FinCEAL Plus LAC at the Second Preparatory Seminar for the III EU-CELAC Academic Summit, held in Stockholm 6-7 October, 2016
In the mission to advance the implementation of the Euro-Latin American and Caribbean Common Area for Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, FinCEAL Plus LAC endorsed the event and held a presentation about its research cooperation support activities. The seminar had a diverse group of participants ranging from university authorities, public office representatives and academics from both regions.
Continuing action lines from previous EU-CELAC Academic Summits, the European Institute of International Studies (EIIS) organized the Second Preparatory Seminar in order to discuss and formulate new action proposals for the III EU-CELAC Academic Summit to be held in Latin America in 2017. In the mission to advance the implementation of the Euro-Latin American and Caribbean Common Area for Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, FinCEAL Plus LAC endorsed the event and held a presentation about its research cooperation support activities. The seminar had a diverse group of participants ranging from university authorities, public office representatives and academics from both regions.
Finland was represented by speakers from the Ministry
of Education, Science and Culture of Finland and FinCEAL Plus LAC, and
representatives of Cimo and the University of Helsinki also took part in the
seminar. The programme of this Second Preparatory Seminar of 2016 was
structured around thematic panels that each consisted of a series of
presentations. The themes of the panels were:
- Strengthening the integration of Higher Education systems through certification of foreign languages and transversal competences for bi-regional academic and professional mobility, as well as assuring quality in EULAC Higher Education
- ·Promoting Bi-regional integration of the research systems of Science, Technology and Innovation through integration tools.
- Increasing Bi-regional cooperation between Higher Education Institutions and their relationships with society and with the productive sector, through examples of common study programs and joint private-academic projects
- Linking the academic community with public policies that prioritize strategic plans for internationalization of Higher Education institutions in both regions, utilizing qualification recognition tools and establishing roadmaps
The topics covered under each theme very extremely diverse, and unfortunately little room was reserved for interaction between speakers and participants. In the future, it might be more productive to focus the programme in fewer, clearly outlined topics, and adopt a more participatory approach in the seminar structure to encourage networking and partnering for concrete new initiatives.
FinCEAL Plus continues to follow the EU-CELAC Academic
Summit process and to support the participation of Finland in the EU-CELAC
Bi-regional STI policy formulation.
Pictures: Alex Cisneros and Kajsa Ekroos / UniPID
