The workshops brought together academic staff and institutional leaders from RP and UR-CE to create shared spaces for reflection on quality assurance, pedagogical leadership, and curriculum development. More than a sequence of sessions, the week unfolded through open and direct dialogue, in which ideas were tested, challenged, and gradually refined across contexts. Debates were centred around themes of participatory leadership and community building in the academic environment, pushed forward by highly interactive and organic dynamics. Across settings, participants engaged actively with each other’s experiences, revealing both shared challenges and context-specific interpretations of teaching and learning in higher education. The workshops were also the final step in the QA front of the HEP-TED project. Rather than focusing on the transfer of models or ‘best practices’, participants openly reflected together upon the actual, context-informed challenges and achievements of the project.
One of the most consistent threads throughout the workshops was the reframing of QA. Early sessions revisited the results of previous QA workshops, prompting participants to reflect critically on existing practices. Challenges such as limited resources, weak feedback loops, and insufficient engagement with external stakeholders, resonated across institutions. Yet discussions quickly moved beyond diagnosis. QA was repeatedly framed not as a mechanism of control, but as a process of collective learning. Feedback emerged as a central element: participants emphasised that for QA to be meaningful, feedback must be timely, bidirectional, and linked to concrete action. It should not merely evaluate performance but enable improvement.
This shift in perspective, a core principle in the work of the QA team, also brought attention to the cultural dimensions of QA. Ownership, trust, and openness were reinforced as preconditions for effective QA systems. As one of the discussions highlighted, feedback practices can reinforce either stagnation or development, depending on how they are framed and enacted. In this sense, QA becomes less about instruments and more about the relationships through which those instruments are used.
The central theme, and perhaps the central takeaway message of the workshops, was the reflections on pedagogical leadership. Across both academic staff and senior management workshops, participants explored what it means to lead pedagogical change within higher education institutions. Instead of associating pedagogical leadership with formal positions or even with individuals, discussions consistently strengthened the idea of a collective endeavour, or a collective capacity, emerging through everyday practices of teaching, mentoring, and collaboration. Teachers, in this view, are not only implementers of curricula but active agents shaping how learning is understood and enacted.
This perspective was closely connected to competence-based education. Participants emphasised that competence involves not only the application of knowledge, but also ethical awareness, critical thinking, and the ability to navigate complex real-world situations. From this standpoint, pedagogical leadership entails supporting students in developing these broader capacities, whilst continuously reflecting on one’s own teaching—and leading—practices.
The discussions also highlighted tensions. Questions emerged about the relationship between formal management structures and more informal, practice-based forms of leadership. Rather than viewing these as opposing forces, participants agreed that they can be complementary: institutional leadership can create enabling conditions, on which pedagogical leadership can thrive through the multiplication of meaningful daily interactions within academic communities.
Curriculum development was a third pillar of the workshops. Exchanges between Finnish and Rwandan participants revealed both differences in institutional arrangements and strong convergence in underlying concerns. A recurring insight was that curriculum should not be understood as a static product, but as an ongoing process. Although formal review cycles provide structure, meaningful development happens continuously through feedback, collaboration, and engagement with changing societal and labour market conditions.
The role of external stakeholders was widely discussed in this context. Participants acknowledged the importance of aligning curricula with industry needs, whilst recognising the risks of focusing too narrowly on its current demands. Universities, it was argued, have a distinct role in anticipating future developments and fostering advanced knowledge that goes beyond immediate market demands. Students were also highlighted as key stakeholders in curriculum development. Their proximity to emerging trends and lived experiences of learning makes their perspective especially valuable in shaping educational programmes. However, the proper integration of student voices effectively requires solid, deliberate structures and a sustained commitment from the academic community.
Across all sessions, the importance of academic communities emerged as a cross-cutting theme. Whether discussing QA, pedagogical leadership, or curriculum development, participants repeatedly returned to the role of interaction and collaboration. Creating both formal and informal spaces for dialogue was seen as essential for enabling change. Workshops themselves were recognised as one such space, but participants also pointed to the need of extrapolating the space for open discussions to ongoing forums within institutions. Without these, insights risk remaining isolated, rather than becoming embedded in organisational practices.
The discussions also highlighted the interconnectedness of different elements of the academic environment. Feedback systems, leadership practices, curriculum processes, and community dynamics are not separate domains, but mutually reinforcing. Addressing one area inevitably involves engaging with the others.
At the same time, participants made sure that constraints were considered. Resource limitations, competing priorities, and institutional structures shape what is feasible in practice. As a result, many discussions emphasised the importance of focusing on actionable steps, by identifying what can be done within existing conditions, and gradually building capacity for more ambitious change.
The leadership workshops did not aim to produce definitive solutions, but to create—and to foster the multiplication—of spaces for collective sense-making, which bring together diverse perspectives to better understand common challenges and possibilities.
One of the clearest outcomes of the week was the recognition that many issues are shared across contexts. Whether in Finland or Rwanda, institutions are grappling with similar questions: how to make feedback meaningful, how to engage stakeholders, how to sustain pedagogical development, and how to align institutional structures with evolving educational goals. At the same time, the workshops reinforced the value of working through these questions together. By engaging in sustained dialogue, participants were able to move beyond abstract concepts and connect ideas to their own practices and institutional realities.
Therefore, the workshops exemplified a core HEP-TED principle, which is that meaningful pedagogical development is not achieved through isolated interventions but through ongoing collaboration. It is through the process of discussing, questioning, and reflecting together that new understandings and informed, actionable practices take shape.