Talking leadership: Ilkka Niemelä on attracting international talent

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Ilkka Niemelä leads Finland’s Aalto University, but his ambition goes beyond a single institution. The university president – now on his second five-year term – believes that the future of higher education is going to be more diverse and more flexible than ever before. And he’s doing what he can to ready the country for it – even if it means taking stances against government views.

Since 2019, the computer scientist has been chair of the steering group for Digivisio 2030, established to create a nationwide digital platform for flexible learning. Accessible to both domestic and international students, its first version is expected to be launched next year.

The platform is set to provide access to university programmes across the country, while artificial intelligence, Niemelä’s specialism, is being used to provide learners with tailored options and advice on study pathways. Niemelä says it makes it possible for students abroad to dip their toes in the Finnish system without getting into the “intricacies” of it all. 

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All 38 Finnish higher education institutions have agreed to participate in the effort, which is largely funded by the government. 

“Our working careers are getting longer. And technological and other developments require us to rescale and upskill ourselves much more frequently,” explains Niemelä, making a case for why higher education urgently needs to become more flexible.

He adds that this re-skilling is particularly important in countries such as Finland, where birth rates are falling and life expectancy is rising.

Another important factor is attracting international talent to Finland and retaining it.

“Our [Finland’s] economic competitiveness and growth is very much driven by people with higher education and research capabilities,” Niemelä says, pointing to data that show 67 per cent of the country’s productivity comes from new ideas, innovations and new technology. In other words, research is key to keeping Finland where it is, economically. With a dramatic decline in birth rates, the role of foreign researchers has risen to meet this need.

Testament to this, his own institution, Aalto University, is the country’s most international university, based on the latest Times Higher Education table, which uses metrics on the share of international students, staff, co-authorship and reputation. In the 2024 list, the Espoo-based institution ranks in 53rd place globally.

Niemelä credits this to a strong international presence among staff: 48 per cent are foreigners. Aalto, which was set up only in 2010, also adopts a US-style tenure track system, which he says has helped attract scholars worldwide. Meanwhile, the institution has remodelled its course offerings so that three-quarters of postgraduate programmes are offered in English, making it more accessible to learners from abroad.

Data-driven marketing has been employed too, to target countries that dominate in terms of internationally mobile students and faculty. China, India and Vietnam top the list.

The president also highlights how the university helps international students with early integration, exposing them to the Finnish working culture.

“We invite our key corporate partners to provide mentors for students that have just started their studies in Finland, so that the students start understanding how Finnish working life looks like and how the companies operate,” he says. This helps to soften the culture shock that can make it hard for foreign students to succeed.

Cultural norms, according to Niemelä, include things like low hierarchies in the workplace: “You can approach anybody. You don’t really need to go through a network of secretaries.” Work ethic is also about being self-driven, with expectations of autonomy and initiative.

Students at Aalto are encouraged to focus their master’s theses on companies or working life in Finland, giving them a head-start on networking.

Under Niemelä, Aalto has achieved much in internationalisation. But this vision for higher education in Finland has been met with challenge over the past year.

In June 2023, a multi-party government took over the nation and the coalition included the anti-immigration Finns Party. Not long into assuming power, the new government tabled immigration revisions that would make it harder for foreign students to study in Finland as well as to attain post-study work visas. Among the changes considered has been a three-month deadline for international students to find jobs post-graduation and increasing tuition fees for non-EU students.

“I actually took a very strong public stand against that,” the university president says, adding that he has been calling for the decision-makers to support an “international Finland”. The campaign has been covered by national news and gained support on social media.

Typically, he says, he wouldn’t get involved in politics, but he made an exception on this matter, partly because the potential policy changes directly affect the operation and ideals of the university: “I felt that this is something that is not good for Finland, and it’s something that we don’t believe in at all.”

He hopes that, because he is speaking out, the international community in Aalto will be affirmed that the university understands their challenges and is “willing to take a stand” for them.

However, the plans have not yet been made into legislation and Niemelä remains hopeful: “I believe that we will find a sensible way out of this. Finland is still very much needing the international talent.” 

His belief in an international community is not just rooted in Finland’s demographic change but in his own life story. 

Niemelä was an exchange student in secondary school and spent time in Switzerland and Sweden while he was in college. He set off for the US and Germany for his post-doctoral studies, before returning to Finland as a professor of computer science in 2000.

Even when back in his home country, he has always ended up collaborating with scholars worldwide, he says. His field of artificial intelligence is very international, while during his years at Aalto he has seen the value of global partners across disciplines.

“This is what drives research forward: putting together different perspectives and understanding different viewpoints,” he says.

“At Aalto, we really believe in the power of bringing people together, so I think that it’s a kind of an environment where they are actually needed and very, very welcome.”

This is part of our “Talking leadership” series with the people running the world’s top universities about how they solve common strategic issues and implement change. Follow the series here.