The year 2023 was successful for LUT both academically and financially.
“Research and education results remain at last year’s good level. In addition, the number of master's graduates grew considerably, and an increasing number graduated in the target timeframe,” says Juha-Matti Saksa, rector of LUT University.
The academic outcomes included 57 doctoral graduates (59 in 2022) and 933 master's graduates (783 in 2022). A total of 49.8% of graduates obtained their degree in the target completion time (46.8% in 2022). The university produced 469 publications with a national Publication Forum rating of 2 or 3 (478 in 2022).
According to Saksa, 2023 will go down in LUT history as a year of important initiatives in Lappeenranta, Lahti, and internationally. Bachelor’s programmes in social and communication sciences were up for application for the first time, and the first students started their studies on the Lappeenranta campus last autumn.
When cities, companies and researchers join forces, we can achieve great things.
LUT also established two new professorships in cooperation with business enterprises: an electrical engineering professorship in Lappeenranta and a sustainable mechatronics professorship in Lahti. Moreover, Lahti saw the opening of the new Electric Mobility Research Center (EMRC) – a collaborative effort with Kempower.
“When cities, companies and researchers join forces, we can achieve great things. In our campus cities, we are coming up with sustainable ways to address the world's needs. Meanwhile, we are developing increasingly wide-ranging collaboration between LUT and industries,” Saksa elaborates.
Also, LUT's international collaboration advanced in leaps and bounds when the EULiST alliance obtained four-year funding from the European Commission. The funding enabled LUT and nine other European universities to establish a new joint European University in autumn 2023. Furthermore, LUT organised a significant number of international conferences and other events over the year.
“If we genuinely wish to solve the world’s wicked problems, we need to look beyond the Finnish borders. EULiST offers our students and staff even better opportunities for collaboration and success than before.”
LUT excelled in international rankings and national reputation surveys
LUT's success in international rankings continues even though the number of universities in the rankings keeps increasing year after year.
LUT reached the top 300 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024. In national comparison, LUT shared third place after the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. In THE subject rankings, LUT Business School placed in the global top 150, physical sciences in the top 200, and engineering sciences in the top 300. Moreover, the ranking indicates that LUT Business School is second in the world in research quality.
In terms of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, LUT was one of the world’s top 200 universities and the best Finnish university (THE 2023 Impact Ranking). LUT was 15th in sustainable consumption and 26th in climate action. What's more, LUT ranked 351st in the QS World University Rankings.
LUT also excelled in national reputation surveys. For example, T-Media’s Reputation & Trust survey named LUT as the most reputable university in Finland. Also, the 2022 Finnish Bachelor's Graduate Survey showed that LUT University has the most satisfied university students in Finland.
Finances still in balance – result better than anticipated
LUT started the year 2023 with a surplus and ended the year with a better result than expected. The university also increased its turnover by nearly 12 million euros.
The university was successful in raising supplementary funding and achieved a turnover of 118.7 million euros. The share of core funding by the Ministry of Education and Culture was 60.8 million euros, and that of supplementary funding was 58.0 million euros.
LUT University's operational result after incomes and expenditures showed a surplus of 0.8 million euros. Before the mark-to-market valuation of LUT's investment portfolio, the university’s result showed a surplus of 4.6 million euros, which was 1.5 million more than anticipated. Due to the upward trend of the investment market, the mark-to-market valuation of the investment portfolio improved the university’s result by 8.8 million euros. The overall result for the accounting year showed a surplus of 13.4 million.
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