Annual Report 2022

Review of the President and CEO for 2022: sustainability and cooperation point the way forward

Metropolia enjoyed a good year in 2022 from both an operational and a financial standpoint.

In accordance with our strategy, we continued to strengthen our social impact. With our multidisciplinary competence and broad cooperation with our partners, we contributed to solving social challenges and accelerating the transition towards a sustainable society.

Metropolia aims to be a bold reformer of expertise and an active builder of the future. To achieve this aim, we will be focusing on five selected themes over the coming years. In 2022, we continued our systematic work with a focus on our strategic themes:

• lifelong learning
• phenomenon-based innovation hubs
• sustainable development and growth
• people and culture
• digitalisation

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February last year, touched us all deeply. We increased our educational offering to people given temporary protection in Finland using project funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture. As a higher education institution, we have a particular responsibility to ensure that all members of our community are treated equally and without discrimination. We at Metropolia always look to the future, aiming to offer solutions even in the most challenging situations.

In 2022, our UAS community recovered from the challenging circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our staff’s experience of its working capacity remained at a good level following the move to a hybrid workplace model. The students’ satisfaction has likewise remained at a good level.

While the past few years have posed challenges, they have also demonstrated that we have an excellent ability to adapt to change and to learn together.

Towards a sustainable future responsibly

All of Metropolia’s activities are based on our strategy and mutually defined values that guide everything we do. Our values reflect what we consider to be right and what we should aim for at Metropolia. Our Code of Conduct, which is derived from our values, defines the rules that each and every one of us at Metropolia must follow.

Metropolia revised its common values and created joint operating procedures with the participation of the entire UAS community in 2022. This work resulted in Metropolia’s value base: Towards a sustainable future. With an orientation on solution, with competence renewal, with a human touch. We will continue our efforts to entrench our Code of Conduct as part of our day-to-day operations and to support the ethical competence of our UAS community in 2023.

Metropolia’s goal is that all people in its UAS community – students and staff alike – have competence in sustainable development. During the year, we took leaps in the development of the staff’s competence in sustainable development. In the spring, Metropolia launched a basic course in sustainable development intended for the entire staff. The aim of the course was to create a shared understanding of what we refer to when we talk about sustainable development and to explain the main goals of sustainable development so that every Metropolia employee is better equipped to promote sustainability in their own work. During the year, nearly 700 employees completed the course, which is almost two-thirds of Metropolia’s workforce of around one thousand. The staff’s feedback on the course was excellent.

In May, Metropolia published its first sustainability report (in Theseus), which provides information on progress made towards sustainability targets and in sustainability measures, as well as shedding light on the key results achieved during the year.

Metropolia was once again the most popular UAS in the spring joint application process

In the joint application in spring 2022, Metropolia was the most popular university of applied sciences in Finland, with 9,927 applicants putting Metropolia as their first choice. Measured in terms of eligible first-choice applications per number of intakes, Metropolia was Finland’s sixth most attractive university of applied sciences. In addition, the number of students from outside the EU/EEA who pay tuition fees doubled compared to the previous year.

In 2022, a total of 2,537 Bachelor’s degrees were completed at Metropolia, which was 174 less than a year earlier. The biggest decrease in the number of degrees took place in Health Care and Social Services (97 degrees) and Technology (80 degrees). As for Master’s degrees, a total of 508 were completed, which was 8 fewer than in the previous year. The Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on the achievement of our targets for degrees.

The graduating students continued to be satisfied with the education they had received at Metropolia, with the number of those satisfied rising slightly. In the UAS Graduand Feedback Questionnaire (AVOP), satisfied respondents (those who gave a score of 6–7 on a scale of 1–7) represented 51.8% of respondents, an improvement of 1.5 percentage points over the previous year.

Innovative solutions for the future

At Metropolia, RDI activities (research, development and innovation activities) are carried out at five innovation hubs. The innovation hubs enable a new way to learn, create innovative solutions and engage in multidisciplinary cooperation on significant social and global phenomena. At the innovation hubs, our partners, students and staff collaborate in various RDI projects or on collaboration platforms to deliver commissioned work to customers and to offer services. The solutions are created with various actors by using bold ideas, experimenting together and learning.

We increased cooperation between RDI activities, learning and collaboration platforms during 2022. Our key focus was on developing RDIL activities (learning connected to RDI activities). In the spring, we completed our RDIL roadmap, which will steer learning and teaching at Metropolia towards creating solutions for sustainability challenges. Metropolia’s RDIL activities are highly phenomenon-based and they utilise ecosystem partnerships especially on the collaboration platforms at the campuses. This allows our students to solve challenges using the methods of research, development and innovation while simultaneously fostering contacts with the labour market.

During the past year, we also focused on strengthening our partnerships. One of the most significant initiatives during the year was the Health Proof Helsinki RDI and test environment ecosystem, which is coordinated by the Customer-oriented Wellbeing and Health Services innovation hub. This ecosystem is a new type of service developed by the City of Helsinki, Metropolia and HUS to streamline the development of research and testing path products and services by wellbeing and health care sector companies. Health Proof Helsinki has attracted a great deal of international interest and been invited to become a member of EIT Health.

