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The Hanken School of Economics (Swedish: Svenska handelshögskolan, also known as Hanken) is a business school located in Helsinki and Vaasa. Hanken was established as a community college in 1909 and originally offered a two-year vocational education.
Hanken programmes include master's, doctoral, and MBA programmes in English, as well as bachelor's and master's programmes in Swedish. Hanken has two locations, one in Helsinki and one in Vaasa.
Hanken was founded in 1909 as a private community college under the name of Högre Svenska Handelsläroverket. Together with Stockholm School of Economics, Hanken is the oldest business school in northern Europe, with the former opening a month after Hanken.
In 1927, the school was given its current name, Svenska Handelshögskolan. A year later, the school introduced a bachelor's degree in economics, with professorships being introduced in 1934. The first doctoral dissertation took place in 1944.
Hanken's second location in Vaasa was established in 1980 to develop business education in the region - a region that houses a large proportion of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland.
Hanken was the first business school in Finland to introduce a compulsory stay abroad for its bachelor's students