National Collaboration Guiding the Higher Education Institutions in Finland to a More Sustainable and Responsible Future

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have the possibility to create direct and indirect impacts on sustainable development. Partnerships are needed for successfully leading sustainable development initiatives. In Finland, there is strong national level collaboration to gear the HEIs towards a more sustainable and responsible future. Implementing a change to a more sustainable HEI requires defining actions for shared objectives, environments, and ways of learning. Common sustainable development goals were set for all the universities of applied sciences (UAS) in Finland already in 2020. These goals have now been further developed in national collaboration into five maturity levels that each UAS can adopt in their own strategic plans and roadmaps. Each level includes specific criteria that can be used for self-assessment to adjust the policies and processes at UASes, aiming to reach a higher maturity level and thus having more sustainable and responsible HEI operations. This paper presents Turku UAS as a case example and describes the implementation of the national level sustainability guidelines and maturity levels into the HEI’s daily operations. Experiences and good practices are shared along with challenges and research needs for the future.