I work as the head of the higher education evaluation unit at the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre. The task of our unit is to produce evaluation information on Finnish higher education institutions and develop the quality management of higher education in Finland. We are responsible for our part of the implementation of the requirements of the Bologna Process in Finland.

After establishing our position as a central actor in the quality assurance and evaluation of European higher education, we were offered the chance to run European Commission funded development projects in European Neighbourhood Policy countries. We won two Twinning project tenders: one to develop higher education in Armenia in accordance with the Bologna Process and the other to bring higher education in Azerbaijan closer to the European Higher Education Area.

My best memories from the University of Helsinki are connected with the International Summer School in Theatre Studies, where I completed my doctoral dissertation between 1995 and 2000. During those years it dawned on me that our professor, Pirkko Koski, had succeeded in recruiting the international crème-de-la-crème of our field to the Summer School teaching staff. By bouncing ideas of this group of experts, it was easy to present my own papers at the conferences of the International Federation for Theatre Research, even in the early stages of my PhD programme. I felt privileged to get to know many of the congresses’ keynote speakers.

I dream of either achieving immense popularity by writing pulp fiction under a pseudonym or winning a nonfiction prize for a book connected with the development of higher education. Either one would do fine: popularity with the masses or critical acclaim. I dream of a return to writing.