Tracing knowledge is a research project funded by the Research Council of Finland (2026–2030). The project team is based at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyväskylä and the Faculty of Education at the University of Helsinki.

We are investigating knowledge and perceptions of knowledge in higher education. Scientific knowledge lies at the heart of universities and forms the foundation of all higher education. However, many developments in the 21st century call into question the significance of knowledge. Education policy has largely focused on speed, efficiency and employability. Digitalisation and the development of artificial intelligence are challenging traditional methods of learning and teaching and prompting a shift in approach. The talk is of skills and competences, rather than knowledge and its epistemological foundation. 

In the Tracing Knowledge research project, we aim to investigate the role of knowledge – knowledge that is epistemically sound and enables systematic and abstract thinking – in Finnish higher education in the 2020s. Is there a shortcut to knowledge? Have we forgotten the significance of knowledge, or have we become ‘knowledge-blind’?

Come and find out more about us and our work – join us on tracing knowledge!