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A Lost Mitten and Other Stories

The project, Lost Mitten and Other Stories, examines a new sense of neighbour relations that transpires as a result of growing mobility. The project focuses on the ways in which these new neighbour relations or a sense of neighbourliness emerge from stories related to personal items of significance, and the way in which these stories are perceived. Lost Mitten and Other Stories is an interdisciplinary project that seeks collaboration between art and science. The project is carried out in eastern Finland.

The main concern of the project is to find out how the items of personal significance and the stories related to them help establish dialogue and, consequently, new kinds of mobile and cross-border neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness. Furthermore, the purpose is to explore how dialogic interaction helps promote, for example, the construction of cultural citizenship and create new, migrating, deterritorial cultural heritages. The items of personal significance as well as the stories relating to them are examined through a materialistic, cultural, linguistic, and narrative point of view and are, additionally, exhibited through artistic, interactive displays. The items of personal significance are understood as a poetic and political medium of various dialogues between past and present, between immigrants and natives, between different generations, between mobile and sedentary people.

The approach and the subject matter of the project are topical: immigration, different mobilities, the encounter of languages and cultures, and thereby, emerging new neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness. The multidisciplinary approach, combining different methods of science and art, enables new ways of examining the issue of neighbour relations and a sense of neighbourliness.

The project combines science and art innovatively and, therefore, generates new methods to investigate the current issues of different mobilities, language and cultural encounters, and challenges arising from new neighbour relations.

The project is funded by the Kone Foundation.

Alex Berg ([email protected])

Alex Berg, M.Sc (cand.soc) works as a Doctoral Researcher in Welfare Law (UEF Law School). His PhD dissertation tackles the legal rights and access to justice for older immigrants in Finland. The empirical research employs semi-structured interviews with older immigrants and professionals who offer services to them. The research aims to investigate the challenges that older immigrants face when they seek care and support services, the impact of stigmas on their lived experiences, and their access to justice from a broad socio-legal perspective.

Alex’s research interests focus on human rights, the rights of vulnerable people, and equality. He studied the effects of laws and social habitus on the vulnerable people’s lives and wellbeing. Some of his previous qualitative research involved refugees, stateless people, and victims of female genital mutilation.

Andrew Agbaje ([email protected])

Prof. Agbaje is an award-winning physician and professor (associate) of clinical epidemiology and child health who investigates the causal relationships of aerobic fitness, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, and metabolic syndrome with arterial, cardiac, liver, and kidney structure and function from childhood through young adulthood.

Prof. Agbaje is the world’s 3rd highest ranked scholar, 2nd best in Europe and best in the Nordics in arterial stiffness specialty according to ScholarGPS 2025 global ranking.

Research group Website  https://urfit-child.com

American Society of Nutrition Flemming Quaade Award Video Interview 

Prof. Agbaje discovered childhood tobacco smoking as a cause of premature cardiac damage and identified that smoking prevalence increased 15 times between the age of 13 to 17 years. He also discovered arterial stiffness as a novel risk factor for paediatric obesity and insulin resistance, identified adolescence as the critical time to interrupt fat mass-insulin resistance pathologic cycle, and demonstrated light-intensity physical activity as a highly effective antidote for reversing excessive fat deposit induced by childhood sedentariness. Recently, he discovered waist-to-height ratio as a specific surrogate for fat mass but not muscle mass that could replace BMI in assessing childhood obesity. Subsequently, he was interviewed LIVE on BBC World News TV to discuss the novel findings.

In December 2024, the American Heart Association selected Prof Agbaje’s study as one of the world’s most significant advances in cardiovascular research in 2024. In October 2023, two of Prof. Agbaje’s publications were placed in the Top 1% highly cited paper in the academic field of Clinical Medicine, while a third publication was placed in the Top 1% highly cited paper in the academic field of Biology & Biochemistry by Clarivate’s Web of Science.

He has single/first-authored original papers in highly prestigious journals such as JACC, Diabetes Care, and Nature Communications. He was interviewed LIVE on BBC World Service Radio Newsday programme on 15th Dec 2023, BBC Radio Devon on 16th Jan 2024, and BBC World News LIVE TV programme on 14th March 2024. The University of Eastern Finland recorded a podcast interview of his findings as well as a video.

The Endocrine Society in US recorded a podcast interview of his research and discussed his research in the prestigious Endocrine Magazine March 2024 edition. He gave a press conference at the ENDO 2024 congress in Boston, US. He was interviewed by the European Association for the Study of Obesity, a federation of 36 European countries’ professional associations and subsequently had a video interview at the European Congress on Obesity.

