International acknowledgement and productivity characterise Hanken’s 2015
The financial statement for 2015, approved by the Board of Hanken School of Economics on 20 April 2016, shows that Hanken during 2015 strengthened its position as an internationally recognised, competitive, and research-oriented business school. A sign of this is the AACSB-accreditation awarded to Hanken in November. With this accreditation, Hanken has achieved the status of a so called Triple Crowne business school, an honour achieved by only 1 per cent of all business schools in the world.
Steady degree turn-out and active research publication
The number of graduates at all educational levels remained on a stable and good level, following the targets agreed upon with the Ministry of Education and Culture. The number of bachelor’s degrees increased to 252 (2014: 229, target 210), thanks to efforts in study planning, availability of study guidance services, as well as high quality students. The number of master’s degrees continued to increase to 284 (2014: 278, target 280).
The number of awarded doctoral degrees decreased to 9 (2014: 19, target 16), largely due to the ceremonial conferment of doctoral degrees in 2014, which increased the amount of doctoral degrees during that particular year. In 2015, Hanken decided to extend the guaranteed full-time funding period for new PhD students from 18 months to 24 months. This, together with the increased number of applications for doctoral studies in 2016, gives confidence that the number of doctoral degrees will increase in the coming years.
An additional target, as regards education, is the share of students that complete at least 55 study credits during the academic year. Hanken’s target is for this share to amount to at least 30 % of the students. The result for the academic year 2014-15 was 35.8 % (2013-14: 32.3), which is an all-time high for Hanken.
International experience a natural part of the studies
The mandatory semester abroad continues to be a natural part of the Hanken studies. The overall student mobility (outgoing plus incoming exchange students) increases steadily. The number of students that spend at least three months on an international student exchange or internship increased from 404 to 408.
Hanken students also study more actively during their exchange semester and the amount of study credits completed abroad continued to increase to 5 480 (2014: 4 863). Also incoming exchange students complete more study credits as the number of credits completed at Hanken showed a significant increase and amounted to 4 354 (2014: 3875).
The number of international degree students remains stable. The share of international research and teaching staff decreased some from 24.3 % (2014) to 22.7 % (2015).
Increased interaction with the surrounding society
Hanken continues its tight collaboration with both companies and with the surrounding society at large. The executive education operations continues as a link between research and the corporate work, the level of alumni engagement is high, and the number of partners involved in the Hanken Partner Programmes continued to increase.
Hanken’s work towards increased responsibility in management education (PRME) got renewed recognition as Hanken was elected member of the PRME Champions group for the second time. Within research, Hanken continues in the forefront of especially humanitarian logistics research, which is an area of great importance for example in connection with the recent refugee crisis.
Structural developments and collaboration strengthen Hanken’s profile
As a means to achieve a critical mass within the subjects taught, Hanken decided that the subjects statistics and information systems science can no longer be chosen as majors by the students. The subjects continue to be important support subjects to all students.
Hanken also commenced discussions on increased collaboration with Arcada University of Applied Science. The discussions resulted in a collaboration agreement that was signed in the beginning of 2016. The agreements will result in increased co-operation within some administrative areas as well as in digitalisation.
Stronger balance, steady returns and property buys strengthened the finances
In 2015, Hanken’s assets, as confirmed on the balance sheet, increased to EUR 105.6 million (2014: EUR 92.1 million). The value of the investment portfolio increased to EUR 75.1 million (2014: EUR 70.8 million). The portfolio returns for externally managed assets reached 6.1 %%. Hanken also bought its properties in both Helsinki and Vaasa.
The year resulted in a profit of EUR 6.0 million (2014: EUR 2.5 million), of which most was due to returns on investment and financing operations, where the result amounted to EUR 5.8 million (2014: EUR 4.4 million).
The operative income totalled EUR 23.0 million (2014: EUR 23.1 million), of which funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture stood at EUR 18.3 million (2014: EUR 17.3 million). Operative expenses totalled EUR 25.1 million (2014: EUR 25.0 million), of which 62% (64%) were staff costs, 14% (14%) were property-related costs, and 24% (22%) were other expenses.
The fundraising activities in the HANKEN RETURNS campaign continued to be successful and the donations amounted to EUR 2.3 million during the year (2014: EUR 0.72 million).The campaign runs until the end of June 2017.
More information:
Rector Karen Spens
karen.spens@hanken.fi
+358 50 564 3742