Finland’s university merger talks began on Tuesday, 7 April, as the University of Eastern Finland invited the owners of Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, Savonia University of Applied Sciences and Karelia University of Applied Sciences to Kuopio for negotiations on what could become the country’s largest higher education institution.
If the plan moves forward, the new structure would bring together institutions across North Savo, North Karelia and Kainuu and create a higher education group with around 35,000 students. That would make it the largest in Finland by student numbers. But the first phase of the talks is already showing that the project is not only about strategy or regional cooperation. It is also about ownership, governance and local control.
A plan for a 35,000-student institution in eastern Finland
The initiative comes from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), which has said it wants to deepen cooperation with the three universities of applied sciences and explore possible ownership arrangements. UEF has framed the project as preparation for an Eastern Finland University Group, combining academic resources across a large part of eastern Finland.
The scale is significant. UEF itself has about 17,600 degree students, and the combined group would be far larger than any single Finnish higher education institution today. Supporters of the idea are likely to argue that a broader structure could strengthen regional research capacity, improve coordination between academic and vocationally oriented higher education, and help eastern Finland respond to demographic pressure and competition for students.
At this stage, however, the merger is still only a negotiation project. No final agreement has been reached, and the question of how far the institutions are willing to integrate remains open.
Why ownership is the first real test of the merger
The most sensitive issue is not cooperation itself, but who would ultimately control the institutions involved.
According to Yle, UEF wants the universities of applied sciences to come under its ownership. That immediately raises political and regional questions, because these institutions are closely tied to local development and to the cities and public actors that currently stand behind them.
Savonia has already signalled its red line: it is open to closer cooperation, but does not want to sell its ownership. That makes clear that support for a larger eastern Finnish education network does not automatically mean support for a full structural merger.
Kajaani, by contrast, has said it is prepared to negotiate both deeper cooperation and possible ownership arrangements. Its position is especially important because Kajaani University of Applied Sciences is also attracting interest from the University of Oulu, giving the institution potential options in both eastern and northern Finland. Kajaani city board chair Minna Leinonen told Yle that no decision will be made until the negotiations are completed.
That means the talks are likely to become a broader contest over which model best serves regional interests: a consolidated eastern Finnish structure led by UEF, a different partnership centred on Oulu, or a looser form of cooperation that preserves local ownership.
How Finland’s university system works and who owns the institutions
To understand why ownership matters so much, it helps to look at how the Finnish higher education system is organised.
Finland has a dual model made up of universities and universities of applied sciences. According to the Ministry of Education and Culture, there are 13 universities and 22 universities of applied sciences in its administrative branch. The two sectors have different missions: universities focus on scientific research and research-based education, while universities of applied sciences are more closely linked to professional training, applied research and regional labour-market needs.
They also have different legal structures. Under Finnish law, most universities are corporations under public law, while two are foundations. They have economic and administrative autonomy, even though they are heavily funded and steered by the state. Universities of applied sciences, by contrast, operate as limited liability companies. They are legally independent, but their activities are not allowed to pursue profit, and they need a government licence to operate.
In practice, this means Finnish universities are not owned in the same way as a normal private company, while universities of applied sciences do have shareholders and ownership arrangements that can become politically sensitive. This is exactly why the UEF proposal has triggered immediate debate. A closer alliance is one thing; transferring ownership is another.
Funding also helps explain the stakes. The Ministry says central government funding for universities totals EUR 2.269 billion in 2025, compared with EUR 1.021 billion for universities of applied sciences. The state therefore plays the dominant role in financing the sector, but institutions still retain substantial autonomy over internal decisions.
What the merger talks could mean for eastern Finland
For eastern Finland, the proposal goes beyond institutional branding. The regions involved have been dealing with population decline, ageing demographics and the need to keep skills, research and young people in place. In that context, a larger higher education group could be presented as a way to defend regional vitality and improve long-term competitiveness.
At the same time, merger projects in higher education often run into the same dilemma: efficiency and scale may look attractive on paper, but local actors worry about losing decision-making power, campuses, or regional priorities. That tension is already visible in the first public reactions.
The coming negotiations will therefore test whether eastern Finland can build a stronger common structure without hollowing out the local ownership model on which many universities of applied sciences still rely. For Nordics and EU observers, the talks are a reminder that higher education reform is rarely only about students and degrees. It is also about regional power, institutional autonomy and who gets to shape the future of public education.
