University of Helsinki
Project team
Johanna Kantola is Professor of European Societies and their Politics in the University of Helsinki, Centre for European Studies (CES) and the PI/director of EUGenDem. She obtained her PhD in Politics at the University of Bristol in 2004 and became Docent in Politics at the University of Helsinki in 2007. She is the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Gender and EU Studies in the University of Tübingen, Germany, (2022-2025).
Her current research centres on EU institutions and especially the European Parliament. She has researched extensively gender equality policies in the EU and Finland. She is a member of the Horizon Europe CCindle project (2022-2026) studying feminist responses to anti-gender opposition in Europe. She was the director of the Academy of Finland (2016-2020) and University of Helsinki Research Funds (2015-2017) funded research project Gender and Power in Reconfigured Corporatist Finland (GePoCo).
Her monographs include Gender and Political Analysis (with Emanuela Lombardo, Palgrave, 2017), Gender and the European Union (Palgrave, 2010), Feminists Theorize the State (Palgrave, 2006). She has co-edited European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times (Palgrave, 2022, with Petra Ahrens and Anna Elomäki); Social Partners and Gender Equality: Change and Continuity in Gendered Corporatism in Europe (Palgrave 2022; with Anna Elomäki and Paula Koskinen Sandberg). The Oxford Handbook on Gender and Politics (Oxford University Press, 2013, with Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis and Laurel Weldon), Gender and the Economic Crisis in Europe: Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality (Palgrave 2017, with Emanuela Lombardo), Tasa-arvopolitiikan suunnanmuutoksia (Gaudeamus, 2020, with Paula Koskinen Sandberg and Hanna Ylöstalo); Tasa-arvo toisin nähtynä: Oikeuden ja politiikan näkökulmia tasa-arvoon ja yhdenvertaisuuteen (Gaudeamus, 2012, with Kevät Nousiainen and Milja Saari) and Changing State Feminism (Palgrave, 2007, with Joyce Outshoorn).
She is the Editor of Palgrave Macmillan’s Gender and Politics Book Series with Professor Sarah Childs.
Contact: Johanna Kantola, Centre for European Studies, P.O. Box 9, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
Email: johanna.kantola@helsinki.fi
Tel: + 358 50348 0836
Twitter: @johanna_kantola
Valentine Berthet is Postdoctoral Researcher in EUGenDem. She joined the project in September 2018 as a PhD student.
Berthet holds an LL.M. with Distinction in International law from the University of Kent (2017) and a Bachelor of Law from Grenoble-Alpes University (2014).
She completed her doctoral dissertation and defended it successfully in the public examination on 23 September 2022 at Tampere University. The title of the dissertation is: ‘The discursive politics of gendered violence and bodily rights in the European Parliament’ and can be found here.
Berthet published her research in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Social Politics, and the International Feminist Journal of Politics.
Email: valentine.berthet@helsinki.fi
Tel: +358 50 437 7604
Twitter: @Vale_brt
Barbara Gaweda is Senior Researcher in EUGenDem. She joined the project as Postdoctoral Researcher in October 2019. She obtained her PhD in Political Science at the University of Edinburgh in 2017. Gaweda’s research focuses on a gendered analysis of political discourses and institutions in parliamentary politics, gender (in)equality, politics of sexuality, nationalism and post-state socialist transformations.
Gaweda’s publications include ‘Europeanization, Democratization, and Backsliding: Trajectories and Framings of Gender Equality Institutions in Poland’ (Social Politics, 2021); ‘Reinventing Resistance. An Intersectional Look at the Feminist Responses to Anti-Gender+ Equality in Poland’ (Gender and the Politics of Crises in Times of De-Democratisation: Opposition to Gender+ Equality Policies, Bianka Vida ed., 2022); and ‘Reframing the language of human rights? Political group contestations on women’s and LGBTQI rights in European Parliament debates’ (Journal of European Integration, 2021, with Petra Ahrens and Johanna Kantola).
Email: barbara.gaweda@helsinki.fi
Tel: +358 504377564
Twitter: @GawedaBarbara
Liliia Antoniuk joined EUGenDem in August 2022 as a PhD researcher for the academic year 2022-23.
Since September 2021, she has been doing her PhD research at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine). Liliia holds an MA in Gender, Society and Representation from the University College London (London, the United Kingdom; 2019), an MA in Legal Regulation of Public Administration and Human Rights from the Mykolas Romeris Univeristy (Vilnius, Lithuania; 2016), and a Bachelor of Law from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine; 2014).
