Research Professor, Team leader
Professor Timo Koivurova is a director of the Arctic Centre. His expertize covers, among others, Arctic legal and governance questions, international environmental law and indigenous rights. He is one of the key scholars dealing with the Arctic regional cooperation, including in particular the Arctic Council.
Homepage tel. +358 40 551 9522
Associate Professor
Dr. Stefan Kirchner is specialized in international law. The focus of his work is the regulation of spaces and interactions between different actors in the Arctic. In addition to his academic work, he has extensive practical experience in international law, having worked in both private practice and public administration.
Homepage
tel. +358 40 484 4001
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Sanna Kopra is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher who is specialized in International Relations. Her research interests include China's foreign policy, great power politics, international environmental politics and Arctic governance. Between 2018 and 2021, Sanna carries out a postdoctoral project “The Rise of China and Normative Transformation in the Arctic Region.”
Researcher, PhD Candidate
Pamela’s background is in land use and urban planning as well as in environmental impact assessment. Her research at the Arctic Center focuses primarily on the social license to operate (SLO) and sustainable mining in the Nordic countries. The topic of her dissertation centers on the social license to operate concept as a form of private governance and seeks to operationalize SLO via economic compensation mechanisms such as Impact and Benefit Agreements.
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4051
Researcher
The topic of Ilona's multidisciplinary doctoral research is the use of knowledge in environmental and regional development related strategic planning. Her research focuses empirically on regional level proactive climate change adaptation strategies in the Arctic. Ilona’s other research interests include collaborative planning, regional development in Arctic areas, multiple-use of nature, cartography (historical maps in particular), sustainable Arctic tourism, relational planning theory, and actor-network theory.
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4273
Visiting Researcher
Susanna Pääkkölä is a research scientist working in the Arctic governance and administration group at the Arctic Centre. She is also holding a position as a Doctoral candidate with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oulu. Her thesis concerns human physiology and human thermoregulation in cold environments, which covers essential questions in the context of personal human safety in the Arctic. She earned her Master’s degree (Master of Science, Natural sciences, Biology – Physiology, Biochemistry, Genetics and Botany) from the University of Oulu in 2008 and studied Tourism business in the University of Lapland 2006-2008. Lately she has been working for the maritime safety enhancement in collaboration with Stefan Kirchner in the project “New Ocean”. Her research interests include human physiology, cold environment, health, tourism safety, economics, medical and biosciences and natural sciences.
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4297
Arctic Council and Arctic governance; Non-Arctic actors in regional governance; Science-policy interface; Collaboration among natural, social and human sciences; Assessments in policy-making International environmental regimes
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4400
Adam Stepien is a political scientist. His interests include: policy coherence, Arctic governance, law and cooperation, indigenous governance, participatory decision-making, as well as development cooperation partnerships. Adam took part in several projects dedicated to the EU and the Arctic. The latter is the topic of his ongoing PhD.
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4298
Visiting Senior Researcher
Geographer, her research interest are: Community-based development in sparsely populated and peripheral places; Tourism in small-scale regions; Socio- cultural impacts of tourism development in peripheral places; Community resilience and adaptation to changes; Management, policies and planning in peripheral areas; Regional development in Arctic communities. Conducted several research projects in Greenland.
The main focus of Researcher Nafisa Yeasmin's studies devotes to Arctic immigration. Her research interest includes how as to understanding global migration governance in regional level, the challenges of migration governance to establish a greater coherence across the arctic region. Special attention has been given to comprehensive governance strategies for accelerating economic integration of immigrants since good governance reinforces economic integration that underpin the relative resilience of emerging economy in the global north.
Homepage tel. +358 40 484 4256
Visiting Reseacher
Waliul Hasanat, LLD is a Professor of Law and Justice Discipline in Khulna University, Bangladesh. He has done his Doctor of Laws at the Faculty of Law in the University of Lapland on the Arctic Council. He has published a number of articles and a few books with an emphasis on Arctic governance. He was a postdoc fellow of China-Nordic Arctic Research Centre to the School of Law and Political Science at the Ocean University of China. His main research interests include public international law, international soft-law, soft-law forms of cooperation, the Arctic Council, Arctic law and governance, changes in the Circumpolar North, sustainable development, and the protection of minorities.