Focus on Latin America: Finnish Higher Education Institutions’ partnerships with the LAC region

Partnerships between Finnish and Latin American higher education institutions (HEIs) have been growing significantly in recent years. Latin America has been the most popular partner region for Finnish HEIs in both Erasmus+ programme and the Finnish National Agency for Education's Team Finland Knowledge programme.

Within the framework of the TFK-LAC work, partnerships between the HEIs from Finland and the LAC region were mapped during autumn 2025. The mapping shows a significant increase in partnerships since 2022, when partnerships were last mapped. The aim of the webinar is to highlight and strengthen Finnish HEis’ partnerships with Latin America. The webinar explores these partnerships, their benefits and challenges, and discusses the strategies behind them and the support needs for building future partnerships. 

PROGRAMME

• Opening, Jonna Korhonen, Director, Division for Higher Education Policy, Ministry of Education and Culture
• Overview of Finnish HEIs’ partnerships with the LAC region, Johanna Kivimäki, TFK-LAC Counsellor
• Exploration of institutional partnership strategies with the LAC region
  • Roseanna Avento, Global Development Manager, University of Eastern Finland 
  • Marja Laurikainen, Senior Advisor, Global Education Development and Research, Häme University of Applied Sciences 
• Discussion and sharing experiences between the participants

Since 2018, the Ministry of Education and Culture has had a Counsellor of Higher Education and Science focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as part of the Team Finland Knowledge network (TFK-LAC). Read more about the network: Team Finland Knowledge network - OKM - Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland (link) and follow the work TFK-artikkelit - OKM - Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö (link).