The 3AMK Moves project created an activity etiquette that guides the members of the 3AMK community to reduce sitting, take breaks, and be active during the study and working day. The activity etiquette brings together the common principles formulated jointly by the 3AMK Universities community for the implementation of a more active everyday life. The activity etiquette focuses on comprehensively supporting the learning, sense of community, well-being and achieving a more active higher education culture, for example, by encouraging more physically active didactic methods and more diverse meeting practices.
The activity etiquette encourages the 3AMK Universities community to take movement into account and increase it in all its activities. Movement is a prerequisite for the ability to work and study, and taking care of this ability is part of professional skills. Movement is also important for learning. Physical activity improves brain function and memory and helps to retain what has been learned better in long-term memory. However, about a third of students sit for at least twelve hours a day on weekdays (National Institute for Health and Welfare 2024). With this amount of sitting, higher education students take first place as the most diligent sitters of the adult population. However, 75% of students would also like to move more during the study day (Study on the Move 2025). Small everyday choices, such as variable working positions, taking breaks and favoring more active study or teaching methods, are made on an individual level, but in the higher education community, choices are also made on behalf of others. Especially in teaching and guidance work, up to hundreds of students are reached per week.
The activity etiquette outlines how to make movement a part of our everyday life
The entire 3AMK community was involved in the design process of the activity etiquette, and it was implemented in stages according to the principles of service design. To provide background for the process, information was collected from the university’s employees and students, and they were involved in making team-specific activity pledges. The project also launched so called activity facilitator activities, in which dozens of lecturers took the movement to teaching on a concrete level. With the help of these facilitator activities, information on the importance of everyday physical activity in higher education institutions was both collected and disseminated. Information was also collected on the Tune Up Your Daily Life – A Path to a Balanced Professional -courses organized and teached by the project. In addition, the project team mapped the structures guiding the activities of higher education institutions, such as orientation courses, student and teacher tutoring modules, and course feedback systems. The higher education community was also asked to provide good tips and practices for increasing everyday activity. These were compiled on the 3AMK Moves project’s website (Activity bank, content in Finnish).
The collection of information was supported by visits to various events where movement as part of teaching, learning, well-being and communality was given a foothold. In the spring of 2025, the project team prepared a survey for the higher education community, which was used to collect information and to select the operating principles that the respondents considered to be the most important to increase physical activity in everyday life. The survey received almost 200 responses.
The open-ended answers included for example the following:
“Movement in higher education increases when…
we pay enough attention to it and we all set an example.”
we’re increasing the amount of talk about physical activity and thinking about it in our everyday lives.”
we encourage each other to be active during the day, for example by taking advantage of walking meetings or other active forms of meetings or studies.”
“Personally, I add movement to my everyday life…
by changing working positions and stretching my legs.”
by taking breaks from sitting at least once an hour.”
gradually, appropriately and sufficiently.”
on campus, choosing the stairs instead of the elevator at least once a day.”
by planning breaks between meetings and also making sure that they take place.”
by adding elements of physical activity to teaching.”
Based on the results of the survey, a joint design workshop was organized in late spring 2025 for all interested 3AMK operators, where they brainstormed the final content of the activity etiquette and crystallized the operating principles considered the most important. The 3AMK Moves project team summarized and compiled the operating principles into a total of eight principles guiding movement.
Development work continues
The project has received further funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture. The applicants for the second term were Haaga-Helia and Laurea. The follow-up project UAS Moves will start in August, from which time the activity etiquette will be implemented in the everyday life of higher education institutions with the local Haaga-Helia Moves and Laurea Moves plans. The RDI projects 3AMK Moves and UAS Moves are linked to the Government Programme’s Finland on the Move programme. The aim of the programme is to increase physical activity among people of different ages. The programme promotes opportunities for physical activity and everyday choices that support physical activity. The project cooperates with the Study on the Move activities. The first term of the project is 08/2024–07/2025, and the follow-up term will be 08/2025–07/2026.