Aalto University (Aalto) http://www.aalto.fi/en/ is a foundation-based university comprising science, technology, business, and arts. Aalto has six schools with nearly 20 000 students and 4 000 employees, 386 of whom are Professors. Aalto is hosting seven Centers of Excellence and 21 European Research Council grants. Key research areas are ICT and digitalization, materials and sustainable use of natural resources, art and design knowledge building, and global business dynamics. The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre FINEEC conducted an audit and approved Aalto University’s quality system in 2016. Aalto offers more than 50 Master’s programmes, 6 Ph.D. programmes and two B.Sc programmes in English. Innovation and entrepreneurship studies are offered to all students.
Graduates employability and to identify desired working skills is one of the strategic development goals at Aalto University. Work life-academia relationships is an internal project to strengthen the working life capabilities of students by leveraging deep industry-academia relationships in educational projects, courses, and internships
Activities and experience of the partner organization
Aalto four schools of science and technology (Science – SCI, Electrical Engineering- ELEC, Engineering – ENG and Chemical Engineering – CHEM) are experienced in joint programmes leading into double degrees with European partner universities. SCI and ELEC are participating into two Erasmus Mundus programmes and to EIT Digital ICT Innovation master- programme with six majors in cooperation with a dozen other high quality technical universities in Europe. SCI is participating in EIT Raw Materials KIC with a Master’s programme in Advanced Materials for Innovation and Sustainability with four EU partner universities. There are five Nordic Master programmes at ENG. SCI is also piloting PhD double degree collaboration with IIT Madras since 2017. SCI and ELEC are running two master-level double degree programmes with Russian university ITMO since 2016 as first DD scheme with non-European partners.
Key Persons
The contact persons of the project at Aalto University are Professor Katrina Nordstöm, International Relations Manager Anita Bisi and International Relations Manager Eija Kujanpää.
Professor Katrina Nordstöm:
1998 – Present, Full Professor, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems, School of Chemical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland
1994 – 1998 Assistant professor, Department Chemical technology, School of Chemical Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
1990 – 1994 Senior Research Fellow, Academy of Finland, School of Chemical Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
1983 – 1988 Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior research Associate, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
1979 – 1983 Ph.D. Student, University of London, UK
Prof. Nordström has been involved with five Erasmus plus projects as of 2014. Katrina Nordström is currently Secretary General for the CLUSTER consortium, partnering with 12 top engineering universities in Europe and associate partners around the world as well as 18 top Chinese Universities in China (SEEEP network). She has been responsible professor of the Biotechnology major (2015-2017), the leader of the Degree Program for Chemical Technology (2014-2016) and Vice chair of the Department of Biotechnology and Chemical technology (2008-2011). She has published widely in engineering education research, as well as Biotechnology, and she has pioneered the development of digitalized multidisciplinary teaching and learning spaces at Aalto University. Professor Nordström has supervised 17 Ph.D. theses and 152 M.Sc. theses.
Prof. Nordström is Member of the Aalto University Academic Affairs Committee (2014 – 2017 and 2018 – 2021) and Member of the Board for Evaluation of University and Applied University – education of the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) (2015-2018), under the Ministry of Education and Culture. She has held several positions of trust at the level of the University and the State of Finland as well as internationally.
M.Sc Anita Bisi, International Relations Manager, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering since 1997. Been developing international Master’s Programmes and student services since 1997. Responsible for Erasmus student and staff exchange agreements and bilateral agreements as well as double degree and cotutelle agreements at the School of Electrical Engineering. Coordinator of Erasmus + Credit mobility exchanges with Morocco and Algeria. Has been working on Erasmus Mundus Action 2 mobility projects with India (India4EU), Japan, Korea (TEAM) and EECA countries (EUROEAST). Team leader of the Programme Support Team for pedagogical development and internationalization.
M.Sc Eija Kujanpää, International Relations Manager, Aalto University School of Science since 2003. Coordinator of Erasmus Mundus programme since 2006. Responsible for Erasmus student and staff exchange agreements and bilateral agreements with non-EU partners in India, Japan, Israel and Russia. Coordinator of Erasmus + Credit mobility exchanges with Russia, Israel, India, South Africa. She has been working on Erasmus Mundus Action 2 mobility project with Brazil “Smart cities smart grids” (http://em-smart2.eu/) project). She has been involved in the development of various joint study programs at School of Science: Erasmus Mundus programmes since 2006, development of EIT Digital programmes since 2012 and EIT Raw Materials programmes since 2016. Administrative project coordinator for Phd double degree collaboration with IIT Madras.