Education cooperation at its best between Ankara University and the Embassy of Finland

How does academia-diplomacy cooperation work best? The Embassy has established a win-win relationship with Ankara University by organising regular events, workshops, events, lectures, seminars and visits together especially with their European Union Research Centre (ATAUM). ATAUM has benefitted from a lecture by the Foreign Minister and presentations by our trainees.

Trainees Saara Asikainen and Rondy Stenman give a presentation about the Finnish Foreign Ministry to ATAUM staff and students in early May 2023.

Ankara University European Union Research Centre (ATAUM) organises training and certificate programs in Turkish related to European Union and Türkiye– European Union relations. It has been the Embassy's close partner for many years, having established successful long-term cooperation.

Second Secretary Janne Leskinen explains how the Embassy’s association with ATAUM originated. “When I arrived at Ankara as a diplomat in 2021, I bumped into Dr. Pırıl Akın Ocak in a seminar by accident. She said to me that your Embassy and we have a long tradition of doing cooperation. We should meet. I'm happy we did since many of my predecessors were already active with ATAUM. I have always enjoyed working with them,” Leskinen said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our Embassy benefit from cooperation with universities and academia in many ways. First, we can tell the story of Finland and promote opportunities with Finland. Second, it allows the Embassy to learn more about Türkiye, gain valuable networks and explore new cooperation possibilities. Erasmus cooperation might be the best-known form of cooperation at the university level, but projects and initiatives can take many other forms as well.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland, H.E Mr. Pekka Haavisto after his lecture in February 2022 posing with students and staff of Ankara University. 

“Working with academia is something that we enjoy since researches have insights that we usually lack. The real understanding of many phenomena stems from observing and understanding the long-term trends,” Leskinen continues.

Besides Ankara University and ATAUM, the Embassy is open to cooperating with other universities in Türkiye. The Embassy is happy to connect universities to any relevant Finnish actors from businesses to research institutes to cities and people. “When boosting our bilateral relations education and research plays a central role,” Leskinen notes. “The research done in Türkiye is at a really high level – there are many things our scholars, researchers and business can learn from Turkish ones.”

If your institution would like to pursue academic cooperation with Finland, contact #TeamFinlandTürkiye at [email protected] or [email protected].

In the ATAUM building in autumn 2022 after a lecture about negotiation at the international level.

Janne Leskinen, Dr. Ms. Pırıl Akın Ocak and Dr. MR Feza Sencer Çörtoğlu at the Finnish Independence Day reception on December 5^th, 2022.