People

Director of the Centre for European Studies

Adjunct professor, Political Science

Ongoing projects:

• INDEED (Strengthening a comprehensive approach to preventing and counteracting radicalisation based on a universal evidence-based model for evaluation of radicalisation prevention and mitigation)
• VORTEX (Coping with Varieties of Radicalisation into Terrorism and Extremism)

Expertise and research interests:

• Terrorism and political violence in post-war Europe
• School shootings
• Counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation policies in western countries

Leena Malkki on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Leena Malkki website

Professor of European Societies and their Politics

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Gender and EU Studies in the University of Tübingen, Germany, (2022-2025)

Ongoing research projects:

• Director of the research project EUGenDem: "Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's party groups" , funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2023)
• PI at the University of Helsinki for CCindle: Co-Creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces Across Europe, EU Horizon Europe (2022-2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• European integration
• European Union, actors, institutions, governance
• European Parliament, political groups
• Gender and politics
• Gender equality policies, intersectionality
• Democracy, equality, anti-gender politics, feminist responses

Johanna Kantola's homepage

Johanna Kantola on Twitter

Email: johanna.kantola(a)helsinki.fi

University Lecturer in European Studies

Docent of political science (international relations) at University of Turku

PhD, Political Science

Ongoing projects:

• JuRe (Just Recovery from Covid-19? Fundamental Rights, Legitimate Governance and Lessons Learnt) 

Expertise and research interests:

• Common EU foreign policy
• European values
• UN and human rights questions
• Europeanization of refugee policies
• Finnish EU and UN policy

Hanna Tuominen on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Professor of European Intellectual History

Ongoing projects:

• Director at the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie)
• Director at the research project “Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition” (SpaceLaw), funded by ERC

Expertise and research interests:

• European studies
• Legal history
• Legal anthropology
• Jurisprudence
• Roman law
• Classical archaeology
• Ancient history

Kaius Tuori on EuroStorie website

Professor of Religion and Law, Åbo Akademi University

Docent of research in law and religion at University of Helsinki

Docent of theological ethics with philosophy of religion at Åbo Akademi University

Ongoing projects:

• Vice-director of the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (Academy of Finland 2018-2025)

Expertise and research interests:

• Law and religion
• Religious freedom
• Human rights
• Theory and history of human rights
• History of ideas
• Political theology

Pamela Slotte on EuroStorie website

Professor of Sustainability Science at HELSUS and Department of Cultures

Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters 

Ongoing research projects:

• Subproject leader, Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie)
• Non-resident visiting fellow, European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)

Expertise and research Interest

• Legal anthropology
• Indigenous Studies
• Sustainability and human rights 
• Anti-racism in Europe
• Minority cultures and languages
• Arctic 

Expert positions

• European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) 
• Finnish Expert Panel for Sustainable Development

Reetta Toivanen on EuroStorie website

University researcher

PhD, legal history

Ongoing projects:

• Team Leader at the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie) subproject 1 “Law and the uses of the past”

Expertise and research interests:

• History of historiography
• Conceptual history
• Legal history of Eastern Europe

Ville Erkkilä on EuroStorie website

University researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Team Leader at the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie) subproject 2 “Discovering the Limits of Reason - Europe and the Crisis of Universalism”

Expertise and research interests:

• Post-Kantian European philosophy
• Social & political thought
• 20th Century philosophy, analytic and continental
• 'End of metaphysics'
• Science and critical thought
• Biopolitical theory

Marco Piasentier on EuroStorie website

University researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Team Leader at the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie) subproject 3, “Migration and the narratives of Europe as an “Area of freedom, security and justice”
• Principal investigator of the research project ”Gatekeeping the Nation: Deportation at Finnish Borderscapes from the Cold War to Europeanisation” (GATE, Research Council of Finland 2022-2026)
• Book project  ”Writing the Past White: Nation, Race and Coloniality in Finnish National Histories”

Expertise and research interests:

• Migration, borders, and deportations
• Minority politics
• Nationalism
• Historiography

Miika Tervonen on EuroStorie website and University of Helsinki Research Portal

Postdoctoral researcher 

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in the project ”Gatekeeping the Nation: Deportation at Finnish Borderscapes from the Cold War to Europeanisation” (GATE, Research Council of Finland 2022-2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• Development of migration politics and legislation 
• Forced migration 
• Practices of the authorities regarding foreigners
• Science communication 
• Political communication and parties

