Presidency reports

The BUP National Centre in Finland, which is located at Åbo Akademi University, held the BUP Presidency. This is their presidency report.

The year 2022 has been turbulent for the whole BUP cooperation, due to Russia’s offensive war in Ukraine. However, something positive is the return to a more normalized situation after the pandemic. BUP Finland is confident to again be able to arrange courses face to face after the Covid break.

Together with Riga Technical University and SWEDESD (Research and learning for sustainable development and global health) at Uppsala University, Åbo Akademi University arranged the first BUP Science Lab with a workshop in Riga in August 2022. After a break of two years, the BUP Teachers’ Course was also able to start a new round in the autumn.

Due to the Rectors’ Conference in Uppsala and the face-to-face meeting for BUP Centre Directors in Uppsala at the end of September, there was no opportunity or need for a meeting at Åbo Akademi. Besides our regular activities, i.e. two courses for teachers, production of course material, networking etc., the main occasion held due to the presidency was an online seminar on sustainable foot- and handprints at Finnish universities (i.e. BUP participating universities).  

We had plans and negotiations during the spring for the arrangement of a hackathon event for students on circular economy during the autumn. For the arrangements we were relying on our cooperation with the BUP participating universities Novia University of Applied Sciences and Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. To invite and arrange travels and accommodations for students from abroad is demanding but that would have been handled by BUP Finland. In the end, due to a limited schedule, the co-partners chose to host the event locally for only their own students. However, the discussion has begun, and it is possible to arrange a similar hackathon in the future where all BUP students can be invited.

Events during the presidency

The online seminar Sustainable foot- and handprints at Finnish Universities, was a two-hour event held on 17 November 2022. In the seminar we presented and discussed what efforts universities in Finland take to reduce their carbon footprint. Can this be measured? And what does carbon and biodiversity handprint mean?

The program consisted of three presentations and three shorter comments regarding the actual universities’ actions and thoughts about sustainable foot- and handprints. All viewpoints came from BUP participating universities in Finland, but the seminar was open for everybody interested.

The program:

University of Turku: Towards 2025 – Carbon Neutral and Sustainable Campus Life
Jutta Mäkinen, Sustainable Development Specialist, University of Turku.

Biodiversity Footprint Assessment in Organizations: Case JYU
Sami El Geneidy, Doctoral Researcher in Corporate Environmental Management from the University of Jyväskylä.

JYU’s path towards planetary well-being
Ulla Helimo, Sustainability specialist at division of policy and planning, University of Jyväskylä.

Shorter presentations by:
Sirpa Sandelin, SAMK – Satakunta University of Applied Sciences
Tomas Träskman, Arcada University of Applied Sciences
Otto Långvik, Novia University of Applied Sciences

The seminar was informative and interesting and generated good discussions and further thoughts. Therefore, we see it possible to follow up the theme with a new seminar in autumn 2023. In the second seminar it would be interesting to also invite speakers from BUP participating universities outside of Finland.

The online seminar had 23 participants and is also available on Youtube:
View the playlist with all recorded presentations on Youtube
View recording of all three shorter presentations on Youtube