The Africa-EU relations, migration, development and integration (AEMDI) project, aims to bring into conversation leading academics, policy makers, political observers and practitioners from civil society to explore and examine intra-Africa migration on one hand and EU-Africa relationships vis-à-vis migration on the other hand. Efforts to integrate Africa, through the RECs, should, then, be informed by lessons and parallels drawn from across Africa, and chiefly, the integration experience of the EU—particularly the Schengen Area—in moving from free movement of labour (only) to EU citizenship, as enshrined in Article 20 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Its main activities of AEMDI will include two international workshops and one international conference. One workshop will be hosted by the University of Eastern Finland and another by the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation (GovInn) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The main output of AEMDI activities will be a scientific edited volume, based on deliberations in and papers from the workshops. The main outcome of AEMDI is the promotion of the Jean Monnet Programme and adoption of best practices from the EU`s successes in regional integration, in Africa. The impacts of AEMDI will include increased networking and expertise between/of academics, policy makers, professionals and relevant stakeholders in Africa and the EU. AEMDI responds to the need to promote development and well-being in Africa through, among other things, learned experiences from observed successes in EU integration.
Aino Äikäs ([email protected])
My research and teaching areas in the field of Special Education deal with interprofessional collaboration, intellectual and developmental disabilities, significant support needs in education and inclusive education. University pedagogy and transnational education are also my interests.
Researhgate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aino-Aeikaes-2
ORCid:
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.
Alexandra Simon ([email protected])
My primary fields of research are transculturality, imagology, German writers abroad, German film and television, the European Avant-Garde, and the Apocalypse in cultural productions. I teach all areas of German language and culture courses, including text workshops, oral communication, literature and culture courses, media and business German courses.
I am Docent in Multicultural Literature and Media Studies (University of Turku), and I hold a PhD in Comparative Literature (University of Eastern Finland). My professional career and multilingual and intercultural research projects are grounded in my enthusiasm and personal life, as I have lived and worked in several European countries over the past 20 years. I studied in Germany (Düsseldorf), Spain (Salamanca) and France (Nice), worked as a lecturer in France (Nantes) and the United Kingdom (Cambridge).
Alina Inkinen ([email protected])
I work as a project researcher in the School Well-being, Learning Support, and Teacher Segregation Project (KOTOPE). In this project, my research focuses on the appearnce of school segregation from the perspective of teachers across different regions of Finland and various types of schools. Additionally, I examine teachers’ educational pathways and their placement in the profession, as well as issues related to segregation as part of these.
My other research interests include higher education policy, especially politics of transitions that are related to access to higher education from both political documents and applicants’ perspectives.
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-Leena Toivanen ([email protected])
I am a comparative literature scholar interested in adopting a mobility studies approach to literary studies. I currently work as Academy Research Fellow and my project, “The Poetics of Afroeuropean Mobilities in Francophone African Literatures” (project number 330906), examines how Francophone African literatures from the mid-20th century to the present represent forms of human physical travel (pedestrianism, automobility, aeromobility, maritime travel, travel in public transport etc.) in the wider context of different Afroeuropean mobilities: student mobilities, tourism and exploration, professional mobilities, criminal mobilities, return travel, and clandestine travel. The project develops analytical tools for reading mobilities in literature. My book “Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures” was published in March 2021 (Brill): https://brill.com/view/title/57650
Anneli Hujala ([email protected])
I work as a researcher of management in the field health and social care. My research focuses on interactional dimensions of management (health management science, social psychology) in the context of integrated care. Cross-boundary collaboration of managers, professionals and clients are the core of our latest research projects.
Antti Erkkilä ([email protected])
Senior Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), 2012-2017, ALL-YOUTH and MAKUTANO research projects, 2018-2023, UEF EDUCase global pilot project, 2022, 2023.
Senior Researcher, Researcher, Coordinator for Global Sustainable Development, Faculty of Forestry, University of Joensuu, 1984-1994, 1997-2005.
Environmental Counsellor at the Embassy of Finland in Nairobi, Kenya, 2005-2010.
Chief Forester in Research and Forestry Adviser at the Directorate of Forestry, Namibia, 1994-1996, employed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
Short-term consultancies: Cambodia, Eswatini, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia (1986-2016). Professional study tours to India (1982), Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras (1984), South Africa (1996, 2004), Uganda (2006, 2007), Rwanda (2010), Tanzania (2018, 2019), Namibia (1990, 1993, 1994-1996, 2002, 2005, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2019), Cameroon (2023).
Trainee in Canada (Pacific Forest Research Centre, British Columbia, 1983), Czechoslovakia (Faculty of Forestry, Brno, 1981) and Ireland (Forestry and Wildlife Service, 1979).
Responsive Natural Resources Governance research group, member.
Binod Kafle ([email protected])
Binod Kafle holds an M.Sc. in Wood Materials Science from the University of Eastern Finland (2021-2023) and an M.Sc. in Agriculture Extension (2005-2007) from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal. With a diverse professional background, Binod has worked as a Project Coordinator, Agricultural Scientist, Social Development Specialist, and in Customer Service in various organizations in Nepal, Denmark, and Finland during 2006 to 2023. His research focuses on agriculture and wood materials, including studies on the adoption and diffusion of organic vegetables, improved maize varieties, improved potato varieties, the development of agro-technologies for livelihood enhancement, and the growth of fungi on wood biochar. He has authored several publications on topics such as socio-economic assessments of improved maize varieties, the adoption of improved potato varieties, the diffusion of early rice varieties, and organic vegetable farming.