The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Figure 15.6 The proportion of the foreign population in different
countries in 2000 (%)
Austria
Germany
Belgium
France
Sweden
Denmark
Great Britain
Netherlands
Ireland
Spain
Italy
Portugal
Finland
Greece
Source: Münz (2003)
Challenges of the Global Information Society 365
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Percent (%)
The internationalisation of higher education
One of the best ways for integrating immigrants to society is to be
open to foreign students. Students have plenty of opportunities to
establish personal contacts during their studies and they often learn
the Finnish language easier than other people. Both these matters
help to gain a feeling of belonging to the new culture. It would be reasonable
to grant foreign students automatically the right to work after
graduation. Bureaucracy should be minimised.
However, internationalisation must be seen as a two-way road. We
can benefit from global expertise also by encouraging students to
include exchange periods in their studies.
The same applies to university researchers. Universities must make
serious efforts to recruit researchers globally. Ideally, top international
researchers should account for a considerable number of our university
professors.