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Dear friends,

We have worked mainly remotely for almost two weeks and shown great professionalism while doing so. I wish to thank each and every one of you. Our characteristic creativity has come in handy on more than one occasion in learning to apply research, teaching methods, learning techniques, Zoom and Teams in new ways and in adjusting our everyday life to these new circumstances. Our close-knit community is a resource that we should remember to draw from, as it is likely that these special arrangements will be in place for several months.

We should continue working as normally as possible to show others that life goes on despite the black swan in our midst that we call the coronavirus. Keep in mind that the corona crisis is not a tradeoff between health and economic issues. It’s a matter of multi-objective optimization where different objectives must be taken into consideration with sufficient gravity. We as a community are responsible for slowing down the spread of the virus. It is important to ensure people the possibility to study and work safely. It is also important to remember that in terms of continuity, also societal and especially business-related aspects are vital. We can help our society in a concrete way by continuing to live as normally as possible despite the situation. For example, we bring roughly 80 million euros per year to the Lappeenranta and Lahti regions.

In the past weeks, the world has show us two extremes: one where it is drowning in pollution and another where it comes to a sudden halt. When we finally reach the stage where we can start things up again, LUT’s strategy and its core issues will be more relevant than ever. We will need research and experts with awareness of how to conduct business responsibly taking clean energy, water and air into consideration. Our work matters.

The younger members of our science community have invited us old-timers to take a peek at students’ daily life. The student unions of LUT and LAB have built a campus on Discord (download the app) for messaging and talking on different channels about anything and everything. You can participate or simply follow the younger generation’s interaction from the sidelines. This Friday, there seem to be channels for general ”living room” conversations, study groups, sports (e.g. MOVEO workouts) and getting drunk at home in your underwear. Once you’ve downloaded the app, the only things you need are a sense of adventure and this link: