People

Get to know our interdisciplinary research group
Pasi Heikkurinen

I am an organizational scholar with transdisciplinary expertise on questions concerning the economy, technology, and culture for sustainability. My approach to teaching and research, as well as to societal interaction, draws on philosophies of experience, process thought, and systems theory.

I work as a professor of Sustainable Business at LUT University (2023–) and act as Chair of the Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (2022–). I hold adjunct professorship in the fields of Sustainable Economy (University of Helsinki) and Sustainability and Organizations (Aalto University). Moreover, I am the co-founder of Sustainable Change Research Network (SUCH) and Process Studies on Sustainable Economy Research Group (PROSE).

I am the author of Degrowth: An Experience of Being Finite (MayFly Books, 2024), as well as an editor of several anthologies, including: Sustainability Beyond Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for Human Organization (OUP, 2021), Strongly Sustainable Societies: Organizing Human Activities on a Hot and Full Earth (Routledge, 2019), and Sustainability and Peaceful Coexistence for the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017).

Joshua Hurtado Hurtado

I am a doctoral researcher studying the political, strategic and ideological dimensions of degrowth as a political project for sustainability. In my research I adopt an interdisciplinary focus that combines ideas and methods from Post-Marxist Discourse Theory, Futures Studies and Political Ecology, aiming to understand how degrowth challenges dominant ideas about societal organisation. In parallel to my doctoral research, I also conduct interdisciplinary research in the Death Studies field.

Tommi Kauppinen

I am a visiting researcher at University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, department of Economics and Management, and a project manager at Kajaani University of Applied Sciences.

I am currently studying mathematics in relation to its application areas, ethics of blockchain technology and reducing the climate impact of district heating. I am also an advocate of poetry, exploring the subconsciousness of the Finnish social whole.

Tina Nyfors

I am a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. My background is within sustainability science, human ecology, and journalism. My research interests focus on sufficiency as an approach to keeping human activities within ecological and social limits. 

As part of my thesis I am studying sufficiency in climate policy, understandings of sufficiency in a Finnish environmental movement, and how sufficiency-oriented proposals could be developed. Also, I have co-authored articles, for example, on cultures of sufficiency in food business, sufficiency in housing, and climate change and transformations of justice. 

Jarkko Pyysiäinen, group leader

I am a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Entrepreneurship at the University of Helsinki and serve currently as the leader of the PROSE research group. My disciplinary background is in social psychology and social scientific entrepreneurship research, and I have over 20 years of experience in working in diverse multidisciplinary academic and research institutions. 

Currently, my research focuses on questions of agency, entrepreneurship, sustainability and socio-economic change; relational constitution of sustainable affordances, agency and skills; and practices and institutional arrangements conducive to sustainable food provisioning. I also teach courses and supervise theses on these themes. In terms of research methodology, I am specialized in application and development of qualitative methods. 

Toni Ruuska

I’m Senior Researcher at the University of Helsinki, PI of Altavastaajat research project (2024-2027), and Co-editor of Mayfly Books. I have co-edited Sustainability beyond Technology (Oxford University Press, 2021) and the author of Reproduction Revisited: Capitalism, Higher Education and Ecological Crisis (Mayfly Books, 2019). 

In my research, I seek to understand how skills of self-provisioning evolve and develop over time, and how local economies mitigate and adapt to the ongoing ecological crisis. Theoretically I’m is involved in ecological Marxism, eco-feminism, and phenomenology. 

I’m also actively involved in various social movements, including national and international Degrowth Movement, and "Meidän metsämme" citizens movement.

Heini Salonen

I am a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, with a focus on organizing and organizational culture in the context of ecological crises. My dissertation explores institutional change, organizational perceptions, and the relationship between organizations and the environment.

I previously spent nearly a decade as an officer at the United Nations Secretariat, where I worked extensively on sustainable development issues. My expertise included foreign direct investment data and trends, modernizing statistical production, and enhancing statistical communication.

Milla Suomalainen

I am a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Economics and Management. My background is in environmental studies and sociology. Currently I study rural community resilience from the perspective of social agency, and I focus empirically on local food economies and food self-provisioning in the Finnish context.