Staff

Director of Centre for European Studies

Professor, Political History

Ongoing projects:

• The Nordic Pathways of Crisis Management [JuRe2] (2022–2026)
• Welfare State Know-How. Inclusive Institutions, Knowledge, and State Capabilities in Finland and Sweden, 1970–1995 [WelKnowHow] (2023–2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• Political cultures, actors, institutions, and governance in smaller states
• International relations and history, including European integration
• Democratic governance and its history
• Finnish emergency preparedness legislation in a Nordic and historical perspective
• Comparative and transnational historical research

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:

• PI at the University of Helsinki for , 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

Email: johanna.kantola(a)helsinki.fi

Jean Monnet Professor

Docent, European Studies

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

Ongoing projects:

• EU values and contested contexts (EUVCC), 2024-2027, JM Chair

Expertise and research interests:

• European Union values
• The EU's global role and external relations
• EU human rights policy
• Relations between the UN and the EU
• Nordic and NB8 cooperation within the EU and the UN
• Finland's EU policy
• Finland's UN policy

Email: hanna.t.tuominen(a)helsinki.fi

University Lecturer / Academy Research Fellow

Ongoing projects:

• PI in the Research Council of Finland funded EastJustice-project (The Experience of Injustice: Property, Legality and Identity in Rural Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1995.)

Expertise and research interests:

• European legal history in the 20th century
• The history of European dictatorships
• Democracy and legality
• Memory and society in rural Eastern Europe
• Euroscepticism

Email: ville.erkkila(a)helsinki.fi

Professor of European Intellectual History

Ongoing projects:

• Director at the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie)

Expertise and research interests:

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

Email: kaius.tuori(a)helsinki.fi

Academy Research Fellow
History

Ongoing projects:

• Probing the House of the Hangman: Jewish Intellectuals and Post-Nazi Germany (Research Council of Finland 2024-2028)

Expertise and research interests:

• Modern European intellectual history
• German history
• Critical Theory / Frankfurt School
• 20th century continental philosophy
• Radical conservatism

Email: mikko.immanen(a)helsinki.fi

Academy Research Fellow

Ongoing projects:

• (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

Email: cherry.miller(a)helsinki.fi

University researcher

PhD in Politics

Expertise and research interests:

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

Email: barbara.gaweda(a)helsinki.fi

Grant-Funded Researcher

Doctor of Social Sciences, Political History

Ongoing projects:

• A project examining conflict-related disinformation, broader information warfare, and critical media literacy through the Gaza war (Alfred Kordelin Foundation)

Expertise and research interests:

• Religion in politics
• Christian Zionism
• The Israel-Palestine conflict
• EU and US Middle East policy
• Peace processes
• Conflict resolution
• Information warfare

Email: timo.stewart(at)helsinki.fi

Postdoctoral Researcher

PhD in Gender Studies (Tampere University, 2022)

LL.M. In International Law (University of Kent, 2017)

Ongoing research projects:

• Member of EQUICO (Equality Politics in the Council of the European Union: Contesting and Protecting Democracy, 2026-2030)
• Principal Investigator on
• , EU Horizon Europe (2022-2026)

Expertise and research interests:

• EU gender equality policymaking
• Anti-gender politics within EU institutions
• EU-level anti-gender movements
• Gendered violence
• Reproductive rights

Email: valentine.berthet(a)helsinki.fi

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• The Experience of Injustice: Property, Legality and Identity in Rural Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1995 (EastJustice-project)

Expertise and research interests:

• Political philosophy
• Phenomenology
• Social ontology
• Edith Stein
• Estonia
• Ingrians
• Memory studies
• Media
• Empathy
• Public sphere

Email: minna-kerttu.kekki(a)helsinki.fi

Grant-funded researcher
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study-Nordic Fellow (2025–2026)

Ongoing projects:

• (Kone Foundation Grant 2025–2028)

Expertise and research interests:

• Ancient cities
• Ancient gardens
• Ancient dwellings
• Republicanism
• Inequality
• Ancient reception
• Ancient material culture

Email: samuli.simelius(a)helsinki.fi

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

Expertise and research interests:

• Popular culture and world politics
• Emotions and affect
• Fan cultures and fans as actors in world politics
• International politics of the Eurovision Song Contest
• Critical pedagogies

Email: zoe.jay(a)helsinki.fi

Research Assistant

Master's Student in World Politics

Ongoing projects:

The Experience of Injustice: Property, Legality and Identity in Rural Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1995. (EastJustice-project)

Email: stella.vaittinen(a)helsinki.fi

Doctoral Researcher

Master of Arts (European Area and Cultural Studies)

Ongoing projects:

• Gatekeeping the Nation: Deportation at Finnish Borderscapes from the Cold War to Europeanisation (GATE)

Expertise and research interests:

• Mobilities
• Forced migration
• Migration governance
• Securitisation
• Human security

Email: laura.sumari(a)helsinki.fi

Doctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

• Turvallinen tulevaisuus? Demokratian ajallinen hallinta kriisien aikakaudella

Expertise and research interests:

• Utopias
• Political imagination
• Philosophy
• Environmental policy
• Temporality

Email: ville.louekari(a)helsinki.fi

RADIA

Director of RADIA Knowledge Centre

Docent, Political Science

Ongoing projects:

• VORTEX (Coping with Varieties of Radicalisation into Terrorism and Extremism)
• RADIA - Finnish Knowledge Centre for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and Extremism
• The fragile frontier: Resilient use of space in the post rule-based world

Expertise and research interests:

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

Email: leena.malkki(a)helsinki.fi

RADIA

University researcher

Docent, diversity education

Ongoing projects:

• Head of Management and Training at RADIA, the Finnish Knowledge Centre for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and Extremism

Expertise and research interests:

• Radicalisation
• Identity and worldview formation
• Risk and protective factors
• Dynamics of belonging and othering
• The extremist mindset
• Education, training and pedagogy
• Youth studies

Email: saija.benjamin(a)helsinki.fi

RADIA

Research Specialist
PhD (Theology), Master of Social Sciences

Ongoing projects:

• RADIA - Finnish Knowledge Centre for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and Extremism

Areas of expertise and research interests:
• Serbia-Kosovo relations
• Religion, nationalism, and conflict in Southeast Europe
• Societies and political systems in Southeast Europe
• EU integration and Western Balkans
• Religion, radicalism, and right-wing populism in Eastern and Southeast Europe

Email: miro.leporanta(a)helsinki.fi

RADIA

Research Coordinator

Ongoing research projects:

• RADIA - Finnish Knowledge Centre for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and Extremism

Email: irina.vandervet(a)helsinki.fi