Robert Zich - reserved for TAMK

Robert Zich is a true friend of TAMK and Tampere

Since the year 2001, Robert Zich, PhD and a professor in marketing and management at Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic, has been a regular guest at TAMK. Not very often have we seen such devotion and loyalty to our university of applied sciences as in the case of Mr Zich who's become a true friend of TAMK and Tampere. Professor Zich, or just Robert as we have learnt to call him over the years, has been spending his summer holidays in Tampere with his family for nearly two months, and the vacation ends up with a seminar at TAMK in the framework of the Erasmus teaching staff mobility programme in early September.

Robert has offered his signature course "Competitivity of Company" over ten times to TAMK students and staff. The feedback from the participants - so far more than 250 of them in total - has been most favourable and encouraging. Robert's dynamic approach to his topic, of which he also did his doctoral study, communicative contact with his audience and constant development of both the content and the teaching methods have made him a living legend among TAMK students. The International Services of TAMK, when collecting the feedback of the lecture series, have greeted with joy and satisfaction the fact that many of the participants came from degree programmes taught in Finnish at TAMK. Those students wanted to include an international dimension in their individual study plan, and were surprised to discover how interesting and rewarding it is to study in a foreign language. For many, this offered an experience of increased self-confidence: After all, it's not that difficult to study in English!

On top of lecturing at TAMK, Robert has welcomed many TAMK students at his home university for a study exchange, and has also supervised practical trainings of TAMK students in his office at the Brno University of Technology. Robert is the chairperson of the virtual research centre IRCAES, which TAMK is also a member of, and holds an additional position as a Senior Lecturer at a private business university in Brno.

When meeting Robert over a cup of coffee at the student canteen of TAMK, Robert talked about the things he and his family, wife Jana and daughter Tarja, have done in Finland this summer: The best so far have been the Seitseminen National Park where the Zich family went camping with a tent, the Särkänniemi Amusement Park and the city of Rauma with its surroundings. In Tampere, you cannot find many corners that the Zich family has not seen yet; so intensively they have driven around the city and admired the local architecture and nature. One of the latest spontaneous discoveries was the church in Teisko.

Robert will be lecturing again about competitivity of company at TAMK in January 2011.

Story: Riku-Matti Kinnunen