Welcome!

Development Studies is a relatively small discipline within the Department of Political and Economic Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences. It has five permanent academic staff members: one Professor, two University Lecturers and two other teachers. In addition, about a dozen researchers with external funding are working at the discipline and form an integral part of its research community. In addition to carrying out research and teaching, the academic staff members are also involved in consultancies and participate actively in development debates in the media and other forums.

Development Studies offers courses and degrees from beginners to the doctoral level. More than 120 Master’s students and around 30 doctoral students are enrolled at the discipline. In addition, a large number of students from other disciplines and faculties study Development Studies as their minor subject. The principal teaching language is Finnish, but practically all literature as well as some lecture courses and seminars are offered also in English.

Development Studies deals with countries in Africa, Asia,
Middle East and Latin America and maintains wide networks with academic institutions in many of these areas. The discipline covers a broad range of social sciences. Within the Faculty, Development Studies is distinguished by its problem-orientation and multi-disciplinarity. It focuses on development problems and endeavours to produce and disseminate knowledge relevant to their solution. As development problems are complex and multidimensional, they cannot be tackled by the resources of a single conventional discipline but require approaches that combine expertise in several areas.

News

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The discipline of Development studies is hosting the Kapuscinski development lecture in cooperation with the UNDP, the European Commission and the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.  

The event will feature keynote speeches by President Tarja Halonen and Helen Clark, Administrator of UNDP and former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

The topic of the event is ‘Resetting the global development agenda at the Rio+20 summit’. 

Professor Teivo Teivainen will act as moderator of the event.

Lecture will be held on May 7th 2012 from 10:00-12:00 in the Small Hall of the University’s main building (4th floor).  

Program:

9.30                     Coffee

10.00                  Welcome address, 1st Vice Rector Ulla-Maija Forsberg, Undes-Secretary of State Anne Sipiläinen and Head of Representation Eikka Kosonen

10:15                  President Tarja Halonen

‘Political leadership for sustainable development’

10:45                  Helen Clark, Administrator of UNDP

‘Sustainable development: from shared principles to practice’

11:25                  Q&A

11:45                  Closing remarks

Please sign up online by May 3rd 2012: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/34948/lomake.html

Welcome to the event!