Research

• Artistic and cultural research
• Ecology and carbon cycle research
• Environmental history
• Environmental policy and governance
• Environmental sciences
• Environmental toxicology
• Food systems and organisational studies
• Linguistics (with a focus on Indigenous and Sámi languages)
• Marine biology and marine studies
• Political history
• Risk and disaster governance
• Science and Technology Studies (STS)
• Sociology
• Sustainability studies

How have biotic interactions changed or been modified by growing human influence from local to global scales (timescale: 1000s -100s yrs)

(e.g., how has ecological community structures changed due to human influence, how have interactions and biodiversity changed); 

1. Long-term SES analysis of Northern Fennoscandia (timescale: 100s - 10s yrs) (e.g., how have the local livelihoods, like reindeer herding or forest use changed in tandem with human alteration of habitats, how has infrastructure changed the natural productivity of areas);
2. How do historically built path-dependencies affect current policies in Finland and the contemporary dynamics of socio-ecological metabolism (timescale: from 2-3 yrs to decades)? (e.g., how the infrastructure / policies / decision-making frameworks are leading to path-dependencies, how path-dependencies are affecting societal transitions and long-term risks during the next 10-50 yrs). 

PAES researchers starting from a multidisciplinary or environmental social scientific perspective ask questions pertaining to the environmental risks to and the resilience of socio-ecological systems, focusing, e.g., on how to improve chemical governance structures; on threats to the resilience of systems of protein production; on how cultures and technologies evolve, and how people — past and present, across cultural boundaries — have solved everyday problems; and on how the resilience of especially Arctic communities can be enhanced now and in the future. 

All PAES researchers aim for more transdisciplinary research efforts to be able to evaluate potential future pathways for society at large. Many also emphasize the use and development of participatory research methods, including but not limited to scenario-based methodologies.

Currently, PAES researchers are working on the following projects:

The Use of Archival Data in Environmental Research – The Socio-Ecological Environmental History of the North as a Tool for Understanding Environmental Change

The depletion of natural resources and climate change have increased interest in the Arctic region and the exploitation of its resources in recent years. This development poses complex challenges. The situation challenges the sustainability of the livelihoods and cultural choices of the indigenous peoples who have traditionally utilized the resources of northern Fennoscandia. Environmental research focused on the impacts of these changes also faces these challenges. The common thread linking these is political decision-making, for which we aim to provide diverse scientific data. In this multidisciplinary project, the project combines environmental data recorded over time in various contexts and for various purposes into a new type of comprehensive body of knowledge within the framework of environmental research. In a rapidly changing situation, there is a need for information on the history of the region’s resources and land use. This helps us understand their impact on the region’s current state and their connection to the environmental changes observed in the area. The project is funded by the Kone Foundation.

From a False Sense of Protein Safety to Protein Resilience: Building Bridges for Protein Sustainability (ResPro)

The project ResPro seeks alternative yet realistic compromises that enhance both environmental and animal welfare, while also addressing the overconsumption of animal-based products. ResPro does this by challenging the hegemony of the current production system centered around industrial price with a new vision centered around biosecurity and animal health. ResPro conducts in-depth empirical research on the currently insufficiently articulated risks in Finnish animal protein production, explicitly juxtaposing the economic paradigm of productivism with other very different ontologies and epistemologies, such as multispecies justice. ResPro applies the method of the Industrial Foresight Studio (IFS), a collaborative platform for science-based planning of next generation industrial and innovation policy among corporate actors, government officials, policymakers, researchers, and relevant stakeholders. Protein resilience forms one of the cases for which the new IFS tool is innovatively applied.