Dr Virve Marionneau is a university researcher and the director of the CEACG. Her research focuses particularly on gambling regulations, the commercial and legal determinants of gambling, and gambling harms. Her on-going projects focus on producing empirical, theoretical, and comparative research evidence to reduce and prevent gambling-related harm in societies.
Virve Marionneau will gladly comment on current topics including gambling harms, gambling policy, and new developments in the gambling field.
Keywords: gambling, harms, regulation, policy, digital environments
Sébastien Berret is conducting a PhD in sociology at the University of Helsinki. His research examines gambling operators' strategies, gambling policy, and more generally the fundamental tension between profit maximization and public health in the gambling sector.
Sébastien Berret will gladly comment on current topics including gambling firms' practices, gambling-related harms, and gambling policy.
Keywords: gambling, corporate practices, gambling-related harm, policy
Dr Michael Egerer (Title of docent) is a university researcher at CEACG. His research interests address gambling, gambling regulations and the concept of addiction. He is currently working on the adjustment of low-risk gambling guidelines for the Finnish context, as well as studying the opening of the new casino in Tampere, and the regulation of online gambling. Egerer is an expert in qualitative research methods. He is developing the application of sociological systems theory in the field of addiction and gambling research. Dr Egerer is the section editor for Gambling harm reduction of the Harm Reduction Journal. He also serves as the vice-chair of the Finnish Association for Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Research.
Michael Egerer will gladly comment on current topics including online gambling, gambling policy, gambling cultures or qualitative research enquiries.
Keywords: gambling, addiction, regulation, sociology, qualitative research
Nina Jokirinne is a project planner at CEACG and she is also conducting a PhD at the University of Helsinki. Her research investigates how professionals, the media and the general population view gambling addiction, social media addiction and addictions at large. Nina's research interest include research methodologies.
Paula Jääskeläinen is a PhD student in sociology at the University of Helsinki. Her dissertation focuses on socio-cultural normalization of gambling using a case example of the recently opened urban casino in the City of Tampere, Finland, as well as gambling marketing on social media. In her work, she combines perspectives from gambling studies and urban sociology.
Paula Jääskeläinen will gladly comment on topics concerning normalization of gambling such as gamblification of sports and gambling marketing on social media.
Keywords: Gambling, normalization of gambling, gambling marketing
Veera Kankainen, M.Soc.Sci., is a PhD student in sociology. Kankainen’s dissertation project concerns the justifications and governance of the Finnish gambling profit-based state grant system that has funded the Finnish third sector. Currently, Kankainen works in the project Silent agents affected by legislation (SILE) led by Kati Rantala, funded by the Strategic Research Council. In the SILE-project, Kankainen's research focuses on how the law-making regarding social and health care service users' rights take account on and represent people who use alcohol and other drugs or experience problems with mental health.
Veera Kankainen will gladly comment on current topics concerning third sector governance, gambling policy beneficiaries, regulation on substance use and mental health services, and qualitative methods.
Keywords: the third and public sector relationships, beneficiaries of gambling, welfare governance, alcohol and other drugs, service users' rights, qualitative methods
Tom Kettunen is the editor of Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs since 2012. His background is in philosophy and his academic interests include science publishing, publishing ethics, lifestyles and addictions. Kettunen is a member of the editorial board of Nordic Welfare Research.
Dr Janne Nikkinen has over 50 academic publications, including several jointly authored and edited books about gambling. His research interest related to gambling spans a range of issues, from regulatory and policy affairs to the prevention of gambling harm. Nikkinen serves as Associate Editor of Health Promotion International (Oxford University Press). He is also Chair of the HUS Regional Committee on Medical Research Ethics at the Helsinki University Hospital, Chair of the Professional Ethics Committee of the Association of Finnish Pharmacies and Pharmacists' and Vice-Chair of the National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics (ETENE).
Professor emeritus Pekka Sulkunen founded the CEACG group in 2011. He has authored several books on social theory, cultural studies, addictions and preventive social policy, including The Saturated Society: Regulating Risk and Lifestyle in Consumer Culture (1st edition Sage 2009; 2nd edition Unigrafia 2016). President of the European Sociological Association 2011-2013.
Mika Tsupari is a PhD student in the field of sociology. His thesis focuses on psychedelics in Finland from the perspective of set and setting, motives, meanings, the culture linked to psychedelics and well-being of the users. His research interest include drug and addiction research, interactions between groups and individuals, and well-being in general.
Josefin Westermarck is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki. Her thesis focuses on how vulnerable agency has been represented and recognized in the most recent Finnish alcohol law reforms (2018, 1994). She examines the epistemic i.e. knowledge-based tensions in the evidence-base of alcohol laws, from the perspectives of classical sociological discourse analysis methods and theories from sociology of law. Besides regulation and governance studies, Westermarck's research interests also include Finnish drug culture and internet ethnography.