Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is also a Lecturer in the Department of Adult and Community Education at Makerere University, Uganda where has over 20 years of experience of teaching and supervising graduate and undergraduate students. His research focuses on citizenship, everyday resistance, participatory learning, grassroots associations and development, pandemic precarity, and NGOs. His work has been published in Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, Global Society, and International Development Planning Review, among others.

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.

I am a doctoral research in Social Sciences, Youth Studies. My thesis research explores skateboarding culture in Morocco and the lived experiences of Moroccan skateboarders through an ethnographic approach.

Hi! I am Marianna Birmoser Ferreira-Aulu, project researcher and doctoral student at the University of Turku (UTU), Finland. My long-term professional goal is to contribute to society by exploring innovative pathways towards just and sustainable futures. I intend to do this by producing high-quality scientific materials, by popularizing science to catalyze positive transformations, and by engaging with the civil society to collaborate with various stakeholders. During the past five years, I have been working as project researcher in two departments in the University of Turku: the Finland Futures Research Centre, and the Centre for Collaborative Research. I have been engaged with various projects in strategic foresight, futures literacy, sustainability and climate action, renewable energy, food research, and international collaboration. In addition to desk research, I enjoy doing workshop facilitation (have experience in Finland, Peru and Colombia). I have also been quite active in public speaking, by giving talks in various seminars and conferences. I also enjoy cooperating to developing the strategy of our own organization. I have represented UTU in international cooperation initiatives through international education services. Since the beginning of 2021, I have also been pursuing my doctoral degree in Futures Studies. The working-title of my dissertation is “Building a Strategic Roadmap for Ecologically Sound and Socio-politically supported Conservation of the Brazilian Amazonia”. The research takes into consideration the local socio-political dynamics, the uniqueness of its peoples and its biodiversity. I look at the conservation of Amazonia as a wicked problem that needs diverse set of actions to attempt to solve it. This research topic is a continuation, and expansion of my Master’s Thesis, where I explored futures scenarios for the Volta Grande do Xingu, the region most affected by the construction of the Belo Monte Dam, in the East of the Brazilian Amazonia.

I work in capacity building projects in Asia, LAC and Africa.

Projects

Capacity Building for Renewable Energy Planning in Cuban Higher Education Institutions (CRECE)

Myanmar Energy and Environment Education (MEEE)

Cuban Energy Transformation: Integration of Renewable Intermittent Sources in the Power System (IRIS)

Mika Kautonen, D.Sc., Adjunct Professor, is the Head of the Innovation Studies Group in TaSTI, Research Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Finland. His and his research group's research interests relates especially to the expansion of innovation activities in present-day societies, to new stakeholder groups, sectors and countries. Therefore he is also interested in innovation activities and innovation policies in developing countries. Those innovation activities are of special interest that contributes to a more sustainable society.

Projects

Co-creation of a Namibian Smart Community (SmartCom)

I'm a student in the doctoral programme of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. My research is at the intersection of agroecology, political ecology and youth employment and livelihoods. In particular, I focus on young farmers in Benin and their health-related motivations and strategies in using ecological farming methods.

Saeed is working on a PhD thesis tentatively entitled “The governance of urban culture in the era of globalisation: an analysis of international policy discourses & Cosmopolitan case- examples”. He investigates this topic from the perspectives of cosmopolitanism and governmentality.

Brendah Nakyazze is a doctoral candidate at Åbo Akademi University Finland pursuing a doctoral degree in Social Sciences (Developmental Psychology). Her research aims to investigate intimate partner sexual aggression and its psychological concomitants in Uganda. The study encompasses measurements of victimisation from sexual aggression in intimate relationships, including marital rape, as well as connected factors such as victimisation due to denial of sex, and accepting attitudes towards marital rape. The connection between victimisation from intimate partner sexual aggression and other types of victimisation will also be studied. Her research also puts forward the psychological concomitants of intimate partner sexual abuse which are important to highlight in Africa where mental health is often misunderstood and not prioritized. Her published work includes; 1. Sexual abuse and accepting attitudes towards intimate partner rape in Uganda. 2. Victimisation from intimate partner rape in Uganda: Sex differences, psychological concomitants, and the effect of educational level. 3. Intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: An impending pubic Health crisis in Africa.

Godfred Adduow Obeng is a doctoral researcher in Development Studies at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä. He is working on a PhD thesis tentatively entitled “Organic Cocoa Governance and its Implication on Sustainable Production: A Comparative case analysis between Ghana, Ivory Coast and The Dominican Republic”. He investigates this topic from the perspectives of multilevel governance.