- Happy holidays from HSSH – see you in January!
- HSSH delegation visited Kaunas
- HSSH’s Sointu Leikas on YLE
- Matti Pohjonen attends the EMIF Winter Conference on “Disinformation: Systemic Challenges, Structural Solutions”
- Anton Berg and Visajaani Salonen Doctoral defenses in December
Happy holidays from HSSH – see you in January!
As the end of the year approaches, we wanted to take a moment to extend warm wishes to the university community and thank everyone for taking part in activities arranged by HSSH this year! The year has been filled with interesting and inspiring events, and hard work with our external evaluation, among other things, and now it’s time to relax for a moment.
In January we’ll continue with our Brown Bag Seminars on Wednesday 15th of January. Stay tuned for other news and events in the new year.
In 2025 you can also find us on LinkedIn – click here to visit our page.
Happy holidays!
HSSH delegation visited Kaunas
In the beginning of December HSSH staff members paid a reciprocal visit to Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute (Kavolis Institute) of Vytautas Magnus University located in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Kavolis Institute is a new academic research department that brings together researchers in social sciences and humanities from five faculties of Vytautas Magnus University with the aim of initiating and conducting interdisciplinary research.
A delegation from the Kavolis Institute visited HSSH in November 2023 to learn how interdisciplinary research is promoted and organized in the University of Helsinki. This time, HSSH visited Kaunas to continue exchanging knowledge and exploring the collaboration opportunities between the institutes, as well as to attend Vytautas Kavolis International Seminar “Disciplines and Their Boundaries”.
The seminar included presentations and discussion about disciplinary boundaries and future challenges ahead for interdisciplinary research. In the beginning, quests received a warm welcome and an introduction to the Kavolis Institute by its Director assoc. prof. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė. The institute gets its name from a prominent Lithuanian researcher and a public figure Vytautas Martynas Kavolis (1930-1999) whose intellectual legacy and methodological contributions to the fields of sociology, literacy studies, and cultural history, were presented elaborately by Gintautas Mažeikis, a professor at the Kavolis Institute.
The seminar continued with presentations and a panel discussion. HSSH Director Risto Kunelius gave a thought-provoking presentation about discipline and disciplinarity. The presentation contemplated on the history and future of disciplinarity through examining different dimensions of demands and obstacles for interdisciplinarity.
The presentation was followed up by a lively panel discussion about the advantages and challenges of changing disciplinary boundaries. The discussion was moderated by prof. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė and included four speakers: Prof. Gintaras Valinčius (President of the Research Council of Lithuania), Prof. Saulius Keturakis (Member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Committee of Research Council of Lithuania), Prof. Hannu Nieminen (Professor Emeritus, University of Helsinki; Professor and Chief Researcher, Kavolis Institute), and Dr. Pekka Mäkelä (Research Coordinator and Vice Director, HSSH). The panelists exhanged thoughts and experiences over a variety of topics. Among other things, the panelists discussed different arguments for interdisciplinarity, the importance of official definition of interdisciplinarity, the challenges of evaluating interdisciplinary research initiatives, and for example, how well the interdisciplinary success of microbiology can function as a paradigm example and an inspiration of interdisciplinarity in the fields of social sciences and humanities.
The perspectives from the Research Council of Lithuania illuminated how the prospects and requirements of interdisciplinarity may look from the perspective of funding research and science policy.
In addition, different experiences from Finland and Lithuania brought up many interesting points regarding the incentives and challenges with developing interdisciplinary cross faculty institutes. After the panel discussion, the seminar audience were given even more food for thought when a hybrid setup connected them to Prof. Gediminas Urbonas (Director of MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Urbonas gave an awe-inspiring presentation about breaking boundaries between science, arts, and activism with ample examples from his successful interdisciplinary and artistic research.
After the seminar HSSH members were invited to have a dinner in a traditional Lithuanian restaurant. At the dinner people got to know each other more personally and continued exchanging ideas and experiences, as well as discuss possibilities of future collaborations.
HSSH’s Sointu Leikas on YLE
University Researcher Sointu Leikas from HSSH’s Methodological Unit was invited to talk on the YLE Tiedeykkönen podcast in December.
The podcast is in Finnish and explores stereotypes about birth order and their accuracy, examines research on birth order's effect on personality, and discusses the lifelong impact of sibling relationships, including the roles of evolution and interpersonal chemistry.
Listen to the podcast (in Finnish) here.
Matti Pohjonen attends the EMIF Winter Conference on “Disinformation: Systemic Challenges, Structural Solutions”
Matti Pohjonen, a University Researcher at HSSH’s Methodological Unit, participated in the European Media and Information Fund’s (EMIF) flagship Winter Conference held in Florence, Italy. This year’s conference, themed “Disinformation: Systemic Challenges, Structural Solutions” brought together leading experts and practitioners to discuss comprehensive strategies for combating disinformation at societal levels.
Matti attended on behalf of the InfoLead project (The Information and Media Leadership Programme for Legal Professionals and Policymakers), a new joint programme coordinated between Helsinki University, University of Oxford and University of Florence. Matti leads the Helsinki part of the project, working together on the project’s digital component with Univesity Researcher Aleksi Knuutila.
At the conference, Matti delivered a Pecha Kucha Flash Talk, which showcased some of the projects funded by EMIF in a friendly competition format.
“Presenting complex ideas in three minutes and three slides was an interesting experience to talk about a complex that academics excel in but in a simple and concise form,“ Pohjonen said.
He was one of the 16 competitors funded by EMIF that participated in the flash talks.
In addition the workshops addressed a broad range of topics linked to disinformation, including disinformation regulations and media freedom, monetization of disinformation, and links between pseudoscience and anti-scientific disinformation.
The workshop was partially organised by the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, one of the leading European institutes in social sciences and humanities. This was also the institute where the current President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, was a director before being elected this year.
“It was interesting to talk to colleagues who had worked directly with President Stubb here in Florence,” Pohjonen said.
“In fact, the presentations and events took place in the Matti Ahtisaari Peace Hall, showing the strong contribution of Finland to these topics.”
Anton Berg and Visajaani Salonen Doctoral defenses in December
Anton Berg from HSSH’s Datafication Research Program succesfully defended his doctoral dissertation titled "Commercial image recognition representing religion" in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki on Saturday 14th of December. Our warmest congratulations to Anton for his achievement!
The dissertation critically examines how commercial image recognition systems construct representations of religion, identity, and race, highlighting the biases embedded in these AI-driven technologies and calling for robust, interdisciplinary approaches to address their implications for societal and cultural understandings of religion. Click here to read the dissertation online.
Still to come, on Friday 20th of December HSSH’s Project Planner Visajaani Salonen will defend his dissertation in the Faculty of Education, University of Helsinki. The public defense will be held at Athena, room 302, Siltavuorenpenger 3 at 12.15.
Salonen’s disseration, and defense, is in Finnish and it examines the decline in Finnish students' mathematics competence, exploring the interplay of emotions, beliefs, and teaching practices on performance, self-concept development, and the relationship between learning outcomes assessments and matriculation exams, highlighting systematic curriculum impacts and advocating for advanced research methodologies to inform educational policy. Click here to read the dissertation online. The defense can also be followed online. Click here to access the stream.