Talent Hub Eastern Finland

Tal­ent Hub East­ern Fin­land is an ESF+ fund­ed joint project imple­ment­ed in coop­er­a­tion between six edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions from dif­fer­ent lev­els of edu­ca­tion in the regions of North Kare­lia and North Savo. In addi­tion to Kare­lia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, the project part­ners include the Uni­ver­si­ty of East­ern Fin­land, Savo­nia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, Rive­ria (North Kare­lia Munic­i­pal Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing Con­sor­tium), Savo Voca­tion­al Col­lege, and Ylä-Savo Voca­tion­al Col­lege.

The shared goal of the part­ner insti­tu­tions is to increase the employ­ment of inter­na­tion­al stu­dents in the region after grad­u­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sec­tors fac­ing labor short­ages. Entre­pre­neur­ship is one pos­si­ble path­way to employ­ment. The project con­sists of four work pack­ages, imple­ment­ed by the insti­tu­tions in their respec­tive sub-projects, with col­lab­o­ra­tion across the orga­ni­za­tions.

The Tal­ent Hub East­ern Fin­land project has devel­oped solu­tions that help inter­na­tion­al stu­dents strength­en com­pe­ten­cies that are impor­tant for employ­ment. It also offers oper­at­ing mod­els for com­pa­nies to sup­port them in rec­og­niz­ing inter­na­tion­al stu­dents as a poten­tial work­force and in strength­en­ing their net­works with the high­er edu­ca­tion com­mu­ni­ty.

The activ­i­ties of Kare­lia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences with­in the project sup­port the strate­gic pri­or­i­ty of “edu­ca­tion-based immi­gra­tion” out­lined in Karelia’s strat­e­gy, as well as the Tal­ent Boost pro­gramme coor­di­nat­ed by the Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs and Employ­ment togeth­er with the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture.

The imple­men­ta­tion peri­od at Kare­lia Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences is from 1 Octo­ber 2023 to 31 Decem­ber 2027.