Nowadays internationalization is one of the hottest trends of the different educational levels in Finland. I´m certain that Universities around the globe have this same goal. So actually almost every academic organization, researcher, teacher – or even student – has pressure to cooperate also internationally. Or maybe pressure is a wrong term, maybe a better phrase would be that almost everyone would benefit from this kind of cooperation.  After all the years I´m still feeling like a rookie but with a little help from my fri… supervisors – Tapani Köppä, Eliisa Troberg and now with Hagen Henrÿ – I have had an unusual pleasure to meet multidisciplinary global experts working with research, teaching and development work of the co-operative company model.

But what is internationalization then? There are certainly good descriptions but I like to see that it is at the best both give and take – and between those processes there is dialogue. So we shouldn´t be just tourists flying around to listen to people, watch their presentations and read their papers in this kind of “take”. All this is beneficial but we should also “give”; write, teach – describe what we have researched, done, figured out – or what problems we have struggled with. Our team has learned a lot in different international seminars, workshops and meetings so we should return this favor and both challenge and inspire our global networks. This is executed at best through open dialogue where nobody will constantly have to be worried that their ideas could and will be stolen or copied.

With internationalization the most important thing seems to be that you have to roll your sleeves and start doing something based on our work, knowledge and networks. It´s like starting a new relationship – hardly ever somebody comes to get you from your home (or work office…).  Most importantly this internationalization should be an integral part of your work, so when you are doing it – you are doing your actual work. So here are our two latest (internationalization) moves.

Firstly, our “Co-operative Studies in Education Curricula. New Forms of Learning and Teaching” -book was just published. It was written in cooperation with RULESCOOP-network, which is a network of 28 European and Latin-American universities, bringing together institutions and groups who work in social and solidarity economy organizations and in cooperatives, in particular. The book is based on papers, presentations and discussions in the 10th Meeting/research seminar of RULESCOOP that was held on May 30–31, 2016 in Helsinki by our University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute co-operative team, led by research director Hagen Henrÿ. Some articles in the book are written in English, others in Spanish, but interestingly, even though the distance between Latin-America and Europe is great, the needs are the same – even though the solutions have been different. So if you want to know more about international views on co-operative studies in education curricula, this book could be a good place to start. It is also open announcement that we would like to do even more international cooperation within these questions. The themes of the former research conference and now of the book are the same:

1. Mainstreaming cooperative studies.
2. Doing together as a pedagogy.
3. Global networking for cooperative studies.

The published book is available in pdf-format here:
Hagen Henrÿ, Pekka Hytinkoski and Tytti Klén (eds.): CO-OPERATIVE STUDIES IN EDUCATION CURRICULA – New Forms of Learning and Teaching, Publications 35, University on Helsinki, Ruralia Institute.

Secondly, I want to use this situation to market our upcoming Helsinki Summer School 2018 -course “Cooperative law for sustainable development” that is led by our team´s supervisor Hagen Henrÿ. Hagen is well-known for his work on cooperative law in different countries, at the EU-level and globally. University of Helsinki has been – and is now even more strongly – connected to the wide range of issues of sustainable development – especially the problems of climate change, poverty and the loss of biodiversity. Because of this also the new Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) has just started and will put on a lot of effort and resources on complex problems through multidisciplinary research and solutions.

University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute and our co-operative team inside it want to support this work done by the University of Helsinki and the new HELSUS, Hagen´s new “Cooperative law for sustainable development” -course searches for the rationale of cooperative law in relation to sustainable development through questions and discussion with the students around the world. Helsinki Summer School is well-known for its contents which are connected both to the Helsinki area/Finland and to the students’ own (global) interests and perspectives. It´s like an “à la carte” -menu, a window to the specific research areas of University of Helsinki. From HSS-menu you could choose your favorite from these rare dishes and enjoy it with good international company. And if you like, during the after hours, there is a lot to do within the active HSS-social program.  Here´s more about our course – welcome to Helsinki in August 2018!

E-Learning Coordinator Pekka Hytinkoski is working at The University of Helsinki, Ruralia Institute.