YUFE Alliance

YUFE partners

• Maastricht University (coordinator) - Netherlands
• Carlos III University of Madrid - Spain
• Nicolaus Copernicus University of Torún - Poland
• Sorbonne Nouvelle University - France
• University of Antwerpen - Belgium
• University of Bremen - Germany
• University of Cyprus - Cyprus
• University of Eastern Finland - Finland
• University of Essex - United Kingdom
• University of Rijeka – Croatia

YUFE associated partners

• Adecco Group France
• ETS Global

YUFE’s first bachelor’s degree programme for Urban Sustainability was launched in Autumn 2025. You can apply for the programme yearly through different YUFE universities.

The bachelor’s degree programme includes one academic year abroad, during which you can study YUFE Minors in other member universities. Upon graduation, the student will receive a European Bachelor’s Degree.

Read more about the YUFE bachelor’s degree programme from the University of Eastern Finland and YUFE websites.

The YUFE Alliance has also brought the opportunity for lifelong learning available for everyone. The University of Eastern Finland has the main responsibilities for developing these courses.

You can read more about lifelong learning courses in English on YUFE’s Citizens & Lifelong Learners website.

YUFE Academy

YUFE Academy is a free and open-for-all series of lectures, workshops, and events. It is mainly hosted in English, but the series includes individual activities in other languages, even in Finnish.

YUFE Academy is held during October and again around May-June. The lectures offered will differ every time. You can participate online or in person depending on the activity.

YUFE Skills of the Future

Skills of the Future programme is a shared "open university" provided by the YUFE universities. The programme offers courses to develop your skills, and study credits can be earned from many courses. Most of the courses charge a fee. The language of instruction is mainly English.

The mode of study for the courses varies between online and part or full-time in-person studies. You can find the available course on the Skills of the Future Programme Course Catalogue website.

You can combine vacationing with high quality studies that can earn you credits with intensive Summer and Winter schools. You can learn more about these schools from the Master Skills of the Future website.

To be applicable for enrolment, you must join the YUFE Skills of the Future programme through the YUFE Virtual Campus for Citizens website.

Each student can choose what they want to study in the programme and for how long.

The organising university will issue a certificate for individual courses, while YUFE will issue a collective certificate from all courses completed during the programme.

In the future it will be possible to complete small YUFE level study modules.

Online Conversation Practice (OCP)

The open-for-all Online Conversation Practice (OCP) Online Language Café begins in Autumn 2025.

Online Language Cafés are designed to help maintain and develop spoken language skills. The instructors are pedagogically competent language teachers. The group gathers for 10 sessions. The courses include a participation fee.

The first languages available are English, Dutch, and French. You can learn more about Language Cafés in YUFE Virtual Campus in the Language Development section. Remember to filter the Learner group results for Citizen.

The YUFE Alliance aims to be an active part of everyday life of our campus cities and offer its citizens opportunities to participate in international activities.

YUFE Friend

YUFE Friend programme, where local citizens and families help foreign university students and staff to acclimate to their new environment. In return, the locals have the possibility to meet new people, learn about new cultures, and improve their language skills. If a local participant invests more than 50 hours of their time, they may receive a YUFE Civic Star award for their volunteer work. For more information, contact Kirsi Karjalainen via email: [email protected].

YUFE Help Desk

YUFE Help Desk, students of YUFE universities offer their expertise as volunteers either online or in person. The University of Eastern Finland offers a Finnish-English-Finnish language help desk. Other services are being developed. More information on our website.

YUFE Challenge Teams

YUFE Challenge Teams, through which campus cities, organisations, and companies can ask for assistance to different issues from the international YUFE student team. The team will work together with their academic instructor to resolve the issue for several months and propose an in-depth interdisciplinary suggestion. For more information, see YUFE Virtual Campus for Organisations website.

Open and free events

Different free events, such as the YUFE Academy Event and YUFE International Café, are open for everyone. You can participate in these events either online in English or in-person in the campus cities of the University of Eastern Finland in Finnish or English. You can sign-up for the event through the YUFE Virtual Campus.

YUFE4Postdocs recruited postdoctoral researchers for 36-month contracts in the YUFE universities. Programme includes interactive stakeholder engagement seminars and a variety of joint transferable skills training sessions.

Postdocs work and collaborate within the following YUFE universities: University of Antwerp, University of Eastern Finland, University of Bremen, University of Cyprus, Maastricht University, Universidad Carlos III De Madrid, University of Rijeka, Nicolaus Copernicus University and University of Essex.

Read more about YUFE4Postdocs project on YUFE website.