Organizers
The Summer School is organized by Ruralia Institute. Partners are Rural Studies Network, Mikkeli University Consortium and the Westermark Society.
Organizing Institute
The organizing institute is the Ruralia Institute, which is an independently administrated multidisciplinary expert institute at the University of Helsinki. The mission of the Institute is to improve the welfare of rural people and develop the sources of livelihood in the rural areas through research, development, education and training. Ruralia Institute constitutes of two units: Mikkeli and Seinäjoki. In total the institute has about 70 employees.
The expertise of the Institute is focused on multidisciplinary rural expertise, organic food chains and co-operative entrepreneurship. The activities of the Ruralia Institute are multidisciplinary research, education and research based innovation development. On its activities Ruralia Institute creates new operations models and innovations based on the combination of scientific competence and practical knowledge. The development activities of the Institute serve economic life, foster innovation activities and support regional development.
Multidisciplinary rural expertise deals with entrepreneurship, policy, culture, communities and services. Organic food chains cover the whole chain from ecological farming to consumers. Co-operation and co-operative entrepreneurship are concerned also the well-being of the society alongside the economical improvement.
The academic research carried out by the Institute is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach to various issues of rural development. Research topics and questions are generated and evaluated in close co-operation with practical rural development activities at the Institute and various networks beyond.
Ruralia Institute does regional, national and international cooperation. The partners in cooperation are various faculties and Schools of the University of Helsinki, other Finnish and foreign universities and institutes. Ruralia Institute has wide regional, national and international networks that include both academic institutions and organizations responsible for rural development. Transnational projects play a particularly important role in the activities of the institute. European wide co-operation is well established in Ruralia, and project activities and interest in Russia and Asia are increasing. Ruralia Institute is a partner of the Mikkeli University Consortium and the University Consortium of Seinäjoki.
Partners
Rural Studies Network
Rural Studies is a multidisciplinary partnership network of six universities, which has a networked management system and politics. It offers its students academic teaching in rural studies, brings forth interdisciplinary master’s degree studies in the field and develops teaching and research. The network serves students and teachers at universities, interested in rural questions. The aim is to bring additional value to the development and internationalisation of the rural field. The Rural Studies programme offers ca. 80 credits of studies, from which the students construct a secondary subject for themselves.
The Rural Studies teaching is carried out both as intensive studies and e-learning. The students accepted in the programme have a right to study in all the member universities. The co-ordination unit is Ruralia Institute of the University of Helsinki.
MUC, Mikkeli University Consortium
Mikkeli University Consortium (MUC) gathers together university activities in Mikkeli. It consists of four universities: University of Helsinki, Aalto University (School of Economics), Lappeenranta University of Technology and University of Eastern Finland. It was established by the Ministry of Education in 2004. MUC is a scientific community, whose activities are premised on scientific research, university education and interaction with the surrounding society. It’s strengths lies in the solid fields of know-how, based on the scientific expertise of the four universities.
The Westermarck Society
The Westermarck Society was founded in 1940 for the preservation of the work and memory of Edward Westermarck and for the advancement of sociology in Finland. The Society arranges regularly the National Meeting (annually) and the Edward Westermarck Memorial Lecture. It organises seminars for sociologists and people interested in sociology. It publishes the quarterly Sosiologia (in Finnish, with English abstracts).
The Westermarck Society is a member of the Nordic Sociological Association (NSF), the European Sociological Association (ESA), and the International Sociological Association (ISA).