Written by Levy del Aguila, Dean of the School of Management at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Peru

 

Between June 3 and 10, 2025, together with the Director of Studies of the School of Management and Senior Management, Mg. Juan Carlos Rivero, we had the opportunity to share a work experience with the International Business Program at Vassa University in Finland. The purpose was to begin developing a double degree program for management undergraduate students from the School Management at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and students from Vaasa. This project would be the first double degree for our program and the first for our Vaasa colleagues outside of Europe. Shortly before embarking on our trip, we learned that nearly 30 students from our program had been accepted to participate in the Summer School offered in Vaasa in the first weeks of August. We take this news as a good omen for future collaboration between our schools.

The focus of the meetings was the review of our respective curricula to find points of convergence and complementarity, so that it would be interesting for students from both universities to consider the opportunity to pursue a double degree. This opportunity will allow each of our students, by completing a year of studies at the partner university, to obtain their undergraduate diploma in the name of both universities. Of course, the benefit would not only be the opportunity to study at a different school and strengthen their academic curriculum, but also the experience of living an entire academic year in a significantly different country, with the emotional, cognitive, and cultural challenges that this entails.

It’s an opportunity I would have loved to have had when I was a student. It’s a great dream to think that in a few years, our students will be able to share this experience. During our conversations, we clearly saw that, although our educational institutions are different in several ways, we also had significant elements in common in our respective academic offerings. For example, our commitment to comprehensive management training that cultivates our students’ disposition and abilities to be open to a challenging future that will be marked by the imperative of flexibility and adaptation. Likewise, the typically Finnish and Nordic concerns associated with the challenges that the urgent need for sustainability poses for the world of organizations are also a defining feature of our university’s ethos, whose humanism and commitment to training responsible citizens has defined our School of Management since its inception 20 years ago.

 

 

 

Incidentally, our institutional meeting was not only a space for dialogue to identify the potential for promising joint work between both schools but was also an intercultural encounter. The intellectual openness, respectful treatment, and people skills of the University of Vaasa faculty and authorities with whom we had the opportunity to share those days taught us that our future will always be richer and healthier from a perspective of universal brotherhood (see some photos from various meetings above).

As part of the breadth of our meeting, we also participated in the 4th International Workshop on Global Sustainable Innovation: Towards Sustainable Business, Energy and Society, as well as meetings of the Higher Education and Research in Management of European Universities (HERMES) network, of which the University of Vaasa is a member. Indeed, shortly before the start of their summer vacation and just after the end of the winter term, our colleagues embark on various academic and networking activities with their counterparts in Europe and other regions of the world. I find this a valuable and challenging opportunity for the institutional development of our own Faculty.

 

Of course, we had the opportunity to explore the serene city of Vaasa on the cusp of Midsummer—the day when there is no night—and enjoy walks through what, for us, was an unexpectedly green Finland at the beginning of its summer, including the opportunity to share a boat ride on the Gulf of Bothnia.

Now back in Lima, we’re left with the best impressions of this meeting and eagerly await the visit our Vaasa counterparts will make to PUCP between October 20 and 30 of this year to complete the design of our dual-degree agreement. The challenge of offering a pleasant institutional welcome is now ours, and we hope to rise to the challenge so that our Vaasa colleagues return home with similar feelings to ours.

 

Acknowledgement

This visit was part of a collaborative project “Education for sustainable internationalization of a firm (ESGinMNC)” uniting the PUCP and the University of Vaasa. The project was funded by the Finnish National Agency of Education, TFK 2023. This project has been coordinated by Aušrinė Šilenskytė, Program Manager and Assistant Professor at the University of Vaasa, Finland; an exceptional and generous hostess who fully reflects the spirit of her school.