Matti Välimäki on EuroStorie website, University of Helsinki Research Portal, ResearchGate and Twitter

Academy Research Fellow

Philosophy

Ongoing projects:

• the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie)
• Rethinking the Intellectual Foundations of Ordoliberalism (Academy of Finland, 2021-2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• Modern philosophy
• Continental philosophy
• Phenomenology
• Political philosophy
• Europe
• European integration
• Political economy
• Economic constitution
• History of liberalism
• Neoliberalism
• Ordoliberalism

Timo Miettinen on EuroStorie website

Timo Miettinen on Twitter

University researcher

Ongoing research projects:

• Irony in international politics (2021-2025)
• Safeguarding welfare in times of pandemics: towards collaborative governance of syndemics (WELGO, 2021-2024)
• Principal Investigator, Sotilaallisen vallan kieli suomalaisessa demokratiassa (2022-2026)

Johanna Vuorelma's homepage

Academy Research Fellow

Ongoing projects:

• GenParlDip (Gendering Parliamentary Diplomacy in EU27-UK Relations)

Expertise and research interests:

• Parliaments as gendered+ organisations
• Contemporary developments and challenges in parliaments
• Innovations in methodologies to study parliaments
• Parliamentary diplomacy
• Party politics
• UK Parliament, European Parliament

Twitter: @cherrymmiller

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Rethinking Politicisation in the European Public Sphere (2020-2024)

Expertise and research interests:

• Political communication
• Role of media in international politics
• Economic policy ideas and the public debate
• Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
• Transnational elites

Markus Ojala's homepage

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in CCindle: “Co-creating inclusive intersectional democratic spaces across Europe”, EU Horizon Europe (2022-2026)

Past project:

• Previously Researcher in EUGenDem: “Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament’s party groups”, European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2023) 

Expertise and research interests:

• Anti-gender politics
• European Parliament, political groups 
• Gender and politics 
• Democracy, EU values
• Qualitative methodologies

Valentine Berthet in EUGenDem

Valentine Berthet on Twitter

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in EUGenDem: "Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's party groups" , funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2023)

Expertise and research interests:

• Gender politics in East-Central Europe
• Gender equality policy
• Intersectionality
• Social rights and policies in Europe
• Politics of sexualities
• Nationalism and post-state socialism

Barbara Gaweda in EUGenDem

Barbara Gaweda on Twitter

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in project "Racism without Others" (Koneen säätiö 2023)

• Project "2020-luvun kilpailevat Eurooppa-visiot illiberaalin ja liberaalin tiedontuotannon valossa" (Emil Aaltonen Foundation 2024-2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• Social anthropology and ethnography

• Epistemology

• Liberalism and illiberalism

• Fascism

• Europe and EU politics

• Migration

Annastiina Kallius on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Annastiina Kallius on Twitter

Doctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in EUGenDem: “Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament’s party groups”, funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2023)

Expertise and research interests:

• European Union, actors, institutions, values

• European integration

• Eastern enlargement of the European Union

• Democracy, human rights

• Gender and politics

• Gender equality policies, intersectionality, anti-gender politics in Eastern Europe

  Liliia Antoniuk in EUGenDem

Doctoral researcher

Ongoing projects: 

• VORTEX (Coping with Varieties of Radicalisation into Terrorism and Extremism)

Expertise and research interests:

• Counterterrorism policies in Europe
• Far-right extremism 
• Online ethnography 
• Platform capitalism 
• Urban safety and gentrification  

Doctoral researcher

Media studies

Ongoing projects:

• Researcher in the project "Politicized Loneliness: Hatred, Violence, and Experiences of Loneliness Online" (Emil Aaltonen Foundation, 2023-2026)
• Dissertation project "Common sense: Hannah Arendt as a material media theorist" (Tampere University)

Expertise and research interests:

• Politics of technology
• Media infrastructures
• Political agency
• Media philosophy
• Science and technology studies
• Neomaterialism

Doctoral researcher

Political history

Expertise and research interests:

• Terrorism
• Political violence
• Extremism

Daniel Sallamaa on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Doctoral researcher

Political history

Marianne Sandelin on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Doctoral Researcher

Political Science

Expertise and research interests:

• Global political economy
• Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
• Lobbying
• EU institutions
• Power of experts
• Think tanks

Laura Nordström on University of Helsinki Research Portal