Doctoral researcher at Tampere University on Decolonizing Understanding of Gender among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon, and Jordan.

(1) South Korea’s official development assistance in East Africa South Korea’s role in its recent development partnership with a focus on the Global Saema?l Undong (New Village Movement, SMU) programme. South Korea's official donor rhetoric points towards more symmetric aid relationships: emphasis on national ownership, request-based approach, notions of self-reliance and non-hierarchical relationships. Tanzania’s experience with the SMU programme has been selected for an in-depth case study. (2) International aid and institutional development in North Korea The interaction between international aid actors, the DPRK government and beneficiaries has resulted in the emergence of – what institutional theorists call – a ‘new field’. Using qualitative research methods, this research project identifies, categorizes and discusses a set of endogenously grown institutions in the DPRK that have emerged as part of the ‘new field’.

Dr. Raija Halonen acts as an Adjunct Professor and University Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Oulu, Finland, in the Research Unit M3S. She is intested in e-Inclusion and how it can be built and supported by ICT-enabled solutions and applications. Before her academic career she worked on information systems both in the public sector and in private IT enterprises. She has contacts with health sector and several private companies. Her research topics include serious games, gamification and human approach in relation to information processing science.

My research focuses on topics related to the environmental, economic and social dimension of biomass production. I have participated in a number of national and international projects linked to these research lines, often in the Nordic area. As a lecturer, I have been responsible for several courses oriented to graduate and PhD students, particularly related to statistical and research methods, supply and energy use of lignocellulosic biomass and bioenergy markets and policies, among others.

Projects

Training Masters in Ecosystem Services Management in Protected Areas - ECOSERVE

Decision Support for the Supply of Ecosystem Services under Global Change - DecisionES

Sustainable Management of Forest Resources

Dr. Tiina Seppälä is a university lecturer in Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki and adjunct professor of International Development Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has engaged with women’s rights and slum activists in Nepal and Bangladesh, anti-eviction movements in India, asylum seekers in Finland and anti-war activists in the UK. She is interested in development, displacement, social movements, post/decolonial and feminist theory, ethnographic research and arts-based methods.

Projects

Governance, Resistance and Neoliberal Development: Struggles against Development-Induced Displacement and Forced Evictions in South Asia

Researcher of world politics with an emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. In my PhD project, I examined the post-war realities of former girl and women soldiers in Liberia and gained my doctorate in 2017. My recent publications include a book 'Liberia's Women Veterans: War, Roles and Reintegration' (Zed Books 2018) and several peer-reviewed articles on gender, post-war reconstruction, child soldiers, inequality, and visual research methods. I have lived, studied and/or worked in Liberia, Senegal as well as Zambia and am eager to develop innovative ways to study and understand different phenomena around the world.