Her main field of interest is in gender and law. Recent publications include research ‘Social Entrepreneurship in Times of COVID-19 through Gender Lenses’ (EaP Civil Society Facility; 2020) and ‘A New Vision of ‘A New Vision of Ukrainian Politics or Another Political Trick: Reflections on the Role of the Electoral Quota for Women in Ukraine and Its Results’ (Eastern Journal of European Studies; 2015).
Email: liliiaantoniuk@gmail.com
Tel: +38 093 748 35 77
Former team members
Petra Ahrens was Senior Researcher in the project January 2019 – October 2021. She is currently Academy Research Fellow at Gender Studies, at Tampere University.She received her PhD in Sociology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2014. Her research focuses on gender policies and politics in the European Union and its institutions, transnational civil society organisations, participatory democracy, social politics, political strategies like gender mainstreaming, and gender equality in Germany.
Previously, she was Guest Professor for Comparative Politics and for Gender and Diversity at the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Antwerp and from 2017 to 2018, she held a Marie-Sklodowska-Curie-Fellowship titled „Effects of Institutional Change on Participatory Democracy and the Involvement of Civil Society Organisations” (DemocInChange), also in Antwerp. From 2014 to 2016, she was assistant professor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin at the Department of Social Sciences. She has also worked as free-lance policy consultant for public administration on gender equality and gender mainstreaming since 2006.
Her books include Actors, Institutions, and the Making of EU Gender Equality Programs (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Gender Equality in Politics – Implementing Party Quotas in Germany and Austria (Springer International, 2019, co-authors Katja Chmilewski, Sabine Lang, and Birgit Sauer), and the co-edited volume Gendering the European Parliament: Structures, Policies, and Practices (Rowman&Littlefield, 2019, with Lise Rolandsen Agustín). Other publications include ‘The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the EP – Taking Advantage of Institutional Power Play’ (Parliamentary Affairs, 2016), ‘Birth, life and death of policy instruments: 35 years of EU gender equality policy programs’ (West European Politics, 2019, 42(1): 45-66), and ‘Fish Fingers and Measles? Assessing Complex Gender Equality in the Scenarios for the Future of Europe’ (Journal of Common Market Studies, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12922).
Ahrens is co-editor of the German feminist journal Femina Politica.
Email: petra.ahrens@tuni.fi
Tel: +358 50 3182300
Twitter: @petrahrens
Cherry Miller was Postdoctoral Researcher in the project August 2018 – July 2022. She is currently Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics in the University of Glasgow.
She obtained her ESRC 1+3 PhD in Political Science at the University of Birmingham in 2018. Miller’s research focuses on feminist institutional analysis within Parliaments; methodological and analytical debates within ethnography; and discursive approaches to gender. She holds an MA in Social Research from the University of Birmingham; an MA in Politics and Parliamentary Studies from the University of Leeds; and a BA in Political Science from the University of Birmingham. In 2021, she published a monograph for Palgrave MacMillan’s Gender and Politics Series entitled:Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons: Beneath the Spectacle.
Email: cherry.miller@tuni.fi
tel: +358 50 437 7559
Twitter: @cherrymmiller
Anna Elomäki was Senior Researcher in the project August 2018 – August 2022. She is currently Academy Research Fellow at Gender Studies, at Tampere University.
She obtained her PhD in Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki in 2012. Elomäki’s research focuses on the intersections of gender, politics and the economy: gendered character and impacts of economic policies and governance, economization of gender equality policies in Finland and in the EU, gender budgeting, the changing conditions of feminist movements, and theoretical questions about gender, neoliberalism and economization.
Previously, Elomäki worked at the University of Helsinki as Academy of Finland post-doctoral researcher with a project “Equality for growth and competitiveness: Economization of gender equality policy and advocacy in the European Union“. Elomäki has worked as a consultant on gender equality, for example, she led a “Gender Equality in the Budget” research project (2017-2018, together with Hanna Ylöstalo) funded by the Finnish government.
Elomäki’s recent publications include “Economization of expert knowledge about gender equality in the European Union” (Social Politics, 2020), “European social partners as gender equality actors in EU economic and social governance” (Journal of Common Market Studies2020, with Johanna Kantola) and “It’s a total no-no” Strategic silence about gender in European Parliament’s economic governance policies (2021, International Journal of Political Research). Elomäki is the co-editor-in-chief of the Finnish Journal of Political Economy.
