Tampere University receives funding for 17 new Academy Research Fellowships and Academy Projects in social sciences and humanities

The Research Council of Finland’s Scientific Council for Social Sciences and Humanities has decided on funding for 40 new Academy Research Fellows and 61 new Academy Projects, which involve a total of 76 subprojects. The total funding comes to around 22 million euros for Academy Research Fellowships and around 35 million euros for Academy Projects.

In this round, the success rate for Academy Research Fellowship and Academy Project applicants was approximately 13%.

New Academy Research Fellows at Tampere University

Academy Research Fellowship funding is intended for talented early-career researchers on a fast career track who have formed international networks and who are conducting scientifically high-quality and high-impact research that contributes to scientific renewal. At Tampere University, the following researchers received funding:

Natalya Bekhta: Utopia and Eastern European Literature after 1989

In the midst of war, the climate crisis, and new forms of fascism, pessimistic and apocalyptic visions of the future dominate current public and scholarly debate. The purpose of the study is to show that, against all odds, Utopia as a human impulse and literary form lives on – and does so in the war-torn Eastern Europe, in the aftermath of the Soviet regime. Bekhta will study the aesthetic, formal and political aspects of Utopia in a selection of Eastern European literatures from 1989 to the present. By reading these new forms of Utopia in the global context in dialogue with contemporary theories of ‘world literature’, the project will revise current models of literary comparison and nuance the ways in which we think of our future. See the funding decision to read more about Natalya Bekhta’s research.

Olli Kuparinen: Speech as speech – acoustic modelling in variational linguistics

In variational linguistics., speech is typically transcribed on a phonetic level. Phonetic transcribing is very time-consuming and dependent on experts. Meanwhile, the field of automatic speech recognition has recently taken leaps forward. However, the focus of the field has been on the creation of standardised text even when the original speech signal contains non-standard features. Kuparinen will use automatic speech recognition to output phonetic transcriptions. He will utilise neural acoustic modelling to study language variation and change directly from the speech signal. He will also use machine translation methods to standardise existing transcriptions to the international phonetic alphabet (IPA). See the funding decision to read more about Olli Kuparinen’s research. 

Mikko Meriläinen: Beyond hegemony: Rethinking men and masculinities in game culture

In his study, Meriläinen investigates how men experience, negotiate, and subvert normative expectations of masculinity and express agency as they participate in game cultures. The project focuses on the intersections of masculinity and game cultures in the context of both digital and non-digital gaming, with an emphasis on men’s agency and reflexivity. The project contests the pessimistic paradigm in game studies work on men and masculinities and increases our understanding of the complex connections of masculinities and gaming. The approach places men at the centre of game culture equity work and shifts this labour away from discriminated groups. See the funding decision to read more about Mikko Meriläinen’s research. 

New Academy Research Projects at Tampere University

The aim of Academy Project funding is to promote the renewal and diversity of Finnish science and to improve the quality and scientific and other impact of research. The aim is to attain internationally as high a scientific standard of work as possible and to support scientific breakthroughs and top-tier international research collaboration. At Tampere University, the following projects received funding:

Jaakko Siltaloppi: Ecosystem governance for sustainability transition: overcoming tensions in multi-stakeholder collaboration through law, policy, and innovation management (eColabor)

The eColabor project develops new knowledge on the legal, policy, and innovation management aspects of ecosystem governance to support system-level sustainability transition. The aim is to identify tensions in ecosystems and develop novel governance models needed to address these tensions to support multi-stakeholder collaboration towards sustainability targets. The project also aims to identify areas of private law and policy that inhibit such collaboration, and to propose concrete suggestions for policy revision as well as innovation management strategies that support ecosystemic collaboration for sustainable innovations. The project will generate applicable insights for ecosystem governance in private-public partnerships. See the funding decision to read more about Jaakko Siltaloppi’s research. 

