U.S. Commitment to Fulbright Finland is Rock Solid

We have much to celebrate this year and we are off to a great start.

2019 is a very special anniversary year as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of U.S.-Finnish diplomatic relations and the 70th anniversary of ASLA-Fulbright. We have much to celebrate this year and we are off to a great start.

I was honored to mark the Centennial of U.S.-Finnish diplomatic relations on May 7 with Secretary of State Pompeo in Rovaniemi, where he delivered a speech on U.S. Arctic policy, participated in the Arctic Council Ministerial, and had a meeting with Foreign Minister Soini. In April, we launched the 100 years of Diplomatic Relations exhibit, a joint project with the Finnish Embassy in Washington, at the Helsinki Music Center, Musiikkitalo, with a joint performance by clarinet ensembles from the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Band and Kaartin Soittokunta. We also traveled to Turku with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Team Finland to conduct business outreach to increase trade, investment, and innovation between our countries.

Most recently, I delivered remarks at the 2019 Fulbright Finland Award Ceremony in Helsinki’s beautiful City Hall on May 14, congratulating the latest cohort of students, scholars, and researchers. As we celebrate our centennial, I am particularly excited that we eclipsed 100 grantees this year, reaching our highest level since the 1960s.

After meeting many of this year’s grantees, I am confident that our latest grantees and alumni will be at the forefront of research in their respective fields. We have high expectations for them. Who will be the next Fulbrighter to win a Pulitzer or to receive a Nobel Prize like Bengt Holmström?
Now in its 70th year, the Fulbright program in Finland remains an important part of our relationship. Over the past few years, Fulbright Finland has tackled some of the most pressing issues facing the international community through a series of seminars featuring renowned American and Finnish scholars such as this year’s “Truth Matters: Combating Manipulated Realities” and the Fulbright Arctic Initiative week in Helsinki and Oulu, as well as last year’s “Making Democracies Resilient to Modern Threats.”

As the honorary chair of the Fulbright Finland Foundation Board of Directors, I assure you that the U.S. commitment to Fulbright Finland is rock solid. The U.S. Centennial Gift to Finland in 2017 was a $500,000 donation to the Fulbright Finland Foundation and we provided another $1,000,000 this past year, in addition to our regular allocation. The United States launched the second Fulbright Arctic Initiative program last year, with top scholars from the Arctic Council Member States tackling some of the region’s—and indeed the world’s—most pressing issues.

I would like to thank the Fulbright Finland Foundation for working diligently now and over the past 70 years to advance the U.S.-Finnish relationship and to increase mutual understanding between our great countries. We have much to celebrate and much to do going forward. I look forward to working with you.

Robert Frank Pence
Ambassador of the United States of America to the Republic of Finland