Uniting organizations and highly educated international talents

In times of spiking graduate unemployment and general uncertainty on the labour market, it is important to remember the increasing amounts of international students and young researchers who are also looking for their future in the Finnish working life.

The University of Turku, Turku University of Applied Sciences and Åbo Akademi University have joined forces for the UNICOM+ initiative, which aims at developing employment and entrepreneurship services specifically targeted to our over 2500 highly educated international students and young researchers. The project is co-funded by EU (ESF+) and a continuation of the previous UNICOM project (2021-2023).  

With UNICOM+, we also want to support employers in the region by offering low-threshold encounters and networking with students. For our students and young researchers, the services will consist of increasing connections between international and Finnish or Swedish speaking students, discovering entrepreneurship possibilities, providing opportunities to visit or collaborate with local organizations and supporting cultural awareness and understanding of the local work life culture.  

UNICOM+ will operate until the end of 2027, has a budget of 1.1 million euros, and is the biggest joint effort to support inclusivity of the labour market and integration of our international talents.  

Contact details 

Lotta Metsärinne, Project planner and Career Counsellor, University of Turku
lotta.metsarinne@utu.fi 

Lucia Vuillermin, International Relations Coordinator and Career Counsellor, Turku University of Applied Sciences
lucia.vuillermin@turkuamk.fi