2. Introduction of Savonia UAS and its support services Esa Viklund                                  Manager of Development, University services

3. Savonia in numbers Students 6 600 Staff 455 Turnover 2016 43 M€
Nearly 40 Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree Programmes in six fields of study

4. We educate strong professionals in six different fields of study:
Culture
Business
Natural Resources
Tourism and Hospitality
Engineering
Social Services and Health Care

5. Organization

6. Administration and finance
The Finnish universities of applied sciences are independent in their decision-making enjoying autonomy guided by the Universities of applied sciences Act. Universities of applied sciences are independent legal persons. In the UAS reform (2015) universities of applied sciences and the organizations running them where merged into one legal person, and juridically all the UAS’s became limited companies. UAS usually have multiple owners: the municipality, the region and/or private entities. Operating licenses of UAS determine their educational responsibilities.
In the reform the responsibility for core funding were entirely transferred to the state. The government allocates core funding (i.e. the direct government funding) to the universities and UAS’s . The core funding covers about 88 % of universities of applied sciences’ budgets. Public research funding is a separate part of the budget.
Each university of applied sciences and the Ministry conduct negotiations at the beginning of every four-year agreement term, in which they set operational and qualitative targets for the UAS and determine the resources required. The agreement also provides for the monitoring and evaluation of target attainment and the development of operations.

7. Universities of Applied Sciences core funding from 2017

8. Quality system and evaluations
FINEEC (Finnish Education Evaluation Centre) is responsible for the evaluation of education provided by universities and universities of applied sciences (UAS) in Finland.
The three key evaluation types are the audits of higher education institutions’ (HEIs) quality systems, thematic evaluations of the education system and engineering degree programme reviews.
In audit the quality system each university or UAS has developed from its own starting points and in accordance with its objectives is evaluated.
Quality system refers to the development of the activities as a whole comprising quality management organisation, division of responsibility, procedures and resources. Quality management refers to the procedures, processes or systems that the higher education institution uses to maintain and develop the quality of its activities
Each HEI must audit their quality system every six year

9. The audit targets and criteria employed in the audit
The functioning of the quality system is evaluated based on the following audit targets:
- The quality policy of the higher education institution
- Quality system’s link with strategic management
- Development of the quality system
- Quality management of the higher education institution’s basic duties, including essential services supporting these: a) Degree education b) Research, development and innovation activities, as well as artistic activities c) The societal impact and regional development work d) Optional audit target (will not be taken into an account when evaluating whether the audit will pass)
Samples of degree education: degree programmes (HEIs select two of these and the audit team the third)
The quality system as a whole