Envoy to write education cooperation guidelines

Finland’s academic envoy to China, Mari-Anna Suurmunne, will produce guidelines on how higher education works in China, to increase Finnish-Chinese university cooperation, the Finnish government has said.

Suurmunne will spend three years aiming to intensify and expand cooperation between Finnish and Chinese universities, the education ministry said in a statement on 2 October. At the end of this period, she will also produce “a code of conduct that outlines clearer guidelines for the operation of higher education institutions in China”, it said.

The former head of international affairs at Aalto University in Helsinki has experience of building relations between Finland and China, according to the ministry. It said that she previously worked on negotiations between Aalto and Tongji University in Shanghai on the construction of a joint college of design and innovation campus.