The Centre for Educational Assessment (CEA) at the University of Helsinki was established in 1996 to develop an instrument for measuring learning to learn as the key transversal skills vital for lifelong learning. Today, CEA works in collaboration with schools and municipalities, and for the National Board of Education and the Ministry of Education and Culture in educational assessment and other strands of educational research and development.

The results of the assessment are shared with the schools to be used for improving learning in classrooms, and utilised for monitoring progress at school and municipal level. CEA was responsible for the implementation of PISA 2006 in Finland, and is currently collaborating with the University of Jyväskylä for PISA 2015 with the responsibility of the domain of Collaborative Problem Solving. Except for the postgraduate student and master level students to be recruited during the project, all team members have several years of experience in conducting large-scale and longitudinal assessment studies in the CEA.