Campus Europae Newsletter, December 2009

Table of contents

  • University of Joensuu becomes University of Eastern Finland

  • Fast Facts

    • Student Council elects new Presidency

    • Campus Europae contribution to EU Commission Green Paper

  • Upcoming events
    • Business Subject Committee Meeting
    • Board of Directors Meeting
    • Humanities Subject Committee Meeting
    • Hook Up! Meeting
    • Education and Teacher Training Subject Committee Meeting
    • Natural Sciences and Engineering Subject Committee Meeting

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 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

  • 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.

 

Fast facts

Student Council elects new Presidency

The Campus Europae Student Council convened in the University of Aveiro on the 4th and 5th of December. Nikola Lakovic, from the University of Novi Sad, was elected President and Julia Höltge, from the University of Greifswald, Vice-President.

The Council has also debated its structure, mandate and ambitions and has decided to create a number of working groups focusing on promotion (Gordana Danilovic and Maria Rohava), local Alumni groups (Tiago Simões), joint projects (Indre Strazinskaite) and tutoring of new SC members (Ola Twarda).

A new version of the status was also discussed, introducing changes to whether member universities are represented in the Council by one or two student representatives, the latter being only applicable when there is a substantial number of incoming and outgoing students (albeit exceptions are foreseen). The Council has also changed its mandate in order to coincide with the academic year, rather than the fiscal year, whereby the next elections will be held in autumn 2010.

 

Campus Europae contribution to EU Commission Green Paper

Campus Europae has just published its contribution to the European Commission Green Paper on promoting the learning mobility of young people. Campus Europae remarks and proposals broadly concern five areas where further progress would be easily attainable and could have a profound impact in furthering mobility.

Firstly outgoing students should be considerably better informed, be it on practical matters such as financing or in academic issues such as courses options – improving the quality of the information commonly available would empower students to make informed choices and do away with myths that are detrimental to increasing the number of mobile students. This effort would yield an even greater impact if ways could be found to further institutional responsibility for promoting mobility – universities must take center stage in rallying their students to embark on a period of studies abroad if mobility is to become a rule rather than an exception.

Other dimension of student exchange that requires renewed efforts towards improvement is academic recognition, which according to the latest studies remains hugely problematic. The same applies to language learning, and yet Campus Europae has set forth very successful experiences in dealing with both issues. Another recommendation concerns the need to not over regulate internships, which are by virtue of their nature potent instruments to foster collaboration across sectors (academic, business, industry, civil society).  In fact CE considers that it is of utmost importance to have an open-minded and experimental attitude towards improving student mobility programmes - this can be accomplished through establishing "open laboratories" where innovation can be developed and tested as a way to safeguard the continuous improvement of Erasmus.

The document is available for download here (pdf format).

Upcoming events

Business Subject Committee Meeting

Trento, 26 February 2010

Board of Directors Meeting

Luxembourg, 15 March 2010

Humanities Subject Committee Meeting

Joensuu, 19 and 20 March 2010

Hook Up! Meeting

Kaunas, 25 to 28 March 2010

Education and Teacher Training Subject Committee Meeting

Ankara, 18 and 19 April 2010

Natural Sciences and Engineering Subject Committee Meeting

Ankara, 14 and 15 May 2010

 

The next Campus Europae newsletter is due for the 18th of January. To unsubscribe the Campus Europae newsletter please visit this link.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!