Areas of expertise
Biography
Jarna Heinonen is a Professor of Entrepreneurship. She is senior professional in global arena with excellent knowledge and solid experience in entrepreneurship, particularly corporate entrepreneurship, corporate venturing and organizational renewal, family business, start-ups, innovation, changing work, entrepreneurship education, and related practices and policies.
She is an appreciated policy advisor on entrepreneurship for European Commission, OECD, ministries and associations. Board member in several scientific foundations. She has conducted research for such bodies and is well connected to entrepreneurship stakeholders nationally and internationally.
She is highly experienced in building bridges between academia and business life – ‘pracademic’ collaborating with businesses e.g. as a teacher and facilitator in executive education; serving as an Academic Director of the Executive MBA programme of the University of Turku, School of Economics; leading and conducting development and research projects in close collaboration with private and public organisations.
She holds numerous positions of trust in scientific community as well as in business and society. Jarna is also a Member of the Board of Directors in OP Co-operative (OP Osuuskunta, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors).
Jarna has served also as a Visiting Professor at the Kingston University, Small Business Research Centre (2017-2019).
Teaching
As a Head Teacher in Entrepreneurship (2012-2018) Jarna has been responsible for curriculum planning and a principal lecturer in a number of different courses at bachelor, masters’ and doctoral level within entrepreneurship studies in TSE, UTU. Her courses range from basic entrepreneurship studies, and corporate entrepreneurship to contemporary and advanced readings of entrepreneurship. In addition, she has run several tailor made entrepreneurship courses to different audiences, such as ‘Entrepreneurship – an interesting opportunity?’ launched by the Academy of Finland for Graduate School researchers, and ‘Entrepreneurship awareness raising seminars’ for the researchers of the European Joint Research Centre (EU Commission) in 2008, 2009, 2011.
Jarna has also launched several entrepreneurship courses for non-business students within the University of Turku (the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Humanities) in the spirit of the Entrepreneurial University. In addition, she is a programme facilitator of a bi-annual programme ‘Entrepreneurship for research professionals’ within the University of Turku graduate school, UTUGS in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 jointly with Docent Pekka Stenholm.
Jarna has conducted research on her entrepreneurial teaching and learning experiences of which she has published widely in scholarly journals.
Jarna is also an active lecturer, teacher and facilitator in executive education. Particularly her research and experience in corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial behaviour and organisational renewal are highly valued in the executive education. She serves as an Academic Director of the EMBA Programme and the Chair of the EMBA Programme Committee in the Turku School of Economics, University of Turku (since 2012), and participates thus actively in executive education curriculum development.
She supervises theses at the master's and doctoral level and guides execution of learning portfolios within the EMBA programme of the TSE.
Research
Jarna’s research interests in the field of entrepreneurship include corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and enterprise education, organizational renewal, family business and entrepreneurship and innovation policies. Jarna is interested in multidisciplinary entrepreneurship research and has therefore worked as a project leader, principal investigator and/or researcher with researchers from different scholarly fields in a number of projects, such as
- with future researchers in Sustainable and Innovative Creative Ecosystems. Ecological Approach to Policy Innovation for Creative Sectors in Finland (ECOCRIN) (Business Finland, 500k€, 2023-2025) together with the Finland Futures Research Centre in the University of Turku and with national stakeholders and international partners
- with economists and social scientists in Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Creative Economy (DISCE) (Horizon2020, 3 million €, 2019-2022) together with three other researcher partners from the UK, Italy, and Latvia and two stakeholder partners from Sweden and Belgium.
- with historians in Gender and growth in family firms: from 1750 to the present (Academy of Finland, 550k€, 2011-2015) together with the Department of Finnish History in the University of Turku.
- with natural scientists in Unlocking the value of Nordic bioresources – NordAqua (NordForsk through the Nordic Bioeconomy Programme, 2017-2022). NordAqua is a Nordic Centre of Excellence led by Academian Eva-Mari Aro at the Faculty of Technology and Natural Sciences, University of Turku. Project and Work Package leader in the School of Economics with an aim to encourage and study commercialization and entrepreneurship within the NCoE.
- with medical doctors in Secure Ageing Innovation (Tekes, 419k€ 2012-2014) together with the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Turku.
Over years Jarna has been involved in numerous research projects as a Principal Investigator, Project Leader and/or researcher and collaborated in many established, international research networks, such as ENSR (The European Network for Social and Economic Research), the IPREG (Innovative Policy Research for Economic Growth: Analysis of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy in European Countries) and the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor).
Jarna has published about 230 scientific publications and over 100 text books or popular research publications (including also 2 TV-programmes about Entrepreneurship).