Abstract

International staff exchange is a great possibility for gaining new ideas, building networks as well as comparing and promoting good practices, which are vital parts of an agile organisation. However, staff exchange can be a challenging task to arrange in an equally beneficial way for both parties. The visitor needs to search for hosts with often quite limited information on people’s job descriptions and how their administration is organised and therefore it might be hard to reach the right people. For the host, planning and executing a programme takes time and resources, and there is no ready programme template to copy. Constructing a programme for a visitor with no requests for the stay can be equally hard as when a visitor has a lot of wishes. Finally, it can be hard to pinpoint what each side wishes to gain from the experience.

This session discusses how could the host and the staff exchange guest best benefit from the visit, and what possible ways would there be to facilitate the process. For example, is there a need for “admin matchmaking” to connect experts with similar backgrounds and what would it require to happen? Should there be some kind of standards or practices in place to ensure a mutually beneficial staff exchange or perhaps a tool to compare organisations? Do research institutions pay attention to how they communicate their organisational structures? The session aims to provide a basic understanding of the challenges and possibilities of international staff exchange and to facilitate the planning of future staff mobility for both visitors and hosts. Additionally, it challenges us to think about what research administrators should communicate about their jobs and home institutions to match with relevant experts from abroad.

The session is based on experiences from recent staff exchanges, in which Project coordination services at the University of Helsinki welcomed Erasmus staff mobility guests for week-long stays. The session introduces some elements of the programme offered as well as the feedback from the guests and members of the hosting institution. Then, a discussion about experiences and views of staff exchange will follow.