Pekka Jokinen: Politics of incomplete infrastructures: Wastewater treatment and sludge processing in a circular economy

Urban wastewater treatment is a critical infrastructure. Pollution prevention and safe sanitation are necessary for well-functioning cities and societies. In Finland, wastewater infrastructures deliver these functions only partially. If the building of a circular society is the goal, wastewater infrastructures must be made supportive of sustainable resource recovery. The project analyses how the incompleteness of infrastructures is made and how cities and companies respond to these pressures. See the funding decision to read more about Pekka Jokinen’s research. 

Satu Ojala: Demanding activation – harming outcomes? The nexus of reformed policies, social harm, and claimants’ life courses

The project estimates active labour market policies in terms of their life course and well-being outcomes across countries as well as social security life courses across cohorts in Germany, Denmark and Finland in relation to activation. The project also studies benefit sanctions as determinants of life courses and wellbeing and the arrangement of employment services and activation practices. Overall, the project redefines thinking of the welfare state policies and their outcomes for those who are dependent on social security. See the funding decision to read more about Satu Ojala’s research. 

Maria Mäkelä: Authors of the story economy: narrative and digital capital in the 21st-century literary field

The contemporary story economy prompts everyone to share their story and rewards for dramatic stories of change and survival, encouraging also literary authors to seek attention with their personal story. Literature is no longer an autonomous sphere allowing for artistic freedom but influenced by digital storytelling platforms. The research consortium also involving the Universities of Turku and Helsinki will analyse how 24 authors in 10 European countries deal with the pressures imposed by the story economy in their literary and non-literary texts. The project also uses digital methods to analyse the social media responses evoked by these authors. The aim is to help authors, media actors, publishers, and audiences to analytically and critically revision the future of literature. See the funding decision to read more about Maria Mäkelä’s research.

Élise Féron: Embodied reconciliation - rethinking post-conflict reconciliation through missing bodies

During wars and violent conflicts, a staggering number of people go missing, never to be found again. When violence recedes, their relatives experience an ambiguous loss, which prevents them from reaching closure and often results in unresolved grief. The research investigates the embodied practices and rituals of relatives when they remember the persons and asks whether the shared experience of having missing relatives builds connections between members of different groups, thus opening new paths towards reconciliation. The project draws on four interlinked case studies. The aim is to generate information valuable to practitioners on how the issue of missing bodies affects peace processes at a very concrete level. See the funding decision to read more about Élise Féron’s research.

Päivi Kymäläinen: Housing precarity: legal geographies of invisible inequality

Finland is considered one of the model countries for housing policy, where the number of homeless people is low, and the housing first principle has been a success. However, the increase and diversification of housing-related insecurities have recently raised concerns. The project will address housing precarity with the help of ethnographic and textual material, concentrating on lived everyday life and invisible inequalities. The research analyses how, for example, gender and age affect questions related to experiencing uncertainty and the possibilities of negotiating housing situations. The project will produce new knowledge about housing uncertainties, conceptualise inequality from new perspectives, and utilise interdisciplinary possibilities in methodological development. See the funding decision to read more about Päivi Kymäläinen’s research.

Inkeri Rissanen: Developing teachers’ mindsets for transformation: fostering cultural change towards sustainability

In addressing the ecological crisis, climate change, and social inequalities, transforming cultural structures that support unsustainable lifestyles is crucial. Teachers are key agents of cultural transformation for sustainability; yet the purposes teachers set for their work are sometimes in stark contrast with the ideal of teachers as change agents. The project explores what the core features of teachers’ mindsets for transformation are and how these can be influenced in teacher education.  The analysis focuses on teachers’ core beliefs concerning the ability of humans and cultures to change. Previous research has found these beliefs influential for the willingness to act towards cultural change. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected to explore the role of core beliefs in teachers’ transformative mindsets, and a teacher intervention is developed to influence them. The project will deliver a teacher training toolkit and a freely accessible online course for supporting teachers' mindsets. See the funding decision to read more about Inkeri Rissanen’s research.

Veli-Matti Värri: Education for deliberation: Practices of inquiry in dialogue-based democratic education

The project aims to create a novel approach to democratic education. The main research question of how to best promote education for democratic deliberation, is approached from theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical perspectives by three sub-projects at the Universities of Oulu, Tampere and Turku. The consortium builds its theory development on the interrelated concepts of habit, inquiry and practice as interpreted in philosophical pragmatism and develops a new theory and research-based practices for deliberation in education. See the funding decision to read more about Veli-Matti Värri’s research.

