On September 17, 2026, Mari-Leena Talvitie, the Finnish Minister of Science and Culture, and Sari Lindblom, the President of the University of Helsinki, along with their delegation, visited the Suzhou Campus of Nanjing University and Nanjing-Helsinki Institute in Atmospheric and Earth System Sciences (NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute). Tan Tieniu, Chair of NJU CPC Council and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, met with the delegation.

Tan Tieniu extended a warm welcome to Minister Talvitie and Lindblom's delegation. He pointed out that China and Finland are continuously building a new type of forward-looking partnership. Nanjing University adheres to the principle of openness and international development and places a high priority on friendly cooperation with Finland in science, education, and culture. The NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute, jointly established by NJU and the University of Helsinki, has become a model and exemplar for Sino-Finnish cooperation in science and education. Tan Tieniu stated his expectations for a deeper and more comprehensive collaboration with Finland in the future, including exploring new cooperation areas, fields, and modalities; enhancing exchanges with more Finnish universities; uncovering potential in emerging interdisciplinary fields such as AI governance and sustainable development; promoting faculty and student exchanges; and establishing long-term, stable, and routine research collaboration platforms.

Minister Talvitie expressed her gratitude to NJU for the warm reception. She noted that environmental science, climate change, and sustainable development are priority collaborative research areas jointly identified by China and Finland. The collaboration between NJU and the University of Helsinki in the field of atmospheric and earth system sciences serves as one of the best-practice examples of bilateral research cooperation yielding concrete results. Talvitie highly praised the development of the NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute, stating that the Institute has gathered a team of renowned high-level experts both domestically and internationally, and has become one of the most important science and education cooperation platforms between China and Finland. She expressed her hope that, using the Institute as a benchmark, the two countries would continue to deepen practical cooperation between universities in talent development and the exchange of young researchers. The Finnish Embassy in China and the Consulate General in Shanghai would continue to support the construction and development of the NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute in various ways.

Lindblom emphasized that the established foundation of high-level research over decades has laid a solid basis for cooperation between the two universities, and sustainable, high-level research collaboration is a significant guarantee for the success of talent development. The NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute serves as a vivid embodiment of this model. The Institute adopts an all-English teaching curriculum, with a steadily growing number of students in its programs. Graduates are equipped with the comprehensive skills to address global issues and have broad development opportunities both domestically and internationally. The two universities will focus on tackling global environmental challenges together, jointly contributing to global sustainable development.

Both sides also engaged in pragmatic discussions concerning the deepening of Sino-Finnish higher education, scientific research innovation, talent development, and cutting-edge topics such as AI governance, climate change, and sustainable development. Jiang Tian, Assistant President of NJU, along with representatives and officials from the NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute, School of Sustainable Energy and Resources, School of Intelligence Science and Technology, International Affairs Office, Suzhou Campus Office, Undergraduate School, and Graduate School, attended the meeting.

That afternoon, the delegation, accompanied by Jiang Tian, Assistant President of NJU, and Lu Andong, Director of the International Affairs Office, conducted an on-site visit to the NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute. Ding Aijun, Dean of the Institute, provided a detailed overview of the Institute's development history, faculty, research activities, bachelor-master-Ph.D training programs, as well as recent progress in institutional development and student cultivation. His presentation was highly appreciated by the delegation. During the visit, Lindblom also engaged in exchanges with Finnish teachers to learn about their living and working conditions here, and encouraged them to actively conduct comparative studies on education between China and Finland in their teaching practices, thereby contributing to the educational development of the NJU Nanjing-Helsinki Institute and fostering Sino-Finnish educational research cooperation.

Some content is sourced from Nanjing University News.