Early days of YHYS society
This text describes and contextualizes the establishment of the Finnish Society for Environmental Social  Science in 1994. The major context was a process related to a new professorship in environmental policy at the same time – the first academic position in Finland in the field of environmental social science. The author starts with his background and describes how he joined the University of Tampere where the professorship on environmental policy was established. Then he writes about the history of environmental
policy prior to the professorship before describing the administrative process of choosing a candidate in the new and developing discipline of environmental policy. He then moves towards the Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science and describes the initial meeting and the official process of founding the new society. The text then examines the activities of the new scientific society during the first years  when the author worked as its secretary. The author also briefly considers how the society’s activities have developed since then. Finally, he comes back to his academic career and concludes by comparing social
science research on the environment and futures studies, which have a lot in common in Finland.