Gleb Iarovoi (gleb.iarovoi@uef.fi)
Having defended my Russian “candidate of science” dissertation in 2007, I am currently writing my “European” PhD thesis, which was devoted to cross-border governance on the EU-Russian border, participatory arrangements in cross-border programmes and the role of non-state actors in inter-regional cooperation. However, after Russian invasion of Ukraine there is no more “cross-border cooperation” and “cross-border governance” on the EU-Russian border. So my current research is being revisited towards exploring the “subaltern geopolitics” of the Finnish-Russian border, i.e. the geopolitical imagination of subaltern groups having direct or indirect relations to this border. Also, as a research hobby and a natural scope of interest, I study academic freedoms in Russia (and Russian academia as subaltern).
As a freetime hobby, for many years now, I do journalism. Previously, I reported on sensitive issues of Russian political and social life, such as human rights violations by the state, by the Russian Orthodox Church, by security agencies and courts. Currently, I cover different issues of the Finnish-Russian relations for Russian readers.
Hanna Lehtimäki (hanna.lehtimaki@uef.fi)
Hanna Lehtimäki (Ph.D. Bus Econ) is a professor of Innovation Management in Business School and a Director of Research Center for Sustainable Circular Economy (CECE) at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research examines circular economy with theoretical frameworks on innovation management, strategic management, organization theory, leadership, and entrepreneurship. She and her research team, SunLab, advance transdisciplinary social sciences research and societal impact in sustainable circular economy transition. In her capacity as a Vice Director of UEF strategic research community Sustainable Resource Society: Circular Economy, Energy and Raw Materials (RESOURCE RC), she advances multidisciplinary social sciences research agenda for sustainability transition in business and society. Her research has appeared in journals internationally and she has recently co-edited books on art and sustainability and catalyzing sustainable circular economy.
She leads a Finnish Indian research consortium Circular Economy Solutions for Microplastics: Indo-Finnish Scientific Collaboration for Innovation (CESMI). She also leads a research project Leading Regenerative Circular Economy (LEADSUS) funded by the Finnish Foundation for Economic Education and is a work package leader in Academy of Finland funded research project Multi-level governance of critical materials for future electric mobility (GOVERMAT). She was a vicePI and a work package leader in an Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council project Circular Economy Catalysts: From Innovation to Business Ecosystems (2019-2023).
She is the leader of Sustainability leadership international Master’s programme at the UEF Business School and a multidisciplinary minor Sustainable Business and Society.
Harro van Asselt (harro.vanasselt@uef.fi)
Harro van Asselt, PhD (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, cum laude), is Professor of Climate Law and Policy with the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Law School, Visiting Research Fellow with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, and Affiliated Researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has 20 years of research experience, and is an expert on interactions between international climate change governance and other fields of international governance. Before joining UEF, Harro worked at the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford, and the Institute for Environmental Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the author of The Fragmentation of Global Climate Governance (Edward Elgar, 2014), co-editor of Governing Climate Change and The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform (both Cambridge University Press, 2018), and he has more than 80 publications in peer-reviewed academic journals and books. He is Editor of the Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL), and sits on the Editorial Board of Carbon & Climate Law Review, Earth System Governance, Global Environmental Politics, and International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics.
Husen Tura (husen.tura@uef.fi)
Between March and September 2020, he worked as a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki Faculty of Law. He was an Early Stage Researcher at the UEF Law School between January 2016 and December 2019 where he was responsible to conduct scholarly research relating to his doctoral dissertation entitled “The Right to Food and Land in Ethiopia” and teaching courses on EU Food Law and Food Law and Policy.
He had also worked as a lecturer in law at three public universities in Ethiopia between August 2011 and December 2015. These are Addis Ababa University School of Law, Ambo University School of Law, and Wolaita Sodo University School of Law. In addition to teaching undergraduate law courses on contract law, international trade law, investment law, and legal research methods, Tura has published academic papers in interdisciplinary subjects such as the right to food, corporate governance, smallholder’s land rights, access to justice, legal aid, directors’ remuneration, WTO law and merger regulation. His papers appeared in refereed journals such as Land Use Policy, Third World Quarterly, Nordic Journal of Human Rights, African Journal of Legal Studies and International Human Rights Law Review, amongst others.
Dr Tura obtained his Doctorate Degree in Law (LL.D) from the UEF Law School in March 2020.
Irmeli Mustalahti (irmeli.mustalahti@uef.fi)
Irmeli Mustalahti, Professor of Natural Resource Governance has a PhD in participatory forest practices and impacts (University of Copenhagen, Denmark). She is a chair of Responsive Natural Resources Governance-Research Group (RNRG). Her main research and teaching interests are long-term empirical research on natural resources governance, environmental conflict resolution, and collaborative management of natural resources. Since 2003, she has engaged with the Academy of Finland funded research projects and being in close collaboration with various international research networks. Since 2015, she has been developing jointly, with an international researchers and PhD supervisors, a course series called ‘Environmental collaboration and conflict resolution’. For example, in 2012-2016, she led the Academy of Finland funded projects ‘Towards Responsive Governance in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation? Comparative case study in Tanzania and Nepal’ and ‘REDD+: The new regime to enhance or reduce equity in global environmental governance? A comparative study in Tanzania, Mexico and Laos’. Currently, she is among of the leadership of the multidisciplinary research project, ‘All youth want to rule their world, ALL-YOUTH, 2018-2023’, a consortium funded by the Strategical Research Council of Finland. She is also a leader of MAKUTANO research project in Tanzania which aims to develop methodological and theoretical approaches for environmental collaboration and conflict resolution.
Johanna Leino (johanna.leino@uef.fi)
I’m doing research on environmental justice, social acceptance and tensions related to Finnish natural resource governance. My aim is to recognize ways for more sustainable and just natural resource decision making. In addition, I’ve done research on the possibilities of co-management arrangements in Finland.
Joni Virkkunen (joni.virkkunen@uef.fi)
Joni Virkkunen (PhD, title of docent) works as a Research Manager at the Karelian Institute. He is also the Director of the VERA Centre for Russian and Border Studies, a member of the executive board of the UEF’s top-level research area Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters (BOMOCULT) and of the cross-faculty Doctoral Programme in Social and Cultural Encounters. His research relates to borders, border governance, cross-border cooperation, EU-Russian relations, regional and cross-border cooperation and transnational migration in Russian and post-Soviet contexts. He has been recently studying, for example, the Northern Dimension policy and the regional impacts of EU-Russia relations, local meanings of the border and cross-border cooperation, the 2015-2016 Arctic migration route through/from Russia to Finland and, recently, temporary protection holders from Ukraine. The latter he has been studying through Finnish and Russian migration and border policies, publicity and public debates, migrants’ everyday insecurities, and informal practices.
Juha Kotilainen (juha.kotilainen1@uef.fi)
My main research area is natural resources governance under which I am currently focusing on themes, such as collaborative governance, public mediation and conflict resolution, social acceptance, mining & exploration, water stewardship, stakeholder engagement, community benefit agreements, biodiversity offsetting, circular economy, electric vehicle batteries.
In addition to the work related to my research projects, I am finalizing my PhD on collaborative governance mechanisms and their potential applications in Finland.
Jukka Tikkanen (jukka.tikkanen@uef.fi)
Research interests: Forest governance in transition towards pluralistic, low-carbon economy, Planning theories, Problem structuring methods, Non-timber forest products