Experiences from the Visiting Professor Program

Associate Professor Mirko Schäfer from Utrecht University’s Governing the Digital Society research area has served as a Visiting Professor at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH) from 2022 to 2025. As co-founder and project leader of the Utrecht Data School, Schäfer has long been interested in the socio-political impact of media technologies and the role of data practices in shaping public institutions and spaces.

Over the course of his numerous visits to Helsinki, he has been a valuable collaborator for HSSH as well as researchers and research groups at the City Center Campus of University of Helsinki, building strong ties with several groups and contributing to projects that bridge data science, social inquiry, and public engagement. As his term now draws to a close, , marking the culmination of a fruitful three-year collaboration. In this interview, he reflects on what drew him to HSSH, the partnerships he helped build, and how his time in Helsinki has deepened the growing European network around critical data and AI studies.

What motivated you to become a visiting professor at HSSH?

"My motivation to apply for this position came from the strong resonance between the mission of HSSH and the work I’ve been developing with the  at Utrecht University. Both emphasize studying social and technological phenomena up close in collaboration with stakeholders and with a clear commitment to societal impact and community-engaged learning. This alignment made HSSH a natural and inspiring environment for me to contribute to and learn from.

I was particularly drawn to HSSH’s emphasis on interdisciplinarity and methodological innovation. Combining digital methods, ethnography, design thinking, and action research has always been central to our approach Data School, and it’s exciting to see these principles so deeply embedded in the HSSH agenda.

The  series is another remarkable initiative that reflects the intellectual energy of the community here. It showcases how diverse methods, or inventive combinations of them, can yield rich insights. In that sense, it perfectly captures what makes HSSH such a vibrant and forward-looking research environment.

Finally, the  stands out as a truly dynamic space for scholarly exchange. It not only brings together researchers across disciplines but also fosters genuine cross-pollination between academia, society, and different European contexts. Being part of that ecosystem was an exceptional opportunity to deepen my research, contribute to shared projects, and help expand this growing network of collaboration."

What have you been working on during your stay at University of Helsinki and the HSSH and with whom?

"My position at HSSH was co-sponsored by Prof. Minna Ruckenstein and Prof. Matti Nelimarkka, and that interdisciplinary setup — bridging data science and social science — was an excellent fit for my background and research interests. I was affiliated with the , directed by Minna Ruckenstein, and worked closely with Dr. Pekka Mäkelä. We share a strong commitment to developing innovative methods of inquiry and to strengthening capacities for knowledge transfer across academia and society.

What I was able to bring to HSSH and the Repair Project was my experience in building collaborations with external partners through action research formats. Together, we engaged with several societal partners — including DVV, Kela, Demos, and Solita — and introduced them to the  (DEDA), a tool developed by the Data School at Utrecht University and widely used across the Dutch public sector. It has been gratifying to see DEDA now taken up in Finland as well, both by public institutions like DVV and Kela and in university teaching contexts. Our joint work around these collaborations has culminated in an article that will be published soon.

In 2023, I also initiated HSSH’s participation in the  in Brussels — a key European forum where policymakers, researchers, and civil society come together to discuss how data and AI are reshaping our societies. The following year, we organized  there to present the work of the Repair Project and to highlight the value of collaboration between practitioners and academic researchers.

Alongside that, I teamed up with Prof. Risto Kunelius to share my expertise in collaborative research practices as part of their  (which he is coordinating together with Pekka Mäkelä). It was also an opportunity for us to reflect on how to foster interdisciplinary teamwork more effectively.

What I’ve found particularly exciting is that my time here has extended well beyond my own position. It has sparked a lively exchange between Utrecht University and Helsinki. Colleagues from both sides have visited each other regularly: for instance, Sofie de Wilde de Ligny and Fleur Stalenhoef from Utrecht’s  co-organized a workshop with Aalto University and the City of Helsinki on implementing large language models in municipal contexts; Karin van Es gave a lecture at HSSH; Iris Muis and Julia Straatman delivered several DEDA workshops; and Joris Veerbeek, one of our PhD students, was invited to present at a conference here. These exchanges have built enduring partnerships, with projects and collaborations that are still ongoing today."

Why and how were these collaborations relevant and rewarding?

"Our collaboration has been especially productive because it fills a real gap in the field of Critical Data and AI Studies. The field is still largely shaped by US-centric narratives, which often don’t translate well to the European context. Working together has allowed us to examine how different European countries are responding to algorithms, data, and AI. We were able to explore both the shared challenges and the local specificities in how governments, civil society, and industry engage with these technologies.

What I find particularly exciting is that our joint research doesn’t stop at critique or conceptual reflection. It actively produces empirical evidence and develops practical, applicable solutions. This combination of theoretical depth and hands-on engagement is what makes the collaboration so intellectually stimulating and socially relevant.

We’ve also learned a great deal from each other methodologically — especially in refining and scaling our action research approaches. These exchanges have helped us adapt our methods to local contexts while also thinking about their broader applicability within the EU.

Beyond the research itself, the collaboration has sparked a vibrant network of people and ideas. Regular visits to Helsinki have led to new partnerships, with colleagues from both the University of Helsinki and Aalto University visiting the Netherlands, and members of our Data School joining projects and conferences in Finland. Our connections have also extended to Estonia and other European partners in Sweden, Austria, Belgium, and beyond. And just recently we started to collaborate with computer scientists at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.

