CIMO in brief

CIMO is an organisation for international mobility and cooperation, providing expertise and services to clients at home and abroad. Established in 1991, CIMO is an independent agency under the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

Our main task is to promote international cooperation and mobility in the Finnish society with specific emphasis on education, training, working life, culture and young people.

To this end, we implement various exchange, trainee and scholarship programmes. CIMO is the national agency for European Union education, training and youth programmes, a contact point for the EU’s Culture Programme and a Europe for Citizens point in Finland.

CIMO also supports the teaching of Finnish Studies at universities outside Finland, with a focus on language and culture. One of the key duties is also to gather, process and distribute relevant information to serve the needs of our many different customers.

While the core funding for CIMO’s work comes from Finnish government budget, about 70 per cent of the annual expenditure is drawn from external sources. The main sponsors are the European Commission and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Organization

Our partners in Finland

• universities and universities of applied sciences (polytechnics)
• comprehensive schools and general upper secondary schools
• institutions of vocational education and training
• adult and continuing education centres
• other authorities in charge of education
• employment and foreign service
• businesses and companies
• youth work authorities
• cultural actors
• municipalities and municipal consortia
• organisations.

In addition, our customers include young people and those who work with them. We also serve students and recent graduates.

Our partners abroad

are universities, authorities and organisations in charge of exchange programmes (student, expert, trainee and youth exchanges), and Finnish missions and cultural institutes around the world.

Important partners also include the European Commission, the national offices and reference points of EU programmes in the participating countries as well as the Nordic Council of Ministers and our sister organisations in the Nordic countries and elsewhere.