President's foreword 2024

As a higher education community, we at Laurea University of Applied Sciences are committed to continuously improving our activities and impact following the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act). Using our quality system, we wish to systematically enhance the societal impact of our activities. To do so, our higher education community needs to be open and actively engage in interaction with its operating environment, as our strategic intent is to be an international developer of working life competence and vitality in Uusimaa. In 2024, the higher education institution took significant steps as an international developer when Laurea received its European University status and a five-star quality certificate for its research, development and innovation activities (RDI activities).

"At Laurea University of Applied Sciences we are committed to continuously improving our activities and impact."

In 2024, under the European Universities initiative, the European Commission granted the PIONEER Alliance a financial contribution of 14.4 million euros through the Erasmus+ programme for development work in 2025–2028. In addition to Laurea, the PIONEER Alliance includes nine other higher education institutions from EU countries (the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Slovakia, Finland and the Czech Republic) and one partner institution from Switzerland. The University of Gustave Eiffel in France coordinates the PIONEER Alliance, which focuses its activities on sustainable development in future cities and aims to generate new competences and create regional operating models for supporting urban development through education, research and innovation activities and ecosystem cooperation at European higher education institutions.

The network thus supports both the internationalisation of the higher education institution and strengthens societal influence. For Laurea, the PIONEER network has opened up a new European phase of internationalisation, where the higher education institution receives new means and forms of internationalisation that serve both students, personnel and the region as well as the needs of the higher education institution’s regional and international network of partners. In this context, the higher education institution still needs growing, international RDI activities, which the higher education institution has systematically developed.

In 2024, Laurea carried out an EFQM evaluation of RDI activities in cooperation with Excellence Finland (formerly Finnish Quality Association). A corresponding evaluation was done previously in 2022. Back then, the higher education institution received 437 points and a four-star developer label. In 2024, the institution improved its score significantly (+65 points), receiving a total of 502 points. Compared to other organisations in Finland that were assessed with the EFQM model, Laurea’s performance was at the level of the median result or better in each evaluation area. The results of the external evaluation will be utilised in the long-term development of RDI activities, especially in further increasing the volume and influence of RDI activities. The evaluation group identified the following as the most important strengths of Laurea’s RDI activities: systematic and dynamic knowledge-based management, open and encouraging atmosphere and a good operating culture, active collaboration, interaction and communications, good operating models and organisation of RDI activities and clear lead in the activities deliver results.

The higher education institution has compiled and published these reports on Laurea’s societal impact and interaction since 2016. This report is the ninth of its kind, and it contains numerous examples of the operating models and activities that Laurea has used to achieve its societal impact in 2024. We hope that these examples will inspire our entire higher education community as well as our current and new partners and other stakeholders in active higher education cooperation and in improving further operating models and activities through which we can develop a thriving and more sustainable world together.

Jouni Koski, PhD, President, Managing Director

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