Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

Quality assurance at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

In its Target Program for 2007-2009 the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies states that one of its key areas of development for this time period is quality assurance. The Target Program also enumerates the ways in which the Collegium strives not only to maintain its current high quality level, but to also improve on it. Quality at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies consists of the following:

Quality in research: According to its regulations, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS) is committed to conducting high caliber research in humanities and social sciences. Since the Collegium does not have its own research agenda, we fulfill this commitment through the research of our Fellows. The Fellows are for the most part selected through an extremely competitive and internationally advertised open call. We publish the requirements and evaluation practices openly on our webpages during the Call and the applicants are entitled to see their evaluations after the nominations are announced. The main criteria in fellow selection are the quality of the research plan, academic accomplishments and the compatibility of the research project with the HCAS target program. The call announcement emphasizes our goal to recruit researchers in all career stages. In the selection procedure, project proposals are also evaluated based on whether they cross disciplinary boundaries and whether they promote discussion on the nature, methods, theoretical assumptions and functions of humanistic and social scientific research.

The Academic Advisory Board of the Collegium evaluates the applications independently of the Collegium and the University of Helsinki administrations. The Academic Advisory Board consists solely of international researchers partly so as to avoid possible conflicts of interest potentially arising from the size of the academic community of a small country. We have also published on our webpages a code of conduct for our administrative staff, Executive Board and Academic Advisory Board members concerning confidentiality and conflict of interest.

We believe that the interdisciplinary nature of the Collegium enriches the research done here and we actively encourage interactions between our Fellows. This interaction takes place partly in a more formal context of our internal seminar series, the Brown Bags, and partly in an informal context of weekly common lunches and other social activities.

The Fellows organize several events at the Collegium every year. The Collegium provides financial and administrative help for the organizing Fellow. To ensure that the topic and content of an event conforms to the HCAS target program, each event must be discussed in Visitors’ Committee meetings and approved by our Director. This Committee consists of Collegium Fellows and is chaired by the Director.

We believe that quality in research also arises from an excellent work environment. In addition to ensuring that our Fellows have ample time to devote to their research, we provide them with their own offices, computers, and standard office equipment as well as with limited research assistance. We support their field work needs and travels to international conferences with an annual travel allowance and a small research allowance. We also support their international publishing careers by proving them access to the University’s translation and language check services with no charge to the individual Fellow. Last year, the Collegium also established its own internationally peer-reviewed open access publication series, COLLeGIUM, which concentrates mostly on the publication of the workshop and seminar papers presented at the numerous Collegium events.

We monitor and evaluate the activities of its Fellows through final reports, publication listings and other University databases developed for the purpose of quality-control in research and teaching. We actively publish these results on our webpages, our Annual Report and biannual Newsletter. We also collect statistics on the disciplines, gender, nationality, home University and other similar factors of applicants and appointed fellows in order to evaluate and develop our activities.

 

Quality in Collegium administration and support services: HCAS is committed to the University’s strategy and to the development of administration and support services as stated in the four policy programs of the University. This commitment by the HCAS guarantees its Fellows high-quality working environment, support services and working conditions.

The administrative staff meets regularly once a week to discuss current administrative issues. This weekly meeting is also a forum where we can discuss potential improvement ideas and decide upon the practical steps that need to be taken in order to realize those ideas. Since the staff is small, exchange of information between staff members is easy. Thus our Fellows are able to receive the information and help they require fast and reliably. In addition to this face-to-face help, we in the process of compiling an on-line Collegium manual that contains descriptions of various processes relating to the functioning of the Collegium (eg. administration of the annual call, recruitment of visiting fellows, travel billing etc.). This manual will be available only for the University of Helsinki personnel. Also, the offices of the Fellows include a folder that contains information and instructions on the most common issues that relate to their employment at the University and membership of the Collegium. This folder is updated annually and/or when the need arises.

The Fellows participate in the Collegium administration mainly through three channels. The Home Office, consisting of Fellows, handles the organization of internal events, such as Brown Bags and our internal social events, but it also organizes the Studia Collegialia public lecture series as well as the annual post-graduate seminar series. The Home Office often also functions as a forum of communication between the Fellows and the administration. The Home Office is chaired by a Fellow. In 2007-2008 academic year, the chair is Docent Anne Birgitta Yeung. Another forum of communication is our monthly staff meeting where the Fellows are also informed of current administrative issues. The third venue is our Executive Board, where the Fellows and administrative staff have a joint representative.

In all of our staff recruitment decisions, we always take into consideration the international nature of HCAS and thus require excellent language and professional skills from all of our staff members. We also encourage the staff members to participate in University and outside training programs when necessary. Additionally, we hold an internal “administration improvement day” annually, where we discuss potential larger improvement or other issues. We take great pride in our level of service and aim to maintain it and improve of it in the face of the large administrative changes currently taking place at the University.