FORTHEM alliance receives further funding – JYU is a strong part of the university network

Rector Keijo Hämäläinen is happy about the decision:
“The FORTHEM alliance is a ‘European campus’ formed of nine universities,” he says. “It offers our University, students and staff more versatile opportunities for education and research cooperation, mobility and networking than we had before.

“It has been delightful to see how the competence and commitment our university community have convinced our FORTHEM partners. We have also participated closely in the planning of the continuation period.”

In January 2023, Rector Hämäläinen will start as the first chair of the FORTHEM’s board of rectors.

“I am also delighted about that the City of Jyväskylä will have a visible role in the FORTHEM alliance in the future since Mayor Timo Koivisto has been invited as a member of the External Advisory Council that will include experts from interest groups,” he says. “The council will evaluate the impact of FORTHEM from the perspective of cities and regions.

“Through FORTHEM, we have a vantage point to the development of European higher education. European university networks are ambitious long-term partnerships and the FORTHEM partnership is the first strategic international partnership for JYU.”

The University of Jyväskylä has participated in the cooperation actively right from the start. It has been responsible for the FORTHEM Labs activities, a specialist network in which researchers, students and representatives of interest groups seek research-based solutions for the challenges of, for example, multilingualism, immigration, digitalisation, environment and food science.

Cooperation with interest groups has been a central part of FORTHEM activities and JYU has been able to incorporate the schools of Mankola and Jyskä, the Multicultural Center Gloria and the associations Paremmin yhdessä and Keski-Suomen yhteisöjen tuki in the activities.

Head of International Services Tuija Koponen says that continuing funding secures the expansion of operations to the direction of research coordination and pedagogical development. Student and staff mobility will become even more varied. All member universities also produce study offering for the virtual Digital Academy course selection.

FORTHEM prepared for the application process for continuing funding by selecting two new member universities in 2021 – the University of Agder from Norway and the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania – to expand both geographically and in terms of special fields. The FORTHEM alliance was founded by the University of Burgundy from France, the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz from Germany, the University of Opole from Poland, the University of Palermo from Italy, the University of Latvia, the University of Valencia from Spain, and the University of Jyväskylä.

The FORTHEM alliance involves almost 230,000 students, 2,300 doctoral students, 16,000 researchers and teachers and 14,000 members of administration staff in Europe.

Links:
https://www.forthem-alliance.eu/
https://www.jyu.fi/forthem