June blog post

 Micro credentials need common ground rules

Universities are already building micro credentials, but common practices are still missing. This slows down the development of continuous learning precisely at a time when the need for flexible learning pathways is growing.

When university staff are asked what continuous learning means in their work, the answers form a diverse mosaic. For one person, it is a strategic whole; for another, open university courses; for a third, continuing education. The field is diverse — and this is precisely why shared understanding is needed.

We examined this diversity in a survey carried out in autumn 2025 as part of the national YJOP project. The survey explored how continuous learning and micro credentials are currently implemented in universities. A total of 134 respondents from nine universities took part. The results show that a great deal of development work is already under way, but common operating models, concepts and structures are still partly unfinished.

There is willingness, but identifying customer needs remains a challenge

Universities already know how to build pedagogically high-quality continuous learning, but there are not yet sufficient shared practices for identifying customers’ needs.

According to the survey, pedagogical solutions and learner guidance were seen as strengths. Teaching methods are varied and learners are supported effectively. By contrast, identifying target groups and recognising actual competence needs received clearly weaker assessments. In other words: universities know how to organise education, but it is not always equally clear for whom and for what need it is being built.

Information on needs is also collected. Respondents mentioned stakeholder cooperation, foresight information and surveys as the most important ways of understanding demand. The challenge is that this information does not always develop into a shared direction, but remains in the hands of individual people or units. This is exactly where the next step is needed in the development of continuous learning.

Micro credentials already exist, but shared understanding is missing

Micro credentials are no longer a new idea in universities. According to the survey, they are already being implemented in many ways, even though the concepts and operating models vary widely. Some universities are only taking their first steps, while others have already included micro credentials in their educational offering to a limited extent. Few, however, yet describe them as an essential part of the overall provision.

Differences are also visible in what is meant by a micro credential. For one person, it is a structure aligned with the Ministry of Education and Culture’s framework; for another, a short intensive training course; for a third, a credit-bearing module. This fragmentation is not merely a terminological issue. If shared understanding is lacking, approval practices, assessment and communication will also be built in different ways.

Four practical challenges were particularly prominent in the survey:

• Shortage of resources and unclear funding logic — who pays, who is responsible for the competence, and how should provision funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture be distinguished from market-based provision?
• Varied approval practices — the same micro credential may proceed in a couple of weeks at one university and take months at another.
• Identification and assessment of competence — especially when competence has been acquired in working life rather than in lectures. How can it be assessed reliably? Who is responsible?
• Structures for cooperation — cooperation between higher education institutions is needed, but functioning models are missing.

Staff need more training, peer learning and shared tools to support development work. This is not only about processes, but about people and their capabilities to carry out customer-oriented work together. Customer orientation does not emerge simply by adding more guidelines, but by sharing experiences, learning from one another and building practices together.

A common message from the field: ground rules are needed now

The survey findings are not merely observations from a single project. The same themes recur more broadly across the higher education field, which is why they are now being brought into joint discussion also with the Ministry of Education and Culture.

Together with four other ESR+ funded projects, we are preparing a position paper with a clear message: a national framework is necessary, but alongside it we need common guidelines that support shared interpretation. Not new norms, but principles that make practical work easier.

The discussion comes down to five questions to which the whole higher education field needs answers:

1. How does stackability work between higher education institutions? When a learner completes modules at several universities, who ultimately identifies the competence that has been formed, and with what mandate? Without clear mechanisms, a “wild west” situation may emerge in which learners collect separate credits without these forming a recognisable whole.
2. How is competence assessed when it has been acquired in working life? This is particularly relevant for micro credential provision aimed at people already in employment. Resourcing assessment, ensuring reliability and verifying identity, especially in digital implementations, remain open questions.
3. How can quality and academic responsibility be made visible without heavy certification mechanisms? Universities’ quality assurance is based on ESG and ENQA principles as well as FINEEC audits, but a shared understanding is still lacking on how academic responsibility should be made visible in micro credentials.
4. How do systems support the recording and sharing of achievements outside degrees? For example, “strong identification” is an ambiguous concept, and international learners may be excluded from systems if identification relies solely on Finnish solutions.
5. How does the funding logic distinguish between provision funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture and market-based activities? In particular, the allocation of costs related to assessment and demonstrations of competence needs clarification so that higher education institutions can operate on a sustainable financial basis.

Pilot projects have already produced a great deal of valuable knowledge, but not all lessons learned are yet shared openly. If the results could be made available more quickly for common use, development work could build on what has already been learned instead of different projects spending time and resources solving the same issues again and again.

Finland’s strength is work-life orientation — and that is exactly why cooperation must work

From an international perspective, one particular feature stands out in the Finnish discussion on micro credentials: co-development with working life. In many countries, micro credentials are mainly seen as a form of education created by higher education institutions and offered outward as a ready-made product. In Finland, the starting point is often different: education is built in response to an identified need in working life.

This is a clear strength, but it also raises the level of ambition. If cooperation with working life is to be taken genuinely seriously, it must be more than individual contacts. Structures are needed to identify needs, share information and develop solutions together over the long term.

Ultimately, it is about the learner

In discussions on micro credentials, attention easily turns to assessment, approval practices and systems. These are important questions, but at the same time it is easy to forget for whom these offerings are actually being built. From the learner’s perspective, what matters most is whether the provision is findable, understandable and genuinely accessible.

If every higher education institution builds its own practices, it becomes difficult for learners to understand what options are available and how different achievements relate to one another. This is therefore not only an administrative or technical issue. It is about whether the system serves the learner — or forces the learner to adapt to the terms of the system.

The next phase will matter greatly

In the YJOP project, the work continues at a practical level. We are building an online course to support staff capabilities, a toolkit to support development work and a cooperation model between universities. Customer insight work is also under way, producing concrete customer profiles as a basis for development. In addition, we will organise regional workshops in the autumn, bringing representatives of working life and higher education developers around the same table.

Micro credentials are not a passing experiment. They are part of how higher education responds to the changing world of work and the needs of continuous learning. That is why common ground rules are needed right now, so that good development work does not fragment into disconnected solutions.
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Laura Al-Azzavi (UEF), Heli Kaarniemi (UEF) and Eva Raudasoja (OY)

In english - ​You can find the report prepared by the University of Lapland on the Homepage.