Partnerships

Our customers include our students, Finland’s police units as well as working life and society. 

The Student Union of the Police University College is an important partner with which our management meets regularly. Degree students are involved in the Police University College’s key working groups, such as the Working group on curriculum development and the Board of the Police University College.

We regularly collect feedback from degree students on courses and the Police University College as a learning environment. Students also have the opportunity to give feedback on a low threshold and submit initiatives through the feedback channel of the Police University College or the aforementioned cooperation meeting. We collect feedback from the participants of all continuing education organised by the Police University College. Education is planned in cooperation with key customer groups.

The majority of our graduates work for the police. The competence needs of police units and the internal security sector are central when planning the contents of degree and continuing education and learning outcomes. Our Working group on curriculum development includes representatives from working life, as does the Board of the Police University College. Important information on the relevance of the education is regularly received from contact persons and supervisors for practical training as well as from our students who have been in training. The effectiveness of the Bachelor of Police Services degree is systematically monitored by means of an impact study on education conducted since 2011. The effectiveness of Master of Police services degree was evaluated first time in year 2022.

Anyone can propose a topic for an RDI student project or thesis to the Police University College. Our projects are based on the needs of our partners and society. By ordering a student project, a company or a community can have police students develop services, products and processes related to security. Topics of projects have included improving the safety of the urban environment through lighting, developing and piloting an online application that supports local police activities, and combating hate speech. Student projects have been carried out in cooperation with police units, municipalities, companies and communities and as part of EU projects.

We have several partners who provide us with services related to, e.g. facilities, the IT environment, the well-being of personnel, and student admission. We operate in premises owned by Senate Properties. In information technology services, our main partners are the Information Technology Centre of the Police and Valtori. Various services are provided to us by a changing number of actors, whose selection is primarily based on government framework agreements. 

We operate in the administrative branch of the Ministry of the Interior and we are one of the national police units under the National Police Board. Every year, we negotiate our funding and objectives with the National Police Board.

The nature of our research and development activities has changed in the second half of the 2010s, as an increasing number of projects have been based on external and international funding. At the same time, more development targets for police activities and training have come alongside scientific publication. The Police University College has made use of international funding from, for example, EU framework programmes, internal security funds and capacity building programmes, as well as certain Nordic sources. Finnish funding sources include funding provided by the Government Plan for Analysis, Assessment and Research, the Academy of Finland and various foundations.

We continuously cooperate with several agencies in education, research and development activities as well as in various projects.  Our cooperation with different agencies is often established and involves different procedures, such as working groups and networks. The greatest amount of cooperation exists between the other units of the police administration, but also with the Ministry of the Interior and its different domains, and other ministries and public entities.

Our public entity partners also include EU agencies, especially the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training CEPOL. 

We typically cooperate with universities, research communities, companies and third sector actors in various projects.

Education and research community group has the most changes of partners as new projects begin and old ones end. Of course, we also have long-term partnerships that which we maintain regularly.

With some partners, we have drawn up a strategic cooperation agreement in which we jointly agreed on the objectives and measures for the coming period. We also have strategic partnerships abroad, such as in other European education and research organisations in the field of internal security.

We see networks as collaborative platforms that bring specialists from different organisations together around a particular theme. We are involved in key networks of higher education institutions, research and development and the security sector. 

Examples of our networks include the cooperation groups of the Police, Customs and the Border Guard, police groups and universities of applied sciences networks, such as ARENE (Rectors’ Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences), AAPA (ICT Management Directors of Universities of Applied Sciences) or the AMKIT consortium (Libraries of Universities of Applied Sciences).

In the area of RDI, we are involved in the RDI management network of universities of applied sciences. Our international networks are related to, for example, CEPOL’s research activities and Nordic police research. The Police University College also participates in the work done by editorial boards of the scientific journals in the police sector.

We are involved in regional networks, such as the security cluster in Pirkanmaa or the Tampere eLearning cluster. We also participate in various international networks, such as AEPC (Association of European Police Colleges) and ESDC (European Security and Defence College), as well as Nordic cooperation between police training institutions. 

Our teachers, researchers and other specialists have networks in which they cooperate and develop their competence. We have joined some of the networks by agreement.