News
08.01.2010
University of Joensuu becomes University of Eastern Finland
The Universities of Joensuu and Kuopio will merge to form the new University of Eastern Finland (UEF), which will formally start operating from the 1st of January 2010 onwards. The process of the merger started in 2007, when both Senates agreed on the merger and the two Rectors signed the agreements on the principles and procedures to be followed, and intensified greatly throughout 2008 and 2009.
The UEF will have about 14000 students and 3000 members of staff, campuses in Joensuu, Kuopio and Savonlinna and a yearly budget of approximately 200 million Euros. The Rectorate will be located in Kuopio and the first rector of the UEF will be Prof. Perttu Vartiainen, who currently serves as Rector of the University of Joensuu. There will be four faculties: the Philosophical Faculty, the Faculty of Science and Forestry, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business, with a combined offer of more than 100 major subjects.
The University of Eastern Finland aims to establish an internationally competitive and multi-disciplinary university complex in eastern Finland to meet the global challenges of the future while facing a changing operating environment and:
- be one of the leading multi-disciplinary university complexes in Finland and among the top 200 in the world;
- be an integral part of the Finnish innovation system;
- utilize the strengths of both universities in education and research;
- implement its Centre of Excellence policy successfully and build an internationally competitive research infrastructure;
- intensify cooperation in education and clarify the division of tasks;
- be a significant expert on Russia with a recognized national and European status; and
- be an expert on lifelong learning.
From a research viewpoint the Universities of Joensuu and Kuopio have somewhat complementary research profiles and their combined areas of expertise encompass photonics, medical and computational physics, new materials, social and cultural research on education, borders and Russia, dynamics of change in border regions, lifestyle choices, nutrition and health, trials and development of medicinal products, molecular medicine, neurosciences, climate change, forest ecosystems and bioenergy, environmental stress on natural biological communities and human health, forest mensuration and forest planning and social environmental research. The emerging areas of expertise in research include biomedical imaging, evaluation of medical treatment efficiency, international law, multidisciplinary research into languages and cultures, tourism and leisure time, educational and development technology, service systems and SME business operations and pedagogical well-being.
The University of Joensuu has been a prominent member of Campus Europae and all partners of the EUF-CE are looking forward to work with the EUF. In fact the creation of the University of Eastern Finland has proved valuable for it allowed to broaden the participation in Campus Europae, with representatives of the University of Kuopio having already attended meetings in the Medicine and Business Subject Committees throughout 2009.
Further information about the UEF is available at the university website (www.uef.fi) as well as at virtualcampuses.eu, where a study case about the UEF is available.