People
Centre for European Studies hosts over 40 researchers in various research projects. The researchers are internationally well-known for their work and often interviewed in the media.
Leena Malkki

Director of the Centre for European Studies
Adjunct professor, Political Science

Ongoing projects:

  • Finland and theories of political violence (FIPO)
  • INDEED (Strengthening a comprehensive approach to preventing and counteracting radicalisation based on a universal evidence-based model for evaluation of radicalisation prevention and mitigation)

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 PortalLeena Malkki website

Johanna Kantola

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:

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

Hanna Tuominen

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

Kaius Tuori

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

Pamela Slotte

Professor, Minority Studies, Theology, 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

Reetta Toivanen

Professor of Sustainability Science

Ongoing research projects:

  • Subproject leader, Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie)
  • Leader, ALL-YOUTH consortium

Reetta Toivanen on EuroStorie website

 

Ville Erkkilä

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

Marco Piasentier

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

Miika Tervonen

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”
  • Director of the research project ”Gatekeeping the Nation: Deportation at Finnish Borderscapes from the Cold War to Europeanisation” (GATE, Academy 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 policies
  • Nationalism
  • Historiography

Miika Tervonen on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Timo Miettinen

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

Irina van der Vet

Research Coordinator

Ongoing research 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)

Irina van der Vet on LinkedIn

Mina Prokic

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing research 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)
Johanna Vuorelma

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing research projects:

Johanna Vuorelma's homepage

Markus Ojala

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

Valentine Berthet

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

Expertise and research interests:

  • European Parliament, political groups 
  • Gender and politics 
  • Supranational gender equality policies 
  • International norms, Istanbul Convention on violence against women, sexual harassment, abortion 
  • Democracy, EU values, anti-gender politics, feminist responses 

Valentine Berthet in EUGenDem

Valentine Berthet on Twitter

Barbara Gaweda

Postdoctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

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

Kari Möttölä

Visiting scholar, Professor
International relations, Foreign Policy Analysis

Expertise and research interests:

  • The Finnish foreign and security policy
  • Finnish defence policy, NATO
  • The common security and defence policy of the European Union
  • European security and the Russian-West relations
  • The US position in great-power relations
  • Nuclear arms control

Kari Möttölä on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Liliia Antoniuk

Doctoral researcher

Ongoing projects:

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

 

Daniel Sallamaa

Doctoral researcher
Political history

Expertise and research interests:

  • Terrorism
  • Political violence
  • Extremism

Daniel Sallamaa on University of Helsinki Research Portal

Marianne Sandelin
Laura Nordström

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

Gaëtan Gamba

Research Assistant

European Studies

Research interest:

  • EU – UN relations
  • EU enlargements
  • International Politics
Valpuri Alanen

Technical assistant

Ongoing projects:

  • Finland and the theories of political violence
  • Theories of political violence and the New Left wave violence in Western Europe
EuroStorie researchers and staff

The full list of researchers and staff of the EuroStorie (Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives) is available here

SpaceLaw researchers and staff,

The full list of researchers and staff of the SpaceLaw Project (Law, Governance and Space: Questioning of the Republican Tradition) is available here