The doctoral programme on sustainable management of forest resources is funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council, for the period (2022-2024). The programme will provide full funding for doctoral positions to 3 - 6 students from the North West Agriculture & Forest University in Yangling (China), to perform a doctoral degree at the School of Forest Sciences of the University of Eastern Finland. The main goals are to enable Chinese scholars from NWAFU to visit UEF, foster opportunities for students to publish research papers in high-profile refereed journals and also to receive industrial experience in companies and research institutions and foster opportunities for faculty to collaborate in both basic and applied research.

Team

Guangzhe Liu

The designation of protected areas and of regions of special conservation interest has gained due relevance across the globe, particularly in the past three decades. Territories covered by protected areas are steadily expanding. Within this framework, numerous international strategies define the importance of Capacity Building and Training as the key challenge of the 21st century. The Training Masters in Ecosystem Services Management in Protected Areas (ECOSERVE) aims at developing an innovative practice-oriented MSc programme according to Bologna criteria in the field of protected areas management, and at meeting sustainable development and labour market needs through networking activities. ECOSERVE will be a qualitatively new MSc programme implemented in higher education institutions of the Russian Federation and Mongolia, strengthening their educational partnership with non-academic partners in the field of protected areas management and responding to demands for professionals of public services, private service providers and tourism businesses. It will contribute to adapt land management strategies to the actual changing natural drivers, such as climate, in alignment with global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The program knowledge base, materials and courses in Russian, Mongolian and English, will be continuously updated and disseminated through a network of resources centres of protected areas in Partner country HEIs, promoting inter-regional cooperation in environmental protection, nature and biodiversity conservation issues, and management.

Team

Cristina Vega

This research aims to: - Identify steps in the process that leads from information disclosure to better resource governance that are not well understood theoretically or that have not been validated empirically - Subject these steps to rigorous empirical testing - Develop a theory of change for the transparency process.

Team

Land is a powerful asset, but it also has a social function. Its economic and social aspects are central in advancing gender equality. Legal control of land as well as legal and social recognition of women’s uses of and rights to land, can also have catalytic effects of empowerment, increasing women’s influence and status in their homes and communities. During past decades changes in the Chinese land tenure rights and practices have brought important incentives for rural developments including farmer income and living standards. However, rural women’s land rights are still not adequately implemented. Despite modernization, China is administratively and socially very hierarchical. Foucault's idea of power provides a better starting point for looking at the use of power at the grassroots level than the hierarchical conception of power. Although the Communist Party has significant hierarchical power, at the village level, there are several parties involved in the exercise of power with different motives and perceptions. Regarding to methodology, many researchers have utilized government and other official material to explain certain phenomenon. This research is mainly based on interviews because they can provide an insight that might otherwise be invisible in official documents. This research uses an intersectional approach to qualitative content analysis. It allows the exploration of numerous intersection themes simultaneously. For example, according to this research, age, marital status, location, and gender play an important role in women’s equality situation.

Team

The research examines how Finnish HEIs engage with other higher education institutions, communities, civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), enterprises and governments to influence, integrate and/or address the needs for development in various food value-chains and their eco-systems, and further in food and nutrition security and education policy dialogue, especially in the context of the Global South.

Team

This project aimed at training food sector experts in Kyrgyzstan on best practices in food safety and quality management. It included training of experts in Kyrgyzstan, one-on-one consultations for Kyrgyz food businesses.

Team

Professor emeritus Atte von Wright

The Myanmar Energy and Environment Education (MEEE) project, coordinated by the Finland Futures Research Centre, directly contributes to the development of sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth in Myanmar by enhancing capacities of Myanmar partner institutions to provide quality education on environment and sustainable energy for growing societal and energy sector development needs. Myanmar is currently in a critical time in its energy transition. To be able to attract investors in the renewable energy sector and to re-investigate the government’s RE targets, enhancing access to energy and electrification, as well as reducing CO2 emissions and environmental pollution from fossil fuels there is a dire need for nationally grounded energy expertise.

Team

Mika Korkeakoski, Noora Vähäkari, Osku Haapasaari, Jyrki Luukkanen

In this project, solar concentrating power production systems and technologies are developed. The focus is on new innovations to bring this solar technology closer to commercialisation. A new type of concentrator, the so-called beam-down 2-stage concentrator, has been developed. It can be equipped with an integrated thermal (high-temperature) storage to provide dispatchable power operation. Up to 40% solar conversion efficiency can be reached.

Team

Wang Jun, Song Yang, Wang Jiangping

This research concerns socio-technical issues for providing solar electricity into rural India. Several solar pico-grid systems have been implemented in villages accompanied with comprehensive data collection, field-trips, interviews, and analysis. Research questions have included behavioural aspects with use of solar electricity in the rural context, system reliability, and system optimisations. Key results include observations that reliability need more attention and local training, i.e. strengthening frugality aspects; demand response of the rural population showed less correlation with access to solar electricity.

Team

Sini Numminen, Semee Yoon, Johannes Urpelainen

Teacher Preparation Programme through ODL Mode for Enhancing Quality in Education (TPP-Nepal Project) is a capacity development project between Tribhuvan University, Nepal and JAMK University of Applied Sciences together with HAMK University of Applied Sciences, Finland. The partnership has been established during a previous project, Training of Trainers for the Teacher Qualification Upgrading Programme in Nepal (ToT Nepal), that ended in 2015.

Team

Seija Koskela PhD