His research has received extensive press coverage, with over 2,000 media mentions in 2022 and 2023 in outlets such as BBC, CNN, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror, BILD, Infobae, Yahoo Lifestyle, Yahoo Sport, US News & World report, DocCheck, MSN, WebMD, Medscape, The Conversation, Jerusalem Post, Helsingin Sanomat, YLE, etc, potentially reaching a global audience of more than 4.5 billion. The equivalent advertising value of these news articles is more than 30 million US dollars.

He is the principal investigator of the urFIT-child research group and has strong collaboration with world-renowned pediatricians, exercise physiologists, epidemiologists, and adult clinicians in Canada, US, UK, Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, etc.

He received the prestigious inaugural American Society of Nutrition Foundation-Novo Nordisk Foundation Flemming Quaade Award for Innovative Approaches to Childhood Obesity with 500,000 Danish Kroner (€67,000 / 70,000 USD) prize. the 2024 EASO-NNF for New Investigator Award in Childhood Obesity with a 300,000 Danish Kroner (€40,000 / 44,000 USD) prize. Other awards are the Endocrine Society Award for outstanding abstract, American Heart Association’s Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award in Epidemiology and Prevention (once), Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award (twice), Early Career Investigator Award for Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine (Once), and Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award (four times).

He co-authored an American Heart Association Scientific Statement on Environmental Exposures and Pediatric Cardiology, published in Circulation. He had a video discussion of the Scientific Statement. He has given invited talks at the largest mother and child center in Canada – CHU Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital Center, Canada, European Society of Cardiology Congress, European Congress on Obesity, Endocrine Society Congress in the US, Artery Society Congress, etc.

He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Children’s Health and Exercise Research Centre (CHERC), Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.

He is an Associate Editor in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle (JCSM), serves on the editorial board of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB), and mentors early career editorial board members. He also serves on the editorial board of Pediatric Exercise Science journal.

He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), an elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), an elected Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine (FNYAM), and an elected member of Sigma Xi. These titles of honour, symbol of excellence and lifetime achievement recognizes his significant contribution to cardiovascular field in Europe and America.

He is an expert advisor to the World Health Organization and European Association for the Study of Obesity’s task force on preventing childhood obesity.

Primary email is [email protected]

Secondary email is [email protected]

 

Anna Rawlings ([email protected])

In my research, I examine motivation, learning, and well-being in different learning environments and among learners of different ages. I am particularly interested in how temperament guides these phenomena, processes, and their interconnections. I have started working as a grant researcher at UEF in May 2023.

I am also coordinator of FinEd, or the Finnish Multidisciplinary Doctoral Training Network on Educational Sciences (2022–).

Anna-Maija Tolppanen ([email protected])

I have multidisciplinary background (MSc in bioinformatics, PhD in genetic epidemiology and >15 years’ experience in different fields and application areas of epidemiology since completing my PhD. My current research focusses on pharmacoepidemiology and clinical epidemiology.

The overarching aim of my research is to develop and implement methods and approaches for evaluating effectiveness and safety of treatments by using real-world data. The applied data ranges from national register-based studies to multi- and single-center studies using data from electronic medical records and medical reports as well as data collected specifically for research purposes.

 

My group has produced internationally recognized real-world evidence on utilisation and outcomes of different treatments, compared and validated different patient-reported outcome measurements and determined clinically important threshold values for them, and evaluated health inequalities in neurodegenerative disorders.

My research has been funded by e.g Academy of Finland research fellowship, 3x grants from Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research, work package leadership in Horizon-EU funded project Real4Reg https://www.real4reg.eu/ coordinated by the German Medicines Agency.

Annele Virtanen ([email protected])

Head of the Aerosol Physics Research Group: http://www.uef.fi/aerosol/
I received my PhD in Tampere University of Technology (TUT, Department of Physics) 2004. After that I continued working as a postdoc and group leader at TUT. On January 2012 I moved to University of Eastern Finland (UEF) to lead the Aerosol Physics Laboratory. I have a strong background in measurement method development and applications related to atmospheric aerosols. My major research questions are related to the atmospheric aerosols: how they form, what are their properties and what is the role they play in the Earth’s climate through their interactions with water vapour. To study these questions in a comprehensive way I have established a wide international collaborative networks and consistently developed our own research infrastructure at UEF.
Major part of my research is funded by EU Framework program (e.g. project FORCeS, EUROCHAMP2020, ERC Starting Grant project QAPPA) and Academy of Finland.

