Comment on the draft of Uniarts Helsinki’s new values and vision by 17 April 2026
The next step in Uniarts Helsinki’s vision work is to ask the community to submit comments on the university’s draft of its new values and vision spanning until 2040. The draft has been written based on the feedback given in the community survey and internal vision workshops as well as on the views shared by external stakeholders. The draft will lay the groundwork for the direction that Uniarts Helsinki will take in the future.
You now have the chance to comment on the drafts. We are particularly interested in hearing your thoughts on the texts describing our new values and vision. We encourage you to send us feedback if you have suggestions for edits.
You can submit your comments by 17 April 2026. Scroll down to read the drafts.
Uniarts Helsinki’s values and vision
Skill
In the arts, artists’ competence, actions, knowledge, feeling and experience are intertwined in a way that enables insights and forms of wisdom that cannot emerge from merely receiving or processing information. This holistic nature is a central aspect of being human, and without it, our understanding of the world and of humanity would remain incomplete. Through our embodied existence, we are connected to one another and to our environment in ways that linguistic or conceptual thinking alone cannot capture.
Learning a skill and honing it to a high level is a long-term, delicate and demanding process. It requires time, repetition, guidance and space for each individual to develop in their own special way. Knowledge that accumulates in the body and through experience is a form of knowing that is characteristic of the arts. It is deeply human and bound to embodied presence, perception and interaction with others.
Skill builds on heritage, which draws on traditions, techniques and understandings layered over generations. We bear responsibility for ensuring that these established ways of knowing and doing remain vibrant and continue to evolve.
Courage
Courage is a prerequisite for renewing art and research and for allowing art and research to renew the world. Creating art requires the courage to explore something that is not yet fully formed. We cannot learn without having the courage to reveal our incompleteness and to place ourselves under evaluation. Courage means the ability to do the right thing even when it is difficult and to defend what we know to be valuable even when it is not popular.
The value of a courageous community is reflected in how it treats disagreement and difficult questions. It does not avoid tensions but addresses them – as it is aware that silence is often a greater risk than speaking up. Courage also means ability to face disagreement while trusting the sincerity of other people: it means being willing to listen to things that challenge our own thinking and to change our minds when it is well-justified.
Courage manifests itself as an institutional readiness to defend long-term work even when its impact is not immediately visible. Yet, courage can also mean abandoning practices, structures and attitudes that no longer serve their purpose. It means the ability to examine our activities critically and to view the university’s mission from the perspective of the world that it serves – not solely through the lens of our own traditions or interests. Courage without responsibility is recklessness. True courage always entails a willingness to bear the consequences.
Trust
Trust is a prerequisite for delicate creative processes and for genuine interaction. Art requires vulnerability – artists are able to perform, share their inner worlds and present their unfinished works only in a supportive atmosphere characterised by trust. They need room to experiment and a setting where failures are considered a valuable part of learning. We foster a community where people who view the world in different ways can meet and address even difficult issues in a safe space. Trust is not created by empty rhetoric but by consistent action: by keeping our word, making decisions transparently and treating one another with respect even when we disagree.
Trust, as a value, also recognises the importance of self-confidence. An artist’s belief in their personal style and a researcher’s trust in their own judgement do not arise in a vacuum – they grow within a community that supports and challenges us to grow. At its best, learning involves excelling ourselves and having the courage to tackle something we did not think was possible for us to learn. This requires trust that the community will provide support even when an individual effort fails.
Uniarts Helsinki is an institution that earns society’s trust by striving for the highest quality in art and research, by using the resources entrusted to it responsibly and efficiently and by clearly articulating the value created by its community’s work. Art also builds trust more broadly in society: it helps people understand one another, creates shared experiences and shines light on the things that unite us. The ability to build trust and dialogue between people who think differently is one of the most important skills that we can teach.
Freedom
The freedom of art and research is a prerequisite for carrying our responsibility to produce new knowledge and to expand the boundaries of understanding. Freedom, as a value, is realised when the imagination and curiosity of our community are not limited to what produces immediate and measurable benefits. Instead, we strive toward unfamiliar territories, question prevailing assumptions and explore themes that may feel uncomfortable or even useless. We must apply this critical stance also to our own work and assumptions – because freedom that does not challenge itself is not freedom but comfort.
