Our strengths

Our expertise in organizational and youth work focuses on developing professional organizational and youth work skills and sectors. Humak is a long-term educator of community educators (Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees), an organizer of continuing education, and a partner to many actors in the fields of youth and organizational work. By strengthening expertise in the field, we respond to the competence needs of current and future professionals in organizational and youth work.

Through expert training and development work, we strengthen the impact, operational capacity, and quality of organizations. This is achieved through, for example, multidisciplinary cooperation and participation in the development of organizations’ activities. We produce publications related to organizational and youth work and are an active project operator in these fields.

Through youth education, we promote the participation and influence of young people in accordance with the objectives of the Youth Act. In youth work, we aim to support the inclusion of young people, strengthen their life course and participation, and promote active citizenship locally, nationally, and internationally. We support meaningful lives for young people in their free time, at school, at work, and in both formal and informal communities.

In the higher education field, we collaborate in particular with other community pedagogy educators, Xamk and Centria. We also cooperate with vocational upper secondary schools that offer education and guidance studies. Humak also has extensive and diverse international cooperation networks that offer excellent student exchange opportunities and other practical cooperation.

Our cooperation with organizations and youth work is extensive and intensive. Community pedagogy students are offered diverse internship opportunities and the chance to participate in various development projects. Municipal youth work actors, professional organizations, and actors involved in social advocacy are our important partners.

Humak has a long history of expertise in adventure education, as it has been intertwined with community pedagogy and community development since our founding.

We promote adventure education and adventure activity expertise in various sectors and operating environments. We train experts who strengthen the growth, development, and well-being of individuals, groups, and communities. We develop the experience economy and tourism industry with our own expertise.

We are involved in developing the activities, products, processes, events, and operating environments of experience economy service providers.

The key strategic partners in the field of adventure education in Finland currently include the Finnish Youth Center Association (SNK) and youth centers, as well as Lapland Safaris Oy. International partnerships are being built with several universities, including the Institute of Technology Tralee (Ireland), Nord University Bodø (Norway), and Alaska Pacific University (United States).

Key networks include the National Adventure Education Network, the Adventure Education Development Group, and the European Institute for Outdoor Adventure Education and Experiential Learning (EOE).

In addition, Humak’s snow safety expertise in adventure education is linked to numerous national and international networks and partners, such as the Finnish Avalanche Training Association/Finnish Ski Resort Association, CAA Canadian Avalanche Association, SVELAV Sveriges Lavinutbildningar, Metsähallitus, and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The focus areas of the work community development competence area are the development of organizational cultures and productivity, diversity in work communities and extending working careers, as well as ethical responsibility and new forms of community spirit in working life.

Humak’s development of work communities is a unique area of expertise within community pedagogy education. Our first degree students started in 2017, and the program has been one of our most popular degrees from the very beginning. Due to demand, we have increased both the number of admissions and expanded our course offerings to include open university of applied sciences courses.

Our strategic goal is to become Finland’s leading expert and trainer in work community development and a developer of community-based methods.

Our graduates represent a wide range of sectors and professions in Finnish working life. We provide our graduates with the necessary skills to support workplace learning and ensure the functioning of work communities.

We have built partnerships with universities that promote research and development in working life and well-being at work. We also have partnerships with several private, public, and third sector organizations. Our education is developed in close cooperation with working life.

In the coming years, we will increase and strengthen our RDI cooperation and diversify our project portfolio to include both company-level development projects and multidisciplinary research projects in the field of working life research.

Our cultural production expertise produces professionals who know how to produce, develop, and manage cultural and artistic projects, events, and initiatives responsibly for different sectors of society. Event production expertise can be widely utilized in various industries, as event producers can work anywhere where different events are held.

We develop diverse environments for cultural and artistic productions and services, bring professional production expertise to different industries, and support and promote participation in cultural productions. In addition, we are actively involved in national and international networks in the cultural sector.

We know how to support the better utilization of creative skills in entrepreneurship and in a changing entrepreneurial environment. We create service concepts that provide entrepreneurship education and training and strengthen the entrepreneurial skills of actors in the creative and event industries.

The creative industries require diverse skills. We strengthen entrepreneurial skills in our field, improve the recognition of creative skills, increase the availability of educational business services suitable for the field, enhance intermediary activities, and broaden financing opportunities.

In the event production profile, we train professionals for the growing, diverse, and exciting event industry, where responsibility and impact are today’s requirements. Event safety, sustainable development, and project management are emphasized in our activities, which we develop in collaboration with the industry’s interest group, Tapahtumateollisuus ry, and companies in the event industry.

We actively collaborate with companies, educational institutions, and organizations. We have an extensive network of partners both nationally and internationally. They include the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Arts and Culture Trade Union Taku ry, EU actors in the creative industries, the Ministry of Education and Culture, national organizations and actors, cities and municipalities, and networks. We also collaborate with universities of applied sciences that offer cultural producer training, such as Metropolia, SEAMK, and Arcada in Finland. Our cooperation has already expanded to some extent into the university sector, and this cooperation will be further strengthened in the future. We are also working to strengthen cooperation with the arts and culture sector in the Nordic countries.

We are experts in sign language training and promoting linguistic accessibility, supporting everyone’s right to be heard and understood. We promote interaction between people.

Through our work, we promote multilingual interaction in face-to-face and technology-mediated environments in collaboration with other actors in the field. We support the realization of linguistic rights and equality, inclusion, and well-being in multilingual encounters.

The goal of our work is to enable, facilitate, and promote interaction between people. Through our work, we support equality, inclusion, and well-being and help prevent social exclusion. We develop communication-related skills and use our expertise to support people with language challenges.

Our focus in sign language interpreting is on promoting multilingual interaction, internationalism, and cooperation. By training sign language interpreters, we enable interaction between hearing, deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind people. We are the only educational institution in Finland that also trains deaf interpreters and Finnish-Swedish sign language interpreters.

We share our expertise with international networks. We currently have university partnerships in countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, France, Sweden, Germany, and Scotland. We collaborate regularly with the Finnish Association of the Deaf, which is also one of our owners, as well as with Finlandssvenska Teckenspråkiga rf, the Finnish Speech-Language Association, and Selkokeskus. We are involved in organizing the annual HELSign event together with the Finnish Association of the Deaf and the Helsinki Cultural Center Stoa.

In the field of communication expertise, we promote interaction between people by developing methods and means to support linguistic accessibility. These include methods that replace speech and support and complement communication (e.g., picture communication, plain language, and sign language), the use of technology in interaction, intercultural communication, and interaction skills (e.g., clear language).

We are constantly developing our teaching in collaboration with representatives from the world of work and customer groups. We produce professional publications on a regular basis.