It’s been rewarding to see how this academic collaboration has evolved into a truly European network; it even includes shared initiatives between our external partners in Finland and the Netherlands!"

Is there anything else you would like to mention about your visits?

"The University of Helsinki truly feels like my academic home away from Utrecht. Every visit here has been both a pleasure and a source of inspiration. I’ve been consistently impressed by the collegial and genuinely welcoming atmosphere among the researchers — it’s an environment that makes collaboration come naturally.

What I particularly value is how the visiting scholar programme and the broader mission of the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH) foster interdisciplinary dialogue and new ways of thinking about collaborative research. These experiences have not only broadened my academic network but also deepened my understanding of how research can bridge disciplinary boundaries.

Moreover, the strong Nordic focus on responsible AI, data practices, and good digital governance aligns closely with my own research interests. Engaging with these perspectives has given me valuable comparative insights and has been instrumental in shaping the direction of my current work."

An inspiring visit to Helsinki

HSSH Visiting Professor Program strengthens international cooperation by bringing internationally recognized scholars for visits at the City Center Campus of the University of Helsinki.

Barbara Pfetsch, Professor of Communication Theory and Media Effects Research at Freie Universität Berlin is a Visiting Professor at HSSH in 2022–2024. She has visited the University of Helsinki several times and has collaborated with many researchers on different projects and plans for future projects.

Professor Pfetsch’s research revolves around questions of political issue networks, public debate and mobilization on social media and other digital platforms.

“During my visits in 2022 and 2023 I gave talks about election campaigns of right wing parties in Europe, the constitution of solidarity in civil society, and the protest and digital mobilization in environmental conflicts,” Professor Pfetsch says.

“I used my stay to exchange with Juha Herkman, Emilia Palonen and Anu Kantola about ongoing projects and to initiate new collaborations with Risto Kunelius, Matti Pohjonen and Juho Pääkkönen. The new projects deal with coordinated (in)authentic behavior and scaling of social movement communication.”

The projects which have been planned are a part of an institutional liaison between HSSH and the Weizenbaum-Institute for the Networked Society Berlin. A workshop in Berlin next year is planned to continue and strengthen the collaboration. Professor Pfetsch feels that the collaboration has been rewarding.

“During my visits I attended the research seminars at HSSH and was introduced to the work of young researchers. The discussions were inspiring because I learned about the research agenda of Finnish scholars which is not known abroad. I also profited from the expertise and excellence in computational methods and data analysis which is present at the HSSH. Finally, thanks to the international exchange activities at UH I met other fellows from the US and Israel in Helsinki who presented their projects,” she says.

“I enjoy the open mindedness and the friendly atmosphere at HSSH, the multidisciplinary approach to research and the plurality of perspectives."

HSSH's Visiting Professor Programme strengthens international cooperation by bringing internationally recognized researchers to the City Centre Campus of the University of Helsinki. The program runs from 2022 to 2025, and with two previous application rounds 13 researchers from different parts of the world have visited Helsinki. The visits will continue during the fall semester, and at the same time the programme's third round of applications will begin.

Ewan Jones, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Downing College, Cambridge visited the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki during late March and early April. Jones' visit to Helsinki was coordinated by Senior University Lecturer in English Philology Merja Polvinen from the University of Helsinki.

The Visiting Professors' programme during their visits includes, for example, public lectures and participation in the activities of research groups on the City Centre Campus. During his visit, Ewan Jones gave a lecture on his latest research on attention and distraction in 18th and 19th-century science and culture.

"In his official program this was the presentation aimed more at those interested in the traditional study of literature and culture. In addition, we organized a workshop on the use of computational methods in the study of the history of ideas, language, and literature. There, Ewan discussed the work of Cambridge Concept Lab, and there the focus was more on the methods available for the analysis of large amounts of data," Merja Polvinen says.

In addition, Jones participated in a research seminar in the field of English literature and met with Doctoral Researchers. The collaboration took place in the Faculty of Arts between several research groups. The collaboration included the Instrumental Narratives project (iNARR), funded by the Academy of Finland, which focuses on the analysis of the narrative form and the consideration of its cognitive and social roles. VARIENG, The Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English, on the other hand, represented research in linguistics. This unit uses many corpus methods to map the properties of various texts, including fiction. Also central was the Digital Humanities unit, from which Professor Mikko Tolonen was the second host of the visit. The themes of the visit – literary research, corpus linguistics and history of ideologies – were based on these three research groups.

The visit was a positive experience overall, and all parties are open to doing another one in the future, even though there are currently no concrete plans. Discussions and cooperation will also continue remotely.

"During both the visiting lecture and the workshop, there was a lively discussion about how digital methods, close reading and consideration of the historical context can support each other. There are still plenty of challenges, because starting from one angle can easily make invisible some information that is central to other disciplines. However, the idea may not be to reach the end point of the process, but to build feedback loops between different results and methods. Such discussions with Ewan were particularly fruitful, as he is one of the few researchers who has a very keen eye for the traditional reading of texts, their historical contexts, as well as being an expert on what computational methods can do," Polvinen says.