Brexit, migration and mobility

Brexit provides an excellent opportunity to examine how the formal (state) and informal (social) processes of border-making relate to each other and play out in the everyday life of those impacted by this historic change. As the transitionary period after UK’s exit from the EU ends in December 2020, it is important to discuss the impact of the Brexit process from a migrant perspective. The prolonged uncertainty has already had an impact on the lives of intra-European migrants at multiple levels: for their legal status and rights as residents, for their work opportunities and career prospects and for identity and the sense of belonging and feeling of social inclusion to their host societies – be they the UK for the Nordic migrants or any of the other EU countries for the Brits.

UEF is host to several research projects that focus on the impact of Brexit on intra-European migrants. Dr. Tiina Sotkasiira has interviewed Finns living in Scotland and England as a part of her research on Brexit and Finns in Britain and Dr. Saara Koikkalainen has collected data among Nordic nationals in London . Together with two colleagues, researcher Peter Holley and Dr. Nicol Savinetti, Dr. Koikkalainen has also conducted a survey among Brits living in Europe (n=752).

Dawid Bunikowski ([email protected])

I am a legal philosopher of Polish descent, residing in Eastern Finland (North Karelia, Joensuu). I did my PhD in Poland in 2009 (on law and morality: abortion, euthanasia, human fertilisation, cloning, pornography, prostitution, same-sex couples, etc.). I did different postgraduate studies in: 1) human resources management, 2) economics, 3) MBA-sustainable and inclusive leadership, 4) Jews in Poland, 5) Diploma in iure matrimoniali et processuali/Canon law for lawyers. I carried out my postdoctoral research at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF, School of Law), in 2013-2015 (on the recent global financial crisis as an axiological crisis: the crisis of law and the crisis of morality; business ethics/corporate governance). My Docent title was granted by the University of Lapland in 2022 (in the field of philosophy of law in the Arctic).

I am Associate Member at the Oxford University: https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-dawid-bunikowski/

I have been a Visiting Researcher at the UEF School of Theology since 2020. Additionally, I am a University Professor at the State University of Applied Sciences in Wloclawek (Department of Administration) in Poland. I am a Lecturer at the University of Guyana (Department of Law) in Guyana. I am a former Visiting Professor at Carleton University (Department of Law and Legal Studies) in Ottawa, Canada.

I am a law and religion scholar. I work on state church relations, religious freedom, Catholicism and Judaism, but also on relations between law, morality and religion. My main research interests concern as well: law and morality, law and politics, law and society, law and anthropology, law and language, etc. Much of my research has covered indigenous cultures in the Arctic like customary laws, recognition of indigenous rights or protection of sacred sites. I am also to ethical foundations of economy.

Moreover, I do “all things Polish”.

While in the School, I teach:

I also taught here (2022/2023):

  • “Jews and Judaism in Poland, Russia, the Baltic countries and East Central Europe”,
  • “Ukrainian-Polish relations: history, politics, culture, law, religion”.

Moreover, while in social sciences (2023/2024), I am the coordinator of the YUFE course “Global Migration and European Identity” and have taught “Populism in East Central Europe”.

Eetu Ahvo ([email protected])

I work as an early-stage researcher at the UEF Law School and as a grant researcher (Niilo Helander Foundation, 2020–2022). In my doctoral research, I focus on intermediary liability for user-generated content online. Since the European Union has an ambitious legislative project to create a digital single market, the regulation of the online services industry is also brought under further scrutiny.

My particular research interests center around intellectual property law (in particular copyright law), IT law, and data protection law.

Elisa Tiilikainen ([email protected])

I am a social scientist interested in issues related to ageing and later life. Currently I work as an Associate Professor in Social Work at the Department of Social Sciences. My work includes work with research projects and teaching around questions related to social gerontology and gerontological social work. At the moment I am leading a four-year research project on old-age social inclusion in home care (SOLDEX) and a four-year research project on older men’s driving cessation (DRIVEX). In addition I am leading a workpackage on digital health technologies and services of older adults (75+) as part of a Nordic collaboration project (HAIDI). My research team consists of post doctoral and doctoral researcher and I am involved in several multidisciplinary programs and networks.

In my PhD I examined loneliness from a life course perspective identifying different pathways behind loneliness in later life and exploring how loneliness changes in time. I have also examined experiences of loneliness from the perspective of people living with aphasia and older migrant women. My studies have highlighted the multidimensional and dynamic nature of loneliness and its individual meanings in relation to different life events and transitions. In my studies I have used mostly qualitative methodologies, but I’m interested in finding ways to combine different methods, especially from longitudinal perspectives.