Annual report 2022: President’s review

Building a future-fit Haaga-Helia

Changes in our operating environment continued. The entire world was undergoing changes. The pandemic period was followed by an endemic. The return to the new normal challenged our higher education institution community and our operating methods, while it also offered opportunities to do things differently and better. The war in Ukraine changed the safety structures in Europe, radiating to all sectors of society and resulting in a number of preparedness measures in the intellectual and educational sector as well. Social responsibility was highlighted in our work in many ways during the past year of operation.

We continued our determined action to implement our own strategy. We received praise for the implementation of our strategy and the four-year agreement with the Ministry of Education and Culture during our interim negotiations with the Ministry. We succeeded in neutralising the impacts of the funding model, which was unfavourable for Haaga-Helia. Nevertheless, we are falling behind in our long-term strategic performance goal. The coronavirus continues to overshadow the progress of studies and the number of graduates, although its impact on us is smaller than in the universities of applied sciences on average.

We did particularly well in our research, development and innovation activities. The externally funded project activities achieved their best result. The development has been positive although slower over the long term than we believed in when the strategy period started.

The implementation of the education reform progressed as planned. Students who started their studies in 2022 applied for new programmes and planned their degree studies on a more personalised basis in the new education structures. We used the new guidance model to support the students in their selections and study progress.

With our well-being services and through close cooperation with the student union Helga, we offered various forms of support for different situations and stages of student life. The well-being of our higher education community is at the core of our strategy.

Financially, the year of operation was challenging. As a rule, the budget was based on the 2021 level and the savings of approximately one per cent in terms of overheads. However, many global and social factors had an unexpected impact on the increase in costs, increasing deficit and weakening our result. The good academic performance and the historically high increase in the higher education index, for their part, mitigated and compensated for the weakened result.

An extensive strategic change project during the year of operation was the reform of the planning practices for the faculty’s annual worktime. As a result of the reform, the practices, or our ways of doing things, will better support the development of teaching and the implementation of the education reform, as well as the increase in the RDI activities. The integration of the RDI activities and teaching will be one of our success factors in the future. Succeeding in it will require that we apply a novel approach. In our change work, we are strongly committed to an open dialogue and the development of our personnel’s competence.

In our commercial and international operations, we pursued the pre-pandemic level. We reinstated projects that were on hold during the pandemic. Therefore, Haaga-Helia’s international appeal reached a record-high level. We were successful and we learned as we served tens of thousands of new international applicants. We work for controlled international growth.

Cooperation in networks and ecosystems was highlighted in our activities. We deepened and expanded cooperation in the Ulysseus alliance, which is part of the European Universities network. We coordinated the national China network funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture and continued our cooperation in the strategic alliance of three universities of applied sciences (3UAS) on the collaboration areas selected in accordance with the planned principles: learning excellence, export of education, research, development and innovation projects, entrepreneurial excellence, and artificial intelligence.

The image of Haaga-Helia, or our “brand”, is strong and appealing.  It is generated by the good performance of all of us in our daily work. I would like to extend my warmest thanks for the past year to our higher education community as a whole, including our competent and committed personnel, our students, as well as our excellent and important cooperation partners.

Minna Hiillos
President, CEO
Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences