I am a PhD candidate in sociology in the University of Lapland. However, my background is also in regional studies, since I have studied it as my major in the University of Tampere. Regional studies opened a view for me to different ways of regional thinking and I found it very interesting. I studied there also sociology, administrative studies, environmental policy etc.

As much as I enjoyed studying and living in Tampere, I felt that I was only visiting there. My roots are in the Finnish Lapland in the northern border region between Finland and Sweden, also called the Tornio Valley. After graduating as a Master of Administrative Sciences from the University of Tampere, I came back to the North and there I felt home. I returned to the Tornio Valley and I worked there in the European Union´s Finnish-Swedish Interreg project in the University of Lapland.

The topic of my PhD research is a combination of my roots in cross-border region, my work experience in the Interreg project and my interest in the regional development of the northern regions. I am scrutinising the European Union´s Interreg programme and its projects in the Tornio Valley from the point of local people. I am analysing how people working in these projects see the projects and what kind of regional development the Interreg programme is supporting from the local point of view. Regional development is understood here widely as societal, political, cultural and economic changes.

My research is at so-called grass-roots level. My aim is to bring up the voice of the local people and their thoughts concerning their home region and its future in the context of big supranational and global actor like European Union. I hope my research would advance the vitality of the northern regions and the well-being of the people living in there.