Email: anna.elomaki@tuni.fi
Tel: +358 50 437 7562
Twitter: @AnnaElomaki
Guest and visiting researchers
Mariia Tepliakova is a doctoral researcher at the Salzburg Center for European Union Studies (SCEUS) at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg in Austria. She is a part of the “Challenges to European Integration” project co-funded by the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF).
Mariia’s research deal with the anti-gender backlash in the EU, specifically focusing on public opinion formation and EU citizens’ stance on such gender equality policies as gender quotas and work-family policies. Before starting her PhD, she completed an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in “European Politics and Society”, jointly offered by Charles University (Prague, the Czech Republic), Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland) and University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). Her other research interests include media freedom, de-democratisation and Central and Eastern Europe.
Mariia Tepliakova visited EuGenDem and the University of Helsinki from April to May 2023.
Website: https://mtplk.eu
Email: mariia.tepliakova@plus.ac.at
Dr Paul Copeland is Reader of Public Policy at the School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London.
His research focuses on two intertwined strands: 1) The political economy of European integration, particularly with respect to the politics and policy making of the EU and its competence in employment, social policy, the Single Market and economic governance; 2) and the UK’s relationship with the EU, Brexit, and the role of the British media in constructing Euroscepticism. In the field of EU studies, Paul’s work explores the evolution and challenges of constructing a European social dimension to counter balance market-led integration. In particular, he has analysed the ideological tensions and autonomy inherent within EU employment and social policy in the context of the EU’s liberalising and deregulatory market-driven mode of governance. He has extensively knowledge of the governance tools used in the field, as well as their effectiveness to create policy change within the EU’s Member States. He is currently researching into the significance of the EU’s latest initiatives in poverty reduction, which have been launched in the context of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
His recent monograph ‘Governance and the European Social Dimension’ was shortlisted for the 2021 UACES best book prize. His research has featured in leading journals such as the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Comparative European Politics, British Politics, European Law Journal and Public Administration.
Dr Copeland is visiting EUGenDem in September 2022. He is presenting his research at the hybrid workshop ‘The politics of EU social policy in the European Commission and the European Parliament‘ on 13 September 2022 at Tampere University.
Email: p.copeland@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter: @drpaulqmul
Sophie Kopsch is a doctoral researcher at the University of Namur in Belgium since October 2020 and part of the MEPs’ Career and Behaviour Project (Evolv’EP).
Funded by the Belgium Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), she analyses in her PhD the political careers of women in the European Parliament with focus on the allocation of top positions. She holds a master degree in Political Science from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) and before starting her PhD, she worked in different research projects specializing on parliaments, candidate selection, political systems and electoral laws and worked as a consultant for child care and familiy policies for public administration.
Sophie Kopsch visited EUGenDem and Tampere University from March to June 2022.
Email: sophie.kopsch@unamur.be
Prof Roman Kuhar is Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. He researches and teaches on gender, sexuality, popular culture and everyday life. He is the author of several books, among others: ‘Media Construction of Homosexuality’; ‘The Unbearable Comfort of Privacy’ (co-authored with A. Švab); ‘Beyond the Pink Curtain: Everyday life of LGBT people in Eastern Europe’ (co-edited with J. Takács); and the co-editor, with David Paternotte, of ‘Anti-gender Campaigns in Europe: mobilizing against equality’ (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017.
Prof Kuhar was a virtual guest of EUGenDem and Tampere University in November 2020. He delivered the key note lecture at the Gender Studies Conference ‘Reclaiming Futures’. For more information about the event, see here.
Email: Roman.Kuhar@ff.uni-lj.si
Dr Josefina Erikson is an Associate professor in the Department of Government, Uppsala University. She has worked in a number of research projects related to gender and politics. In collaboration with the Swedish parliament’s gender equality group she has recently explored the working conditions in the Riksdag from a gender perspective.
Email: Josefina.Erikson@statsvet.uu.se
Dr Eva-Maria Euchner is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute of Political Science of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (Germany). She is specialized in comparative public policy analysis and legislative behaviour. Her areas of research interest include religion, gender, party politics and morality policy-making. She has published in high-ranking international journals such as the European Journal of Public Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Journal of Public Policy or with outstanding international publishers, including amongst others Oxford University Press and Palgrave Macmillan.
