Metropolia renews its innovation activities and services – libraries to become part of a new service concept
Metropolia renews its innovation activities and services. The aim of the renewal is to strengthen the university of applied sciences’ competitiveness, develop services, safeguard the wellbeing of students and staff, and respond to pressures arising from digitalization, artificial intelligence and economic change. At the same time, Metropolia seeks to achieve significant cost savings and to integrate its library and information services more closely into student services.
“Changes in the operating environment, such as tightening public finances and the rapid development of digitalization and artificial intelligence, create a need to renew Metropolia’s services. We aim to be at the forefront of advancing the goals of the Vision for higher education and research 2040. We will continue to develop our services to ensure quality, impact and a sense of community, and to support the wellbeing of our staff and students”, says Riitta Konkola, President, CEO of Metropolia.
Research, development and innovation (RDI) activities
Metropolia’s research, development, and innovation (RDI) activities are based on four Innovation Hubs:
- Emerging Technologies and Entrepreneurship
- Clean and Sustainable Solutions
- Future-Proof Health and Wellbeing
- Smart and Creative City
Metropolia’s Innovation Hubs enable new ways of learning, producing solutions and engaging in multidisciplinary collaboration for the benefit of society as a whole.
Development of library and information services
Metropolia’s development project for library and information services was launched at the beginning of 2026. Contrary to information presented in public, the current physical library and information service facilities will not be closed at the Myyrmäki and Karamalmi campuses. Instead, Metropolia’s library and information services will be more closely integrated into other services provided to students. The aim is to renew and develop campus-based student services by reviewing current library and other student services as a whole. The new service concept will be defined during spring 2026 and implemented across all Metropolia campuses in November–December. During the transition period, library and information services will continue to operate in their current form but will gradually transition to the new service concept.
“As part of the renewal, we will ensure that the needs of students and staff are taken into account in service design and that the changes are developed together with them. The goal is to ensure that the renewals support high-quality learning as well as the needs of research, development and innovation activities”, says Heidi Rontu, Vice President for Education.
As part of the renewal, Metropolia sought approximately 4 million euros in permanent savings through change negotiations. As a result, Metropolia makes up to 40 redundancies. Metropolia announced the conclusion of the negotiations on 9 March: Change negotiations concluded at Metropolia: up to 40 positions to be reduced.
More information
RDI activities: Miimu Airaksinen, Vice President, RDI
firstname.lastname [at] metropolia.fi (firstname[dot]lastname[at]metropolia[dot]fi)
Education activities: Heidi Rontu, Vice President for Education
firstname.lastname [at] metropolia.fi (firstname[dot]lastname[at]metropolia[dot]fi)