University of Helsinki

People

Dr. Markku Kivinen

Director, Aleksanteri Institute & Director Aleksanteri Energy Group

Expertise: Energy & It’s Effects on Societies in Transition

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

+358-(0)9-191 23654
+358-(0)50-563 6309

Dr. Pami Aalto

Is Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at the University of Tampere, Finland. He has previously worked at the Aleksanteri Institute and now continues his association as an extramural member of the Eurasia Energy Group. His research interests include geopolitics, energy politics, EU foreign policy, Russia in international relations, EU-Russian relations, northern Europe, methodology and multidisciplinarity. His main publications include: Constructing Post-Soviet Geopolitics in Estonia (Frank Cass 2003), European Union and the Making of a Wider Northern Europe (Routledge 2006) and (ed.) The EU-Russian Energy Dialogue: Europe's Future Energy Security? (Ashgate 2007) and (ed. with H. Blakkisrud and H. Smith) The New Northern Dimension of the European Neighbourhood (Centre for European Policy Studies 2008).

Expertise: EU energy policy, EU-Russia Relations, Northern Dimension

Research interests

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

David Dusseault

Is the Project Coordinator for the Aleksanteri Institute's Eurasia Energy Group. His dissertation at Trinity College focuses on the economic, political and social relations between the regions and Moscow in the institutional framework of the Russian Federation . His research interests include conceptualising energy interdependence, the formulation of Russian energy strategy, the internal decision making mechanisms of the Russian energy sector, and its observable effects in the CIS.

Expertise: Dynamics of Russian Energy Policy / North East Asia

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

List of Publications (PDF)

+358-(0)9-191 23642
+358-(0)40-827 0818

Dr. Timo Hellenberg

Expertise: Security and Risk Assessment in Energy Transport / EU, Iran, China

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

+358-(0)40-505 0157

Mikko Palonkorpi

Expertise: International Relations / Energy Security / Caspian & South Caucasus Regions

Curriculum Vitae

+358-(0)9-191 23640
+358-(0)50-563 6616

Dr. Vesa Rautio

Is a researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki. He has carried out research on community restructuring and local and regional development in various countries, with special focus on the Russian North. He has published several books and articles on company restructuring and its socio-economic consequences on post-socialist era from an institutional perspective. Rautio’s Doctoral thesis /"The Potential for Community Restructuring: Mining Towns in Pechenga"/ investigates the transition of natural resource-based communities in the Russian North and the workers’ adaptation process toward socio-economic changes during the 1990s. Dr. Rautio has worked as a visiting researcher in Russia (The Barents Centre), Austria (The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), Norway (The Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research) and Australia (the University of Melbourne).

Research interests

Curriculum Vitae (PDF)

+358-(0)500-881 045

Hanna Smith

Hanna Smith is a researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute. She is an expert on Russian Foreign policy as well as Russian domestic policy trends that impact upon Russia’s foreign relations. She has degrees from Sweden and Great-Britain in Russian language, history, politics and international relations. In 2001-02 she was a visiting researcher at the University of Birmingham,and in 2006 at the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hanna Smith has worked in numerous academic and policy-oriented projects, and headed the Finnish Foreign Ministry funded project on ‘Russian Foreign Policy’ in 2004-05. Her publications include (ed.): Russia and its Foreign Policy – Influences, Interests and Issues”, Kikimora Publications, Saarijärvi 2005; (ed.): The Two-Level Game: Russia's Relations with Great Britain, Finland and the European Union", Kikimora Publications, Saarijärvi, 2006; (ed. with Kuusi and Tiihonen)  “Venäjä 2017-kolme skenaariota (Russia 2017: three scenarios)”, The Committee of the Future, Parliament of Finland 2007; (ed.) “Haasteiden Venäjä (Challenges of Russia)”, Ministry of Defence, Finland, 2008, and  “Russian foreign policy, regional cooperation and northern relations”“ inPami Aalto, Helge Blakkisrud & Hanna Smith (eds), “The New Northern Dimension of the European Neighbourhood”, CEPS Paperbacks , January 2009 and numerous other articles.

Expertise: Russian foreign and security policy, Russia’s energy relations, Russian domestic political developments and NIS countries.

Research interests

+358-(0)9-191 23637
+358-(0)50-538 5549

Dr. Jeremy Smith

Is Senior Lecturer in Russian History at the University of Birmingham, UK, and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute with a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, working on a monograph on nationality relations in and after the USSR, 1917-2005. He has written about ethnic relations in the Caucasus, in particular Baku, for different periods of the twentieth century. He is author of two books, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917-1923 (Macmillan, 1999) and The Fall of Soviet Communism (Palgrave, 2005), and editor of Beyond the Limits: the Concept of Space in Russian History and Culture (Finnish Historical Society, 1999) and co-editor (with Markku Kangaspuro) of Modernisation in Russian Society since 1900 (SKS, 2006).

Research interests