She has published extensively on these topics, amongst which two monographs, and also edited a number of books and special issues of journals. Her recent publications include The Symbolic Representation of Gender (with Emanuela Lombardo, Ashgate 2014) and The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality: Strecthing, Bending and Policymaking (edited with Emanuela Lombardo and Mieke Verloo, Routledge 2009).
Email: eva-maria.euchner@gsi.lmu.de
Dr Rosalind Cavaghan was Guest Researcher in the project in 2019 (May-October). She combines academic research with independent consultancy. Her academic research focuses on two core topics. Firstly, she is interested in how ‘mainstream’ policies shape intersectional gender inequalities throughout the EU. To examine these topics she combines feminist political economy and EU integration theory. Second, she is interested in the gender politics of knowledge and expertise. Who gets recognized as an expert or is dismissed as ill-informed or as a liar? What are the political and sociological processes shaping these outcomes. As a consultant, she specializes in all aspects of equality. Recent projects have included measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of institutional mechanisms for the promotion of gender equality; delivering gender awareness training for the Scottish Government and examining how to ‘mainstream’ gender in university research strategy more effectively.
Her recent publications include her co-authored contribution to JCMS Annual Review ‘A Recovery for Whom?’, her monograph ‘Making Gender Equality Happen, Knowledge Change and REsistance in EU Gender Mainstreaming’ and her analysis of EU economic policy ‘The Gender Politics of EU Economic Policy: Policy Shifts and Contestations Before and After the Crisis’.
Email: r.cavaghan@posteo.de
Professor Petra Meier was Visiting Researcher in the project in June 2019. She is Professor in Politics at the Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp. Her research can be summarized as the representation of gender in politics and policies. She has extensively investigated (aspects of) political systems, such as electoral systems, political parties, and federal state architectures, and how these systems or institutions hamper respectively the political participation and representation of women (as well as of other groups). At a more theoretical level she has analysed the concept of political representation, more particularly descriptive and symbolic representation and how the different dimensions of representation relate to each other. With respect to policies her work focuses on the gender bias inherent in public policies, including equality policies. She has extensively researched how frames and discursive constructions undermine gender equality, as well as tools to detect and correct a gender bias, in case of gender mainstreaming processes and instruments. More recent work also investigates the translation of the concept of intersectionality to public policies.
She has published extensively on these topics, amongst which two monographs, and also edited a number of books and special issues of journals. Her recent publications include The Symbolic Representation of Gender (with Emanuela Lombardo, Ashgate 2014) and The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality: Strecthing, Bending and Policymaking (edited with Emanuela Lombardo and Mieke Verloo, Routledge 2009).
Email: Petra.Meier@ua.ac.be
Dr Emanuela Lombardo is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Administration of Madrid Complutense University (Spain). She works on gender equality policies, Europeanization and political representation. In 2010 she received the recognition of ‘outstanding research career’ by the Spanish national agency of evaluation of academic excellence. Since 2018 she has been coordinator of the evaluation of gender research projects in the area of social science for the Spanish ministry of research. She is member of editorial boards of international journals and book series such as Routledge Gender and Comparative Politics; Journal of Women, Politics and Policy; European Journal of Politics & Gender and she coordinates the research group on Gender and Politics at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Her latest monographs are Gender and Political Analysis (with Johanna Kantola, Palgrave, 2017) and The Symbolic Representation of Gender (with Petra Meier, Ashgate, 2014). Recent work can be found in European Journal of Political Research, Comparative European Politics, Politics, Gender, Work and Organization, or Social Politics.
Lombardo was a Visiting Researcher in the project in December 2018. During her visit she gave presentation about feminist politics and populist parties in Spain and Finland in EUGenDem’s Feminist Politics and Populism seminar.
Email: elombardo@ucm.es
Expert Board for the project
Gabriele Abels, Professor of Comparative Politics and European Integration at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics & Gender at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Simon Hix, Professor of Political Science, Stein Rokkan Chair in Comparative Politics at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.
Laura Huttunen, Professor of Social Anthropology at the Tampere University, Finland.
Anu Koivunen, Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Turku, Finland.
Emanuela Lombardo, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Madrid Complutense University, Spain.
Diana Mulinari, Professor of Gender Studies at the Lund University, Sweden.
Tapio Raunio, Professor of Political Science at the Tampere University, Finland.
Juho Saari, Professor of Social and Health Policy at the Tampere University, Finland.
Mieke Verloo, Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality Issues at the Radboud University, Netherlands.
Georgina Waylen, Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
