Enhancing Laurea’s student-centred approach through service design

At Laurea, we responsibly support students’ competence development and their success through both a student-centred and customer-oriented approach. We work to meet students’ needs, relying on the Learning by Developing (LbD) pedagogical model to address our mission to “create a sustainable future together with working life” (Laurea 2026). We focus on student-centredness through active learning. The competitive HE ecosystem and the changing dynamics of working life and society, however, require continuous improvement. To enhance student-centredness and strengthen Laurea’s position in the HE context, we bridge this discussion with a service design approach, which is one of Laurea’s core areas of expertise. To contextualise our reflection, we first briefly outline the current situation of HE, where students have become customers of HE institutions (HEIs).

The Finnish HE context

Finnish HE has undergone several reforms that have challenged the core values of the welfare state and aligned with the global trend of making national HE systems more internationally competitive. Unlike the old institution-centred models, Finnish HEIs treat students as stakeholders, shifting the focus from teaching to learning and positioning the teacher as a facilitator (Jauhiainen et al. 2009). Teaching has geared towards managing a diverse group of students in flexible learning environments under the pressure of accountability, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency (Siivonen & Filander 2020).

Through the introduction of tuition fees for non-EU/EEA students in 2017, fee-paying students have been positioned more explicitly as customers in Finnish HE policy (Plamper et al. 2023). Under strong financial pressure to complete studies more quickly and with less freedom, fee liability has created unequal positions in Finnish HE (Jokila 2020; Plamper et al. 2023). Although the assumption of “free choice” is behind the “student-as-customer” discourse, in the Finnish HE system, paradoxically, those who do not pay fees have more freedom and options in their studies than the paying “customers”.

Siivonen & Filander (2020) acknowledged that Finnish HE students are experiencing more strain than before. Besides the expectations for quick graduation, HEIs intend to accelerate HE students’ entry into the labour market, coping with neoliberal ideals of efficiency and competition. In addition, students are offered less time and space for discussion among themselves and between students and teachers, as the latter struggle with new administrative demands. Mental problems are common among students (Asikainen et al. 2020), but more staff members also suffer from them (Cao 2021; Hascher & Waber 2021). We assume that this has to do with the growing demands in the competitive HE and the changing roles of the teaching staff from experts to providers in HE.

As consumerism is embedded in Finnish HE, it is relevant to acknowledge its existence as a challenge to the HE community and learn how to deal with it. Research shows that whilst students expect punctuality from lecturers, contact sessions, and a degree as the main objective, they need to find a connection between their own personal plans and the knowledge and skills that they can develop during their studies in HE (Ashwin et al. 2024; Azevedo 2025). Thus, we need to concentrate on the fundamental purpose of HE and provide students with meaningful curricular and learning experiences that promote critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, personal growth, and professional competence. Through capitalising on Laurea’s service design expertise, we can focus on our core values, sustain a student-centred pedagogy, invest in staff development and support, and promote a culture of continuous improvement and deep learning.

Student-centred through service design

Service design is a human-centred, holistic discipline that helps innovate or improve services to make them more useful, usable, efficient, effective, and desirable (Moritz 2005; UK Design Council n.d.). It combines the processes, technologies, and interactions associated with the service, covering all steps, from ideation to delivery and evaluation, and aiming for continuous improvement (Foglieni et al. 2018). Service design is user-centred and focuses on user experience. Through its holistic and collaborative approach, the goal of service design is to co-create value for both the service user and the service provider throughout the service lifecycle (Mager 2009).

In HE, students can be seen as one of the main users of educational products and services, whereas developments in education have shown the relevance of student-centredness in education. For instance, the critical pedagogy theories of Paulo Freire problematise the “banking” concept of education, that is, the idea of education as simply filling up students’ brains with content and emphasise the process of giving voice to the students through a pedagogy that is done with them instead of for them (Freire 2000). More recently, students have gained autonomy and agency through the creation of (digital) learning environments that centre students as protagonists of their learning (Hsu et al. 2019). HEIs, thus, have a big role and responsibility in offering educational services with transformative outcomes, as they affect students throughout their HE journeys and beyond (Tikkanen 2022).  With this in mind, HE staff could be trained in design thinking and service design, as they could develop the ability to visualise and conceptualise the intangible, the passion and curiosity to design solutions that are right for the people and the planet, and the technical abilities to enable the end goal to be reached (UK Design Council n.d.). Once such an approach is embedded in our teaching practice, we could start solving different challenges that students may encounter, from designing improved learning spaces to co-creating different educational services, and having the students involved in such developments (Spokes 2022).

Nonetheless, that must go beyond the provision of only services to students, because if we want to contribute to their development as well as to that of our institution, that requires a paradigm shift. As Spokes (2025) has advocated, Finnish HEIs can benefit greatly from facilitating the acquisition of a service design mindset, process, and toolkit to continue being centres of innovation where students and staff thrive. Thus, students’ learning can be enhanced, as well as their experiences in HE, having their needs at the centre and addressing them through design thinking, collaboration, and holistic problem-solving approaches.

Ultimately, this approach also improves HEIs’ capabilities to succeed in the competitive HE context; once the students are satisfied and find their education useful and effective for their personal and career development, this might enhance HEIs ’ ability to attain higher rates of student attraction, graduate employability, and reputation, which also affect institutional finances and indicators. Furthermore, the collaborative dimension of service design should be emphasised, so that hierarchies become flatter; communication flows in multiple directions with a diversity of voices heard; and everyone becomes committed and takes ownership of the learning process. In this way, service design can support the co-creation of added value to the students, teachers, the HEI, and society. In practice, such a paradigm shift can begin with clear steps that demonstrate institutional commitment and encourage stakeholders’ engagement.

So, what could this mean in practice for Laurea?

To promote a student-centred approach based on service design, we need to start internally, with small steps towards structural changes that make students feel that they are part of their own learning, which in turn will prepare them for the ever-changing world of work.

Notwithstanding, adopting student-centredness through a service design approach does not mean that every student feedback, wishes, demands, and preferences should be prioritised and guide continuous improvement in Laurea’s services.  Academic expertise, intended learning outcomes, professional standards, and societal responsibilities still matter. Student-centredness is not equivalent to student satisfaction; it promotes students’ active participation, agency, and learning, even when the learning process is challenging and does not produce immediate satisfaction.

Here are some ideas to put into practice at Laurea to bring students to the centre of Laurea’s services through interrelated steps: listening to students → involving students → sharing decision-making with students.

Listening to students

• Periodically map students’ needs, demands, challenges, and problems to find and develop mechanisms to address them properly.
• Capitalise on students’ ideas to overcome generational gaps, promote innovation, and adapt Laurea to current needs and trends in HE and working life.
• Create a variety of continuous feedback channels that bring students’ voices, perceptions, and experiences to the centre of Laurea operationalisation.

Involving students

• Engage students as Laurea ambassadors in domestic and international partnerships with HEIs and companies.
• Empower students as co-creators of sustainable futures to ensure enhanced wellbeing, safe societies, and innovation to keep up with competitiveness and Laurea’s development.

Sharing decision-making with students

• Give students a more prominent role, increasing student agency and participation in Laurea’s development groups and decision-making processes.
• Bring the students together, as core stakeholders, to sustain Laurea 2035 strategy and support its vision to become an “internationally competitive higher education institution with working life relevance” (Laurea 2026).

Through adopting a service design approach to enhance student-centred learning, Laurea will create better educational products and services, rely on enhanced processes, improve students’ and staff experiences, and support institutional performance in the competitive HE context.