Riikka Homanen: Gendered ethics of reproductive time: science, technology and the market

New assisted reproductive technologies (ART), the commercialisation of healthcare, and the expansion of biotechnological and pharmaceutical enterprises are changing the temporal logics of reproduction. For example, new companies offer oocyte cryopreservation enabling ever older motherhood. Bringing together social science and bioethics, this project is concerned with the gendered ways in which such temporal changes are evaluated ethically. The study covers three technological practices: reproductive tissue donation, cryopreservation, and health-data-driven artificial intelligence and machine learning. The project contributes to feminist social scientific and bioethics debates about ARTs, healthcare and markets. See the funding decision to read more about Riikka Homanen’s research.

Arto Laitinen: Commitment and self-evaluation: individual and collective

The project addresses a ubiquitous but relatively neglected phenomenon in human life: commitment. The project develops an account of commitment that explains its characteristic role in our lives in terms of critical attitudes that we take to ourselves – ‘self-evaluative’ attitudes. This new theory has significant payoffs for several key questions in philosophy and the social sciences. In philosophy of action, it serves as the basis for a new theory of intentional action that shifts the focus from deliberative to executive thought, from weighing reasons to translating decisions into action. See the funding decision to read more about Arto Laitinen’s research. 

Salla Jokela: Contested waterfront transformations: Renegotiating social inclusion within the financialised urban growth machine

The financialisation of land and property has become a transformative phenomenon in cities, facilitating the formation of growth coalitions based on partnerships between local governments, property owners, developers, businesses, and public organisations. The project aims to uncover conflicts or new balances between cities’ investment-driven land policies and social inclusion goals. Using interpretive policy analysis and innovative AI-driven visual methods, the research focuses on waterfront developments in six European cities. In these areas, land values are high, which serves as a lens to explore the interplay between financialised urban growth machines (FUGMs) and social inclusion. The study conducted with consortium partners at the University of Helsinki and Aalto University will also inform policy makers to improve social inclusion. See the funding decision to read more about Salla Jokela’s research. 

Kristian Kiili: Cultivating mathematical flexibility in a game-based learning environment: scaffolding for learning and engagement

Digital game-based learning environments can support the development of mathematical flexibility. Curricula worldwide are seeking to develop flexible mathematical thinking, which has proved to be a challenge also in Finland. The project includes three studies aimed at furthering our understanding of the specific features of digital game-based learning environments that can best support the development of mathematical flexibility and engage learners. The main features examined are different task types and the design of scaffolds that help learners when they encounter difficulties in the game. The studies will further advance theories and practices in designing game-based learning environments that support mathematical flexibility and consider the learners' needs. See the funding decision to read more about Kristian Kiili’s research.

Jukka Huhtamäki: Generative technologies in communicative organising

New forms of platformed organising emerges when expert communities communicate on digital platforms. The project explores how platforms enable and shape organising and the power structures associated with it. In particular, the project will explore the agency of automated and generative technologies such as categorisations, curation, and communicative AI in organising. The project will generate new knowledge on digital organising in society and provide a framework for using computational methods in organisational research. See the funding decision to read more about Jukka Huhtamäki’s research.

Reetta Muhonen: Good news from academia – cultivating sustainable discourses on academic work

At the same time as universities, which are navigating according to neoliberal goals, project a public image as corporate and agile top-tier institutions with top researchers, behind the façade, academic life is overshadowed by a narrative of misery. This dichotomic picture is the dominant narrative of academic work and its frameworks. The existing portrayal fails to offer sustainable horizons, risking the meaningfulness of academic work and the continuity of science. By examining the discourse on ordinariness and contentment, the study fills this research gap. The first phase sheds light on experiences tied to these aspects in academic work through collaborative autoethnography. The autoethnographic phase is followed by workshops organised for researchers. See the funding decision to read more about Reetta Muhonen’s research.

Read the Research Council of Finland’s press release of 14 June 2024 for more information.