I am a senior researcher at the Finland Futures Research Centre, with a long experience in the field of cultural research as well as futures thinking. My research focus has been on qualitative knowledge formation processes and methodologies. My futures projects are about everyday life and anticipation as well as futures of food, housing, mobility etc. – often about creative and sharing as well as circular economy and sustainabilioty transformation. My dissertation is written in Ethnology in 2023, about "An invitation to participate in scientific activity: ethnographic perspectives on collaboration practices in multidisciplinary questionnaire activity." 

At the moment I participate in several projects:

Profi8, Nordic Sustainable Food (forthcoming)

Encounters at the Boundaries of Home

https://sites.utu.fi/kokora/en/

Reuse of Nutrients and Water from Human based sludge, WP4 Futures analysis of wastewater treatment, including nutrient and water recovery (UTU). We are currently mapping the cultural barriers and possibilities in wastewater treatment, including recycling of nutrients and reclaimed water. 

https://www.utu.fi/fi/yliopisto/turun-kauppakorkeakoulu/tulevaisuuden-tutkimuskeskus/tutkimus/kestava-arki

Previous projects, e.g. 

Food Futures (2023–2024), 

I have recently broadened my research focus to include anticipation and complex systems, in cities and communities. From 2016 - 2017, I coordinated a research team focusing on Futures of Cities and Communities 2050, utilizing complex systems analysis (see Balcom Raleigh, Kirveennummi and Puustinen 2020).

Climate University (2018–2019) a project called Multidisciplinary digital learning in sustainability challenges – flexible study paths to the working life. It was a collaboration project bringing together eleven Finnish universities to share education and scientific expertise. I was mostly involved in planning a SystemsChange.Now online course. It has a focus on systems thinking and understanding how we can respond to the scale and scope of current and future impacts of Climate Change on the Earth System and the human societies that depend on it.

I have a PhD Degree in Ethnology from the University of Turku’s School of History, Culture and Arts Studies (2023).

My previous interest still attract me: research and methodological history in Futures studies and in Ethnology,  ethnographic production of knowledge, practices of interaction and co-creation and sharing in various neighborhoods and cultural settings. Earlier, for my master’s thesis (1989), I studied connections between environmental consciousness and everyday life. Thus, the tension between ideas and practises can be seen as a permanent theme in all of my studies.