Turku University

The University of Turku is a university in Finland.

History

Inauguration of the university in 1922.

The University of Turku, in Finnish Turun yliopisto (abbreviation TY), was founded in 1920, but the city of Turku in Finland has a long academic history. In 1640, when Finland was part of Sweden, Queen Christina had the third university of the kingdom, the Turku Academy, founded in Turku. Thus, Turku became the first university town in Finland. The Turku Academy functioned in Turku until 1828, when, after the great fire of 1827 that had devastated the city, it was transferred to Helsinki where it continues to function as the University of Helsinki.

After the independence of Finland (1917), the only university in the country was Helsinki, which was then Swedish-speaking and, therefore, Finnish-speaking intellectuals decided to hold a popular gathering to found a Finnish-language university. The current University of Turku, dating from 1920, originally had two faculties, Humanities (1920) and Mathematical and Natural Sciences (1920). Today, the University of Turku also has the faculties of Medicine (1943), Law (1960), Social Sciences (1967) and Educational Sciences (1974). In addition to the six faculties, the university has 10 special research and teaching institutions, and has 15,321 undergraduate students and 2,055 postgraduate students (2004).

Regional and national activity

The University of Turku works in three dimensions. First, at the local and regional level, it is worth noting the cooperation with other universities located in the city - Åbo Akademi University and the Turku Higher School of Economics and Business - as well as with various research and development centers, companies and municipalities of the region; This collaboration takes the form, above all, within the Turku Science Park (Turku Science Park). In addition, the environment occupies a privileged place, especially the Turku archipelago, which forms a unique landscape ensemble and a special ecological habitat in the Baltic Sea area. The Seili Archipelago Research Institute (Seili Archipelago Research Institute) is located on the island of Seili.

Second, at the national level, the university works not only as an active partner in collaborative projects with other universities in the country, but also through its research institutes, of which it is worth mentioning the Subartic Research Institute , located on the shores of Lake Kevojärvi, in the town of Utsjoki, Finnish Lapland.

Activity in the Baltic Sea region

The third dimension, that is, international cooperation, has several aspects. For several years, the University of Turku has been systematically promoting collaboration in the Baltic Sea area, especially with the universities of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Russia (Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad), while collaboration with various universities from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, already has more roots. The university has established collaboration in the Baltic area as one of its main focuses in terms of foreign development relations aimed at closer ties between academia and society at large. The university is the coordinator of the Baltic Sea Region University Network (Baltic Sea Region University Network), established in 2000, which brings together 22 universities in this region. The study programs Baltic Sea Region Studies and European Studies, taught at the university, are carried out largely with the support of this collaborative network.

Activity at European level

In addition to international collaboration with neighboring countries, the University of Turku participates in various projects at the European level. Since 1995, the university has been a member of the Coimbra Group, which brings together 37 European universities, and participates in numerous projects including, among others, a scholarship program for young professors and researchers from Latin American universities (Scholarships Program for Young Professors and Researcher from Latin American Universities).

At the European level, the University of Turku has both bilateral and multilateral agreements within the framework of community higher education programmes, for example Erasmus. There are exchange agreements for students and teachers, also with several Spanish universities. It should also be noted that the University of Turku is, along with the University of Helsinki, another of the two Finnish universities where you can study a Bachelor's degree in the specialty of Spanish Language, and the only one that has it in Translation from Spanish.

Activity in the Peruvian Amazon

The University of Turku, together with the Finnish consultancy Biota BD and the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute, are working on the Biological Diversity of the Peruvian Amazon (BIODAMAZ) project whose general objective is the conservation and sustainable use of diversity Amazon biological diversity to promote sustainable development and poverty alleviation through fulfillment of its purpose of developing decentralized capacities, management instruments and research methodologies for the sustainable management of biological diversity.