Financial statements 2022: Turnover growth continued, financial situation remained stable

• Turnover totalled EUR 111.1 million, an increase of EUR 0.5 million on the previous year.
• Turnover from business activities was EUR 5.7 million, up by 10.8% on the year before.
• Operating expenses amounted to EUR 109 million, an increase of 5% on the previous year.
• Personnel expenses totalled EUR 71 million, representing 63.9% of turnover.
• Depreciation and amortisation amounted to EUR 7.9 million.

The result for the financial year was a profit of EUR 0.2 million, a decrease of EUR 7 million from the previous year. The adjusted result for the year was EUR 0.8 million. The adjusted result accounts for the front-weighted income paid in 2021 by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The result and the adjusted result for the financial year were weaker than in the previous year due to an increase in the number of staff, changes in the calculated fair value of investment assets and, among other things, a significant increase in travel expenses after the Covid-19 pandemic subsided.

Overall, Metropolia’s financial situation was good at the end of 2022. Liquidity and solvency remained good, and the equity ratio was 74.4% (74.3% in the previous year).

Events after the close of the period

The lease for Metropolia’s Karaportti Campus will expire in August 2024. Metropolia has initiated further planning for the future of the Karaportti Campus.

Estimate of likely future development

The key drivers behind Metropolia’s development are Metropolia’s strategy, the goals of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Vision for Higher Education and Research in 2030, and changes in the funding model. The Vision for Higher Education and Research in 2030 sets the aim that over 50% of all young people complete a higher education degree, the development of higher education and expertise is offered in different life situations and at least 4% of GDP is allocated to research and development. Metropolia’s strategic choices – lifelong learning, phenomenon-based innovation hubs, sustainable development and growth, people and culture, and digitalisation – will be the drivers of future development.

The aim of research, development and innovation activities is to further increase the amount of external income funding. To achieve this, Metropolia will particularly strengthen its international RDI activities.

Business activities and international sales will continue to increase in importance. Fee-based business activities will expand Metropolia’s income basis and balance Metropolia’s financial performance.

Turnover in 2023 is expected to grow compared to the 2022 financial year. The basic funding provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture, which is determined based on the actual financial results for the previous three years, is estimated to grow compared to the 2022 financial year.

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I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Metropolia’s competent and committed staff, our students and our stakeholders for their good cooperation and for enabling us to learn together in 2022.

Riitta Konkola
President and CEO

The year 2022 in numbers

Turnover totalled EUR 111.1 million, an increase of EUR 0.5 million on the previous year. At the end of the year were 1011 permanent staff.

Metropolia concentrates its operations on four modern campuses: Arabia and Myllypuro Campuses in Helsinki, Karamalmi Campus in Espoo and Myyrmäki Campus in Vantaa.

In year 2022 were 76 degree programs. The 2 537 students completed a UAS Bachelor's degree and 508 students completed a UAS Master's degree. In year 2022 were 1 million visits on Metropolia.fi website and 47 200 followers on Linkedin. Number of publications were 835 (2021: 827).

Personnel 2022

At the end of the year were 1011 permanent staff (2021: 992 permanent staff). The average age of our staff has slightly decreased in recent years, and at the end of 2022 the average age of our entire staff was 48.4 years. 

The gender ratio has remained steady throughout the years, and it demonstrates the traditional division between male-dominated and female-dominated fields. For example, 71 % of teachers in technology and transportation were men while 87 % of teachers in health care and social services were women. For our entire staff, the ratio is 62 % women and 38 % men. Our HR system also allows one to report their gender as “other”, but this share is so small for the moment that it is not visible on the graph. 62 % of our supervisors were women.

In 2022, the well-being of staff has been monitored and promoted in various ways. The status of staff well-being is monitored annually with the People Power employee survey. The overall index of the survey paints a general picture of staff views on management, commitment, performance and dedication. Metropolia's overall index was 65.6, which meant a slight increase from the previous year (2021: 64.9).

Review of the Chairman of the Board of Directors for 2022

The overarching themes that defined the year 2022 were the persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s launching of its war of aggression in Ukraine in February. These two factors were so huge and significant that they impacted the lives of every one of us in various ways, regardless of whether we view things from the perspective of society, various organisations or individuals. At the time of writing, the Covid-19 pandemic is still ongoing, albeit the disease is being kept under control according to current estimates. The war of aggression in Ukraine also continues, and it remains to be seen for how long. The pandemic and the war have caused problems for both global economic development and the national economies of various countries, and these problems are already having an impact right now, not to mention their effects in the future. And while these factors are affecting our daily lives, at least indirectly, they will also pose various challenges that we must solve in the future.

Despite the extremely challenging operating environment, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Ltd had a good year in 2022 in most respects. We achieved our targets on a financial, strategic and operational level alike. There is reason to be pleased with our company’s performance, as it gives us a good foundation on which to build our future.

We can also hope that the soon-to-be-formed new government of Finland will recognise the profound importance of education in developing our country in its government programme and commit sufficient resources to education.

I would like to thank all our stakeholders – our students, staff and partners – for a good year in 2022.

Henri Kuitunen
Chairman of the Board of Directors