When we choose freedom as a value, we also recognise the importance of intuition and inspiration. The artistic process is not always systematic or explicable. Freedom also involves having room for exploration and finding the right path only after some missteps – and trusting that the journey, too, is valuable alongside the destination. Nevertheless, freedom does not mean lack of boundaries, but a disciplined quest: freedom that transforms into purposeful work, research and art and aims at increasing understanding and the common good. Furthermore, freedom obliges the university to adhere to openness and credibility.
The freedom of art and research is not a privilege, but a value that sustains society as a whole. We actively defend this freedom – against both external pressure and the internally generated temptations of conformity and self-censorship. Freedom means taking responsibility for our own actions, for the community and for the societal mission entrusted to us. Freedom is always realised in relation to others. One person’s freedom can narrow another’s, and therefore, the exercise of freedom within a community requires attentiveness to how our actions affect others.
How we understand this set of values
The values fuel each other
The four values form a whole. Skill without the courage to renew oneself becomes mere repetition of the old. Courage builds on trust within a community where vulnerability, disagreement and imperfection can be expressed in a safe setting. Trust without freedom can become restrictive, as genuine interaction requires having the freedom to disagree. Freedom is only meaningful when it draws from skill and depth of expertise.
Values and virtues – how values shape everyday life
One piece of feedback shared by people regarding the current values is that they are not sufficiently reflected in everyday practice.
Our choice of values describes what we consider valuable. Virtues, in turn, are character traits and practices that make us capable of living according to our values. A value answers the question “What do we strive for?”, while a virtue answers the question “What must we be like in order to achieve it?”. Values become real in everyday life through virtues.
Skill as a value means that we consider holistic, embodied competence valuable in itself. As a virtue, it is reflected in perseverance, humility in the face of our own incompleteness, high standards toward ourselves and respect for tradition. It is visible in how we teach, how we give feedback and how we relate to one another’s expertise.
Courage as a value means that we value doing what is right more than ease. As a virtue, it is reflected in the readiness to speak up when it would be more comfortable to remain silent, the readiness to listen when it would be easier to disregard and the readiness to change direction when we are wrong. It is visible in meetings, teaching sessions, feedback discussions and in how we approach difficult issues.
Trust as a value means that we regard an environment that fosters a sense of community and vulnerability as valuable in itself, not merely as a means to results. As a virtue, it is reflected in consistency between words and actions, openness in decision-making, and patience in building trust. It is visible in how we practise leadership, how we address mistakes and how new members of the community are welcomed.
Freedom as a value means that we consider the independence of art and research valuable in itself. As a virtue, it is reflected in curiosity, self-criticism, attentiveness to the freedom of others and readiness to defend work even when its value is not yet visible. Freedom manifests itself in how we react to various research topics, artistic approaches and ideas that are still in their early stages.
When we are collectively committed to being responsible, our values become the basis of decision-making. They steer our recruitment choices, curriculum updates and investment decisions as well as what we choose to opt out of and how we justify our choices.
First draft of the vision
(Previous vision statement: Art creates the future)
Art enriches the world with something that would not otherwise exist – it introduces prospects that we do not yet know how to articulate and makes space for new ways of thinking. In a changing and uncertain world, art strengthens society’s capacity to imagine alternatives and to build sustainable futures.
Uniarts Helsinki educates courageous thinkers and creators who combine in-depth artistic competence, critical thinking and the ability to have impact. They do not merely respond to change but help shape it – through art, research and new forms of collaboration.
Uniarts Helsinki is an internationally high-level and ambitious university, where art, research and learning develop in continuous interaction with the rest of the world. Our activities are built on open networks, long-term partnerships and a strong global presence.
Art enhances human capability at a time when technology is rapidly transforming the world. Empathy, self-cultivation and experiential understanding are skills that cannot be automated – skills that art makes visible, shareable and impactful.
We cherish cultural heritage and renew it boldly. In-depth competence and tradition create the foundation from which new things emerge: artistic breakthroughs, new ways of thinking and solutions that extend beyond the arts sector into society at large.
Uniarts Helsinki is an active societal contributor and debater. It brings together people, perspectives and fields, generates dialogue and builds bridges between different worlds. Art does not merely reflect reality – it changes it.
Art creates meanings, a sense of community and wellbeing. It helps us process conflicts, strengthens cultural resilience and makes life worth living. Art belongs to everyone – it crosses boundaries and connects people.
The talented graduates of Uniarts Helsinki work broadly across society: in the arts sector, educational sector, creative industries, cities, media and in new fields that do not yet exist. They build work, meaning and the future, both in Finland and internationally.
Art does not settle for ready-made answers. It asks questions, challenges us and renews us. Art creates the future.