Alongside teaching and research, the “third mission” has become a core function of universities worldwide. In this session, we will introduce you to TU Berlin’s endeavours to engage international alumni as multipliers for knowledge transfer and explore further alumni activities which can help reach the university’s social responsibility agenda.

Universities urgently need to send an engaging, integrated message about how their work benefits society. This means universities need to find their voice as institutions, take part in public debate and build thought leadership. How can universities reach out and contribute to positive societal impact? How is Aalto University taking a stronger stance in public conversation?

Real friendships takes work! Join Anna Urban, senior development officer at Karolinska Institutet for an enlightening session that delves into the best techniques on how to approach prospective donors and into the art of cultivating lasting connections. We will also explore the principles and practices behind effective donor stewardship – how to retain, increase and expand your donors interests.

The ever-changing social media landscape can make it hard to get the most out of these incredibly useful channels. In this talk we’ll discuss some examples of how social media has been used to encourage alumni engagement, look at how to apply this to different teams and organisations, and think about how things might change in the future.

How to get private (and public) sector donate money for Student scholarships? Who are companies and individuals who donate for scholarships? In what way do private sector scholarships differ from scholarships offered by the University, and how can students leverage these differences to their advantage? How today’s grants and scholarships can increase interest in a particular field among middle and high school students? What innovative approaches are being taken to make scholarships more accessible and impactful for a diverse range of students? What is the value proposition for both sides – to the donor and to the grantee? Should there be one? During the discussion we will look answers to these and other related questions.

The strategy of your institution gives the framework for the alumni engagement and internationalization. Institutions have limited resources to go towards their vision and build wider alumni engagement. Cooperation with other HEIs can give valuable support to reach the goals and build even better engagement for alumni network. Where to start? What to expect? Join us to discuss about the potential of HEI cooperation for alumni relations development.

This is a discussion about starting basically from scratch and developing step by step well-functioning alumni structures and accomplishing a vibrant alumni organization with various alumni activities at a university in a year’s time.

How can we create long-term and large-scale collaboration to last over many years and involve all parts of the university?

As institutions we take painstaking care in crafting and agreeing our values. We share them. We talk about them. But how often are we actually checking in on ourselves with how we are living them in our every day interactions? In the choices we make. In the ways that we engage with one another. In this discussion we’ll explore the ways in which we do and do not live and breathe our university values in our every day advancement work, and we’ll share some ideas with each other as to how we might embed them deeper into our work.