Quality Label for Excellence

FINEEC audits of higher education institutions 2018-2024 include the opportunity of being awarded a Quality Label for Excellence. The Quality Label for Excellence is awarded to higher education institutions that have distinguished themselves with their commitment to enhancement work of exceptionally high quality.

By being awarded the Quality Label for Excellence, a higher education institution has demonstrated that it possesses an innovative and pioneering spirit, an approach that focuses on long-term development, and a participatory operating culture.

A higher education institution can be nominated as a candidate for receiving the Quality Label for Excellence if the audit team grants the level excellent in at least one of the following evaluation areas of the audit:

I HEI creates competence

II HEI promotes impact and renewal

III HEI enhances quality and well-being.

The Higher Education Evaluation Committee annually selects an evaluation panel consisting of 3–4 members of the Committee. The evaluation panel scores the candidates and presents its proposal on the recipients of the Quality Label for Excellence to the Higher Education Evaluation Committee. The Committee will review the proposal and awards the Quality Labels for Excellence once per year: in spring 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The following criteria are applied in the grading process:

1. The higher education institution is an innovative forerunner and develops its operations in a bold and open-minded manner.
2. The higher education institution has top level expertise in long-term development, and it can provide strong evidence of the impact of its development and enhancement activities.
3. The higher education institution has a positive impact on its surroundings. The higher education institution is known for engaging a wide range of actors in its development and enhancement activities and for crossing borders in an open-minded manner.

To be eligible for the Quality Label for Excellence, the higher education institution must provide evidence of its exceptionally high-quality development and enhancement activities in connection with the evaluation area in question and the aforementioned excellence criteria. The Quality Label for Excellence cannot be awarded in connection with a re-audit. The Quality Label for Excellence is valid for the duration of FINEEC’s Quality Label for audits.