Corship brought the European megatrend to Finland

Erasmus + Knowledge Alliance funded international Corship project has come to an end.

Corship's goal was to create a common language between large companies, small startups, and universities that supports the potential of entrepreneurship and co-innovation. 

The learning phase of the project, organized by Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, kicked off last spring with a massive 2,500-person MOOC course that culminated in the Co-Innovation MasterClass.

A total of about forty most motivated students were invited to join the Masterclass, where they also had the opportunity to complete the micro-credential that was awarded by Haaga-Helia.

Future of lifelong learning

Anette Kairikko, a lecturer in business economics at Haaga-Helia, believes that micro-credentials will become one of the most important factors in the field of adult education and lifelong learning.

In studies, learners are often grouped too rigidly through the qualifications they have previously completed. At the same time, people are often too afraid to mix people with different levels of education into the same groups.

- However, the situation is different in the case of adult education. There different backgrounds of the participants and the networking that takes place during the course may be the greatest wealth of the course for the learners, she says.

For example, the Masterclass organized by Haaga-Helia was attended by a wide variety of people in terms of education, work experience, age, and nationality. 

Those who completed the course were business representatives, university people, consultants, and startup entrepreneurs, all united by a desire to learn to innovate together.

The EU has ambitious goals

In Finland, micro-credentials are still a relatively new phenomenon that is just beginning to land in the Finnish world of higher education. In Central Europe, however, their popularity has grown exponentially.

Micro-credentials serve as a kind of evidence of learning outcomes acquired by a learner on the basis of a short and openly assessed course or module.

Thanks to their flexibility, micro-credentials allow more learning opportunities to be opened to the citizens, including those in full-time employment.

The European Union has set a target that by 2030, every adult in a Member State should complete at least one year of education. Achieving it, however, requires flexibility in working life as well as more investment in adult education.

From Haaga-Helia, project Manager Timo-Pekka Uotila, project coordinator and designer Johanna Koskinen and business lecturers Anette Kairikko and Maija Suonpää took part in Corship project.

The project was funded by Erasmus + Knowledge Alliances.