Five Research Focuses

January 2012: The Aleksanteri Institute is currently formulating a new Research Policy for the coming years. The research focuses presented below and the Centre of Excellence "Choices of Russian Modernization" will direct research activities to be carried out at the Aleksanteri Institute in 2012 and beyond.

Aleksanteri Institute's Research Policy 2008-2011 (PDF)

The Aleksanteri Institute has determined five focus areas for research for the coming few years. These have been selected on the basis of an analysis of fields of investigation needing further research and of the future challenges of those countries that fall within the Institute’s research scope. They are partially based on a consideration of the expertise currently available within the Institute, with the intention of developing stronger expertise in each of the areas mentioned below. These themes have been approved by the Executive Board of the Aleksanteri Institute, and they constitute the areas that will be favoured when it comes to allocating resources for research. Each research focus is approached through wider, multidisciplinary research programmes consisting of one or more research projects.

1. Economic Diversification
   Energy policy
   Changing industrial and rural communities
   The Cold War and its consequences
   
   
2. The Welfare Society
   Welfare, gender and agency
   Inequalities
   Class and social structure
   
   
3. Democracy
   The construction of "Europeanness" and the political use of history
   Public administration
   The media
   Welfare, gender and agency
   
   
4. A European Dimension in Foreign Policy
   Foreign policy and energy issues
   Civil protection and crisis management
   
   
5. The Social Constitution of Culture
   Rationality and the history of ideas
   The sacred and the profane
   Identities
   Cultural encounters
   Cultural centres and peripheries
   
   

One of the starting points for the Institute’s research is dialogue with scholars and other actors in the countries within the Institute’s geographical scope. A significant part of the research is carried out in cooperation with partners from Russia, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Balkans and East Central Europe.  The Visiting Scholars Programme is also aimed at further facilitating dialogue, with colleagues from countries west, east, and south of Finland.

Aleksanteri Institute Visiting Scholars Programme