Let's Unite! – Get to know Melina Nummi
The Unite! community introduces itself
2022/05/19
Unite! is a living and constantly growing alliance. Many people at the seven (soon to be nine) partner universities are working on different projects to make a European University a reality. We show who they are and what exactly they are doing in the series “Let's Unite! – Get to know…” and start with Melina Nummi from Aalto University.
Melina Nummi is the planning officer for international mobility at Aalto University. Within Unite! she also works in TF3 (Joint Mobility Centre) and TF6 (Mobility for All – Students). Her interest in enabling internationalisation for everyone, comes from her own background as she has studied and worked outside Finland for quite many years before starting at Aalto. And perhaps therefore, it is not only something she does for work, but also something that she likes to have, in some way or another as a part of her everyday life as well. For instance through volunteering in different projects related to internationalisation. In addition, she really loves hiking and spending time in the nature. For her, the best way to recharge her batteries is to spend some days in the middle of nowhere, sleep in a tent and with a limited access to any technology.
What future Unite! project are you particularly excited about and why do you think it is important for Unite!'s strategy?
I’m very excited about getting the virtual exchange going! I believe that we Unite! universities have so much potential for creating innovative courses by combining our expertise and know-how through virtual exchange and getting our students to cooperate with one another online. This would also be more inclusive and ensure that everyone regardless of their situation in life, will be given the chance to get an international touch and aspects into their degree. I am very much hoping that this would also inspire the students to start creating virtual cooperation projects by themselves as well.
I think setting up virtual exchanges is important for Unite!’s strategy as it also allows the Unite! network to increase the amount of students taking part in the Unite! activities and it enables widening participation. These courses could also be used for creating learning content which can provide our students the required skills to be able to contribute to rapidly changing demands in the European job market by utilising the expertise we have in the different Unite! universities.
In addition collaborative virtual exchange courses can give our students more tools to be able to develop solutions for the various challenges we are facing by allowing our students to come together to study and work on projects on more regular basis online and without the hassle of travelling.
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What is happening in your TF? Anything interesting to share with the Unite! community?
We are working on the Unite! internship concept as well as starting with the virtual exchange topic more in depth. So hopefully soon we will be able to start piloting with one or two virtual exchange courses and then we will be able to tell more.
From your point of view, what is the advantage of working or studyingat a Unite! university? what do you think is special about the Unite! network?
Unite! universities have been collaborating for a long period of time, already before the European Universities initiative, and thus it is easier to start building something innovative and new. The Unite universities are good at supporting innovation and start-ups and I think this is also one of the things how we stand out. But it is a really important question that how is the Unite! Network special and I hope that we will focus more in finding out how we stand out from all the other European University networks by getting to know each other better.
Unite!/mho
About the task forces 3 and task force 6
The Joint Mobility Centre (JMC) within the TF3 has the mission of promoting the mobility of the students through the implementation of tools and procedures that will boost, simplify and support student mobility. This task force's main mission is to harmonize the work of our Mobility officers in order to make the placement process for short and extended mobility a smooth process both for the staff and the students.
The task force “Mobility4All Students” within TF6 works on the backbone of the Unite! alliance, which is the creation of a transnational multi-campus in which mobility at all levels, both horizontally and vertically, for all is a reality. This task force's main mission is to build a tight, well structured and sustainable “mobility for all” environment
About Unite!
Alongside TU Darmstadt as the coordinator, Unite! (University Network for Innovation, Technology and Engineering) also includes Aalto University (Finland), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Grenoble Institute of Technology (France), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain) and Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal).
The seven partner universities aim to use the European University to create a trans-European campus for students and researchers with the involvement of regions and companies. The partners have a total of 167,000 students, already cooperate closely in more than 80 EU projects and have exchanged more than 2,000 students in the past five years. The alliance has set itself the goal of combining courses for the benefit of students, breaking down existing technical and administrative hurdles, and thus significantly increasing student mobility. Research will also benefit from the conditions created for larger and easier cooperation, which will strengthen the competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area overall.