Abstract The thesis consists of the summary and eight refereed articles presenting the national, regional and institutional levels of strategic planning and quality assurance. National or regional networks may have either general or functional strategies. An organisation may have an overall strategy and its support services may have functional strategies. Quality assurance typically takes constantly smaller steps to develop processes. Strategic planning produces strategic objectives for a better future, while the purpose of a quality assurance system is to safeguard that these objectives can be achieved. This interpretation thus integrates strategic planning into quality assurance in internal processes and information systems.

The higher education institutions can and should be managed to attain a better future and ensure high quality, but the management of higher education institutions need a framework. The objective of this study is to provide a common framework of strategic planning and quality assurance for higher education institutions.

The framework does not only help management communicate and implement the strategies, but also to plan strategies in the strategy process, evaluate the performance and achievement of desired objectives and provide a structure for quality assurance and management information system. The framework is also rigorously tested in practice.

At the national level, the study presents a network strategy of the universities of applied sciences (formerly polytechnics) and the functional strategic plans of their libraries. At the regional level, the study presents a network strategy of higher education institutions and the strategy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences as part of the strategy of the City of Turku. At the institutional level, the study presents competitive strategies, which are applied in continuing education. Finally, the study analysed the importance of various measures in process control to improve the quality of education.