Tuomas Forsberg is the Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. He is on a leave of absence from University of Tampere where he is professor of International Relations.
Professor Forsberg's research activities have focused on international relations theory, foreign policy analysis, peace and conflict studies and more policy oriented questions related to European security, EU foreign and security policy, German foreign policy, Finnish foreign policy, Nordic cooperation and Russia. His most recent research projects have dealt with psychological theories of foreign policy, Russia’s cultural statecraft and the war in Ukraine. Currently, he is conducting research on the evolution of the European security order after the Cold War on the basis of new archival sources.
TUOMAS FORSBERG gained his MA from University of Helsinki in 1989 (Political Science, International Relations) and his PhD at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1998 (International Relations). He is docent at the universities of Helsinki and Lapland. He worked as the acting director (1998-2001) and senior research fellow of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, as Professor of Western European Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (2002-04) and as Professor of International Relations at the University of Helsinki (2004-2008) before moving to the University of Tampere where he has been Professor of International Relations since 2008. His publications include Divided West: European Security and the Transatlantic Relationship (co-authored with Graeme Herd, Blackwell 2006), The European Union and Russia (co-authored with Hiski Haukkala, Palgrave 2016) and The Psychology of Foreign Policy (co-authored with Christer Pursiainen, Palgrave 2021) and articles in journals such as International Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Review of International Studies, Security Dialogue and Journal of Common Market Studies. He lives in Helsinki and is married with three children (b. 2003, 2006 and 2013).
Hanne Appelqvist's primary areas of responsibilities as the deputy director are related to external research funding and the development of research collaboration. She is also the editor-in-chief of the HCAS publication series.
Hanne Appelqvist’s main interests in philosophy are Ludwig Wittgenstein, Immanuel Kant, philosophy of language, philosophy of religion, and aesthetics. She has worked extensively on the affinities between Wittgenstein’s thought – both early and late – and Kant’s critical philosophy. Central themes in her research have been Wittgenstein’s views on logic and grammar, normativity, ethics, aesthetics, and religion. Currently, she is editing a collection of articles titled Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language (Routledge, forthcoming) and is working on her own monograph on the relation between Wittgenstein and Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. Appelqvist works also on aesthetics and philosophy of music. She is the leader of a collaborative research project The Cognitive Relevance of Aesthetics (Finnish Cultural Foundation, University of Tampere).
Hanne Appelqvist received her doctoral degree in philosophy from Columbia University in 2007. In her dissertation Wittgenstein and the Conditions of Musical Communication (Acta Philosophica Fennica 2008), Appelqvist defended a formalist interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on music. In Finland, she has worked in several research projects, both personal and collaborative, most recently as a collegium researcher at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies. Her work has appeared in journals such as The British Journal of Aesthetics, The European Journal of Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and History of Philosophy Quarterly as well as in edited books published by Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. Appelqvist is Docent of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku. Since 2018, she has been the Editor-in-Chief of Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics.
Kaisa Kaakinen is responsible for managing and developing the academic program of the Collegium. She facilitates collaboration among Collegium's researchers and develops contacts to other units of the University of Helsinki and to other institutes of advanced study. She coordinates the Collegium's events program, which includes academic symposia, lectures and workshops as well as the Kollegium Talks public event series at Think Corner and the annual HCAS Winter School for doctoral students.
Kaisa Kaakinen's research interests are situated at the intersections of literature and history, or literary studies and historiography. Her publications deal with concepts and practices of comparison in literature and literary studies, historical narration in literature, memory studies, reception studies, trauma studies, postcolonial studies and twentieth and twenty-first-century literature (especially in German and English).
Kaisa Kaakinen finished her doctoral degree in comparative literature at Cornell University in 2013. Her monograph Comparative Literature and the Historical Imaginary. Reading Conrad, Weiss, Sebald (Palgrave, 2017) studies comparative practices and transnational historical narration in the context of the work of three twentieth-century authors and the contemporary discipline of comparative literature. Before coming to HCAS, she worked as postdoctoral researcher and university teacher in comparative literature at the University of Turku, Finland.
Linda Lindholm's main responsibilities at the Collegium are strategic support for the Collegium director, coordination of on-site support and preparation of administrative matters.
Oskar Ahlberg is responsible for coordination of Collegium’s conference services and communications related to them, updating the website, giving travelling support, ordering tickets and keys, computers and facilities administration. Oskar is the secretary of the HCAS executive board.
When contacting Oskar Ahlberg in HCAS matters, please use the email address collegium-office@helsinki.fi.
Rosa Beckmann is responsible for recruitment processes, contracts, grants and fees, holidays and absences as well as cooperation with financial services.
To contact Rosa Beckmann in HR matters, please send email to the address hr-hcas@helsinki.fi.
Outi Salonen is responsible for budgeting and reporting as well as counselling in general financial matters.