation activities from the marketing perspective.

The IEC Programme matches companies with a team of four-five MIMM and MIBE students. Each participating company will be assigned a team which conducts a field study project for a company. Each team collectively contributes in the region of 800 hours to each company. Although the exact time used for the completion of the each case is difficult to assess beforehand the MIMM and MIBE students will complete an in-depth internationalization / business plan which should enable the company to move to the next stage in their development.

The faculty advisors will have a final say on this although the student teams can tell their preferences after studying the participating companies independently by using secondary data sources. One criteria, for example, is the composition of the team (and their special skills) and its fit to the objectives of the company. Unfortunately we cannot let the companies to participate this process.