between organisations, and I think the impact of this 3-year pilot phase of the programme will be felt in the coming years. The MOBIUS Fellowship Program in London has been extremely successful and all the participants have been grateful for the opportunity and for the new experiences. Also the partners involved have commented it in a highly positive way. However, there were some inconveniences, which in my opinion were due to the fact that we chose the fellows first and only after that discussed with the organizations. Sometimes the tasks weren’t established soundly enough at the beginning of the fellowship, or the role of the fellow in the organisation was not clear. As a result, the fellow was not able to use his or her skills to their fullest capacity. All the participants were keen to learn about the organizations they were working in and interested to have conversations with their new colleagues. This was not always possible because of the general lack of time of the hosting staff. The participants of the MOBIUS Fellowship Program have seen the fellowship as a useful part in their professional development; everybody felt that they had experienced something new. The fellowship opened up new horizons, as it also helped to analyse the home organisation from a new perspective. Becoming more international has been an important topic in Finnish universities and in the cultural sector for a long time. Many things have been done, but most of the funding is concentrated on research rather than on broadening professional skills. In the UK and Ireland, the reason for applying for the fellowship was perhaps not so much connected to the idea of becoming more international. Fellows told that they had learned a lot about the Nordic ways of working, the culture and the art field. All the three countries have their strengths and innovations. It is clear from the feedback we received that this programme was seen as a rare opportunity for professionals already advanced in their respective careers to learn and share knowledge in an innovative ambience. During 2014–2016 we supported altogether 24 fellows in the MOBIUS Programme. The biggest group, fourteen people, travelled from Finland to the UK; six people travelled from the UK to Finland; three from Finland to Ireland and one from Ireland to Finland. All in all, we collaborated with 39 partner organisations. Out of the twenty-four fellows, fourteen were working in museums in various positions from technicians and art conservators to producers, keepers, curators and directors. Four of the fellows were from other cultural organisations, namely a science centre, a library, an archive and a gallery, and finally there were six freelancers working mostly as curators.
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Johanna Vakkari was the Head of Arts & Cultural Programme of the Finnish Institute in London in 2014–2016. She was planning and managing the MOBIUS Fellowship Program's London chapter during the program's pilot phase.