Building Higher Education Cooperation Across Regions: The Case of Finnish-Russian Double Degree Programmes

The article explores internationalisation in the context of current international relations and neighbourhood policy between the EU, in particular, Finland and Russia to which cross-border higher education cooperation has not been a priority anymore: geographically they are the neighbours but do not consider themselves as such at the policy level. The authors study such practical issues of double degree management at the university level as the reasons to start double degree programmes, their curricula harmonisation, quality assurance procedures and financial management developed by five Finnish and ten Russian universities in previous cross-border regional initiatives and current internationalisation policies. The article is based on Finnish-Russian research and Action project ‘Towards Good Neighbourliness with Higher Education Cooperation 2017-2020’ EDUneighbours