Aalto hosted staff visitors from Colombia and India through the Erasmus+ Global Mobility collaboration 

Professor Silvia Caro from Uni Andes, Bogotá, at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering visited the School of Engineering. Her programme at Aalto University included meeting colleagues in the Department of Civil Engineering as well as members of the international relations staff. Silvia also had the chance to visit the Product Design Gala and to meet with her former PhD student and a former Uni Andes student, Daniel Castillo, who is currently working as a PostDoc at Aalto University School of Engineering. Professor Caro is also President for the Magalhães network, which is a network of European, Latin American universities in the field STEM, created to promote and support graduate student exchanges between the member universities. Aalto University schools of engineering and technology have bilateral student exchange agreements with some of the network's member institutions, Uni Andes being one of them. Uni Andes is a private university founded in 1948. It has 18 500 students and 737 faculty members. The university campus is located in the centre of Bogotá. Uni Andes is developing virtual studies and degrees and work closely with the other universities in the city.  

Guests from India included the Senior Executive Officer, Ms. Vani Samuel from the Office of Global Engagement at IIT Madras in Chennai and two Coordinators from the International Relations Office at IIT Bombay, Ms. Sushma Jagtap and Ms. Chandrika Naik. IITs, Indian Institute of Technologies, are prestigious universities in India and the students who graduate from IITs are highly valued on the job market.  

"We are happy to visit Aalto and to learn more about how Aalto manages international exchanges”, said Sushma Jagtap from IIT Bombay.  

Also Aalto staff sees the value in the staff visits.
 
"Staff visits are good for exchange co-operation. In addition, that it it’s just lovely to meet the people behind the e-mails, being able to meet face-to-face with colleagues from partner universities also strengthens the mutual trust. With familiar faces it is always smoother to successfully manage the students’ exchanges and it feels good to be able to personally convince the students that there are welcoming and care-taking staff members to meet them at the host universities", Mari Dagnall, Planning Officer in International Mobility at the School of Science reflects.  

About Erasmus+ Global Mobility

Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility with Partner Countries, also known as Erasmus+ Global Mobility refers to the mobility of students & staff between European higher educational institutions and non-European (bi-lateral) partners. Global Mobility offers unique opportunities to study, teach and work in countries outside Europe. The participants can gain new qualifications and skills in an international environment and also improve their language skills. This funding opportunity can be used to further or initiate research collaboration, joint thesis supervision, short research mobility period, exchange studies and staff training.
 
The programme is aimed at 

• students and staff at Aalto University 
• international students and staff from Aalto's selected partner institutions 

The current Global Mobility projects with Colombia and India are valid until 31 July 2022. New Erasmus+ Global Mobility projects will be listed on Erasmus Global Mobility (see below).