I am doing a PhD in Environmental Policy at the University of Eastern Finland. I hold an MSc in Environment and Development from the University of Reading, UK. Research interests include the role of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in averting food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently studying online from Malawi but hope to be in Finland along the way once funding is secured.

Salla Atkins is a social scientist and professor of Public Health (especially Global Health) at the Faculty of Social Sciences. She is also a research specialist at the department of Global Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet. For the past 16 years Salla has researched issues related to the social determinants of health, poverty, inequity, health systems and policy in low, middle, and high-income countries. Her interest is in mixed-methods and register research, especially multisectoral interventions to improve health and life course effects of social inequalities. Salla has coordinated large EU projects during her postdoctoral work and currently has projects in Finland in addition to collaborations with partners in Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, India, and South Africa on various projects related to health equity. Her work is situated in the space between international, national and regional policy, and individual lives.

My name is Bamgboye Taiwo Temitope. I am a doctoral researcher at the Water Energy and Environmental Engineering Research Unit of the University of Oulu, Finland. My research interests include climate change, urban water, energy and food nexus planning, integrated water resource management; policy analysis in developing countries; and interactions with other SDGs to create a more sustainable future and a balanced ecosystem

Yuzhuo Cai is a Senior Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the Higher Education Group (HEG), Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland. He has been with the HEG for 15 years and was the Acting Professor of the unit from August 2013 to July 2014. He is the (Chinese) Director of Sino-Finnish Education Research Centre jointly coordinated by Tampere University and Beijing Normal University. His teaching and research areas are higher education policy and management, internationalisation of higher education, innovation studies and comparative education, with 78 peer reviewed publications (59 in English) and 6 scholarly books in these fields.

I'm a project management professional with several years of experience in coordinating international cooperation projects in both academia and the private sector. My areas of expertise are: science, technology and innovation (STI) cooperation frameworks between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean, EU-CELAC STI policy dialogue, internationalization of higher education and research, Latin American Studies and intercultural communication.

Projects

Developing Finnish Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Europe, Africa, Asia and the LAC Region (FinCEAL Plus)

Developing Finnish Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Europe, Africa and the LAC Region (FinCEAL)

Developing Finnish Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation between Europe, Africa, Asia and the LAC Region (FinCEAL Plus Continuation)

Internationalizing Finnish Science: Building Sustainable Bridges to Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (BRIDGES)

Multidisciplinary social scientist working on global political economy, development theory, development policy, political philosophy, economic alternatives, development ethics, social movements.

Lisa Grans holds a PhD in Public International Law from Åbo Akademi University (2018) and has published extensively on the issue of women’s rights, with a particular focus on violence against women. Her expertise also includes the prohibition of discrimination, the prohibition of torture and linguistic rights. Grans has worked practically for over 20 years with promoting the human rights of women and other disadvantaged groups in cooperation with the relevant governmental bodies in countries such as Georgia, Kosovo and Turkey, having been based in the latter two.

Projects

Prevention of honour-related violence through the lens of the right to physical and psychological integrity

I am currently writing my doctoral thesis on the motivations of Finnish foreign relations towards Southern African states in the latter part of the 1980s. The primary aim of this research is to examine why the relations towards African states were promoted and what were the reasons for doing so. My previous scientific publications focus on Finnish foreign relations and policies towards Southern African states during the Cold War period, and modern cultural impacts of sports video games. My scientific interests include Nordic historical approaches on development cooperation, Finnish foreign, security, and domestic policy issues during the Cold War, African countries in international forums during the Cold War, and modern cultural impacts of sports in society.

I hold a Master's in Social Science Research, specializing in Public Policy Analysis from Tampere University. My Master's thesis focused on how insights from behavioral economics, namely prospect theory, can guide preventive policy formation in public health, by laying a framework for how policy officials can reduce perceived barriers to the consumption of preventive care, policy thereby reaching vulnerable and high risk groups. Beginning January 2024, I am a doctoral researcher in the Doctoral programme on Inequalities, Interventions and New Welfare State (DPInvest) at the University of Turku. My dissertation will create the first reference budgets for university/university of applied sciences students in Finland, laying out the resources that Finnish and non-EU students in Finland need to participate in current Finnish society.

I am working on the Aid, Policy, and Growth nexus, which is close to development cooperation, policy intervention, and sustainable agriculture development. I am particularly interested in addressing the global shared responsibilities and contemporary issues of the food crisis, climate change, and poverty in developing countries.