UH: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Luis Almagro from Uruguay visits University of Helsinki on 7.10.2010

The Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry (University of Helsinki) participates in the Global Industrial Forestry Network (GIFN). The network consists of five members: University of Helsinki and the Swedish Agricultural University SLU from the Northern hemisphere as well as in the south, the Universidad de la República from Uruguay, Universidad do São Paulo from Brazil and University of Stellenbosch from South Africa.

The GIFN initiative started as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue to promote multidisciplinary approaches on sustainable use of managed forests. The members aim at developing the highest standards in academic education, research, and expert capacity in the field of managed forests to respond to the demands of highly qualified professional foresters in a globalising forestry sector.

The network promotes open dialogue and active exchange of information among forest stakeholders, and thus is fully committed to support social sustainability, social responsibility, and social acceptability of managed forests worldwide.

Since 2007, when the first meeting of GIFN was held, four summer courses has been arranged in Helsinki, one summer course in Brazil (2009) and one in Uruguay (2010).
There has been academic staff from Uruguay on all courses as well as Uruguayan students on the course organized in Uruguay. The courses always utilize lecturers from the GIFN as well as local academic staff and experts. The co-operation has also lead to other forms of co-operation like common courses and shared supervision.

?During the years Uruguayan lectures have been given to students from more than 30 different countries. Finnish students have found their way to Uruguay. We have found the co-operation most beneficial and we hope we will be able to further develop it. There are already plans for PhD projects and other research projects connected to GIFN,? says professor Bo Dahlin from the Department of Forest Sciences.

The first steps of the cooperation between Aalto University School of Science and Technology and Uruguayan Universidad de la República were taken in 2006. The principal objective of the cooperation is to create high quality scientific capacity in pulp and paper making in Uruguay. A project for creating a Master's Program in Pulp and Paper Technology was started in 2007. During the first stage of the Project, nearly 20 students attended the whole Master's Program; dozens of other students from industrial companies or universities and other public institutions attended individual courses of the Project. The Project's second phase started in April 2010, and there are currently 15 students attending the whole Master's Program.

?The Master?s Program Project has been funded by Finnish and Uruguayan public sources and several Finnish-based industrial companies, such as Metsä-Botnia, Andritz, Kemira, Pöyry Forest Industries, Stora-Enso and UPM-Kymmene. In addition to funding, the companies have offered lecturers for the courses throughout the cooperation Program. During the cooperation, five Uruguayan students have carried out their master's thesis works at our department ,? says Teaching Researcher Kyösti Ruuttunen from Aalto University School of Science and Technology.

For more information please contact:
- Gabriela Albarracin Gabriela.Albarracin@helsinki.fi, +358 9 191 57967 (Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry and the visit of the delegation in
general)
- Kyösti Ruuttunen kyosti.ruuttunen@tkk.fi, +358 9 470 24228 (Aalto University School of Science and Technology)

Yours sincerely,

Karin Hannukainen

PR & Information Officer
University of Helsinki
University Communications
P.O.Box 33 ( Fabianinkatu 18)
00014 University of Helsinki
e-mail: karin.hannukainen@helsinki.fi
tel.+ 358 9 191 223 32, GSM +358 50 415 0328

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