Research groups and projects

There is a number of ongoing research projects at our Faculty. On this page you can read about some of our more extensive research projects. You can find more projects listed in our research portal or on the discipline webpages.
BIBU – Tackling Biases and Bubbles in Participation

BIBU is a research project that explores how the global flux of economic restructuring, urbanisation, and migration, changes citizens’ political capacities, interests, and emotions, and how the political system responds to these changes. The interdisciplinary consortium is composed of researchers from the fields of politics, psychology, social policy, sociology, economics, and communications.

Crosslocations

Crosslocations aims to understand changes in the relations between people and locations in the Mediterranean region.

Facing Narcissism

Facing Narcissism -project investigates the ways in narcissistic personality features and personality disorders manifest themselves in face-to-face social interaction.

ImagiDem

ImagiDem explores and conceptualises visual participation both online and offline.

INEQ - Helsinki Inequality Initiative

Life trajectories of wealth, health and well-being diverge. Multiculturalism and migration complicate civic life and solidarity. Neighborhoods become segregated. Digitalization and datafication open new opportunities but also intensify polarization. Making sense of social inequality is a constitutive task of social sciences and humanities. INEQ – Helsinki Inequality Initiative is a strategic, multidisciplinary research initiative of the University of Helsinki. This initiative brings together academics whose work enhances an in-depth understanding of causes and consequences of intersecting inequalities.

Law, identity and the European narratives (Centre of Ex­cel­lence)

EuroStorie CoE critically investigates the foundations of the European narrative about a shared heritage of law, values and ideals. The purpose is to examine the crisis through the development of conflicting narratives of Europe in 20th century thinking and its impact in contemporary policies and popular perceptions. The Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives is funded by the Academy of Finland and is hosted by the University of Helsinki.

Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition

The research project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition (SpaceLaw) is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and hosted by the University of Helsinki. The project poses the questions: Why there were no offices in ancient Rome? How is it possible that it nevertheless forms the model for the Western administrative state? The project seeks to investigate this neglected issue with the spatial analysis of power relations and meanings. The significance of these issues extends much beyond this: the development of administrative space in the European context amounts to nothing less than the emergence of the concept of public.

The Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health

The Max Planck – University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health (MaxHel) studies the root causes of health inequalities and the ways in which these could be tackled.

MaxHel goes beyond standard observational research by using exceptionally detailed linked family-based data, natural experimental designs, genetically-informed social epidemiological data, and advanced dynamic modelling techniques that enable us to unearth the pivotal social processes that generate health inequalities.

The need to better understand the root causes of health inequalities is more pertinent than ever. Social inequalities in health and mortality have grown and the unprecedented health and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic may hit the vulnerable the hardest, further exacerbating health gaps.

MaxHel is a joint research unit between the University of Helsinki, the Population Research Unit and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). It is based in Helsinki, Finland and Rostock, Germany.

WISE – Creative adaptation to wicked socio-environmental disruptions

WISE aims to improve decision making over wicked socio-environmental disruptions. We aim to build up resilience and adaptation to disruptions that involve climate-induced migration, energy crisis and political instability, among other things.

Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care

CoE AgeCare is led by University of Jyväskylä and it studies the transformation of ageing and care using novel conceptual and interdisciplinary perspectives, conjoining the analysis of diversification of everyday life to that of ongoing profound societal and policy change. The CoE combines scholarship from social policy, sociology and gerontology, analysing older people’s care needs, agency and equality as well as the changing character of care work in the context of transnationalisation and digitalisation of the ageing society.

More research projects