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Africa-EU relations, migration, development and integration

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.

Alexandra Simon (alexandra.simon-lopez@uef.fi)

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 (alina.inkinen@uef.fi)

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 (andrew.agbaje@uef.fi)

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

He 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.

As of September/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 a first authored paper in Nature Communications and 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 recently recorded a podcast interview of his latest findings as well as a video.

The Endocrine Society in US, recently recorded a podcast interview of his research and discussed his research in the prestigious Endocrine Magazine March 2024 edition. He was recently interviewed by the European Association for the Study of Obesity, a federation of 36 European countries’ professional associations.

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, 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 has received several scientific excellence awards including the prestigious EASO-Novo Nordisk Foundation for New Investigator Award in Childhood Obesity with a 300,000 Danish Kroner (~40,000 euro) prize. Other awards are the American Heart Association’s Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award in Epidemiology and Prevention (once), Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award (twice), and Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award (thrice).

He is a member of the scientific writing group of the Atherosclerosis, Hypertension, and Obesity in Youth subcommittee of the American Heart Association. He was an invited guest speaker to the largest mother and child center in Canada – CHU Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital Center, Canada in March 2023 to speak on the determinants of carotid intima-media thickness and arterial stiffness in pediatrics.

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

He serves on the editorial board of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB), a prestigious American Heart Association Journal, and on the editorial board of Pediatric Exercise Science, the official Journal of the North American Society for Pediatric Exercise Medicine.

In November 2023, he was elected Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC) and in March 2024 he was elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA). 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’s task force on preventing childhood obesity.

His primary email is andrew.agbaje@uef.fi

His secondary email is a.agbaje@exeter.ac.uk

Anna Kårlund (annka@uef.fi)

I have my educational and professional background in plant biology and food biotechnology, especially in the fields of berry research and agricultural byproduct utilization. Currently, I work with metabolomics analyses in LongITools project to study the effects of dietary exposures on human metabolism. My main research interests include the application of integrative omics approaches and in vitro digestion models in surveying the interactions between plant food matrices and human nutrition physiology, and the food technological means to improve the nutritional quality of sustainable protein sources.

Anna-Leena Toivanen (anna-leena.toivanen@uef.fi)

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 (ritva.hujala@uef.fi)

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 (antti.erkkila@uef.fi)

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 (binod.kafle@uef.fi)

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.