Projects

EUGenDem

I was the PI of the European Research Council (ERC) funded research project “Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament’s party groups” (EUGenDem) . The project provides a systematic analysis of the gendered policies and practices of the political groups in the European Parliament (EP). The five-year (2018-2023) research project wass funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant. EUGenDem addresses crucial questions about the gendered and gendering policies and practices of European party politics. The project was based at Tampere University (2018-2022) and is currently based in the University of Helsinki (2023-).

The research and analysis conducted during the project has led to over 70 scientific publications so far. For more information, please check out the Archived Publications page. A major achievement has been the publishing of the edited volume on ‘European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times‘ (2022).

Overall, the project team has collected a dataset consisting of 140 interviews with MEPs, staff, and the secretariat of the European Parliament (reaching gender parity among the interviewees, covering all 8 political groups); 193 pages of ethnographic observations (resulting from 55 days, 440 hours in the field); as well as EP and political group statutes, programs, and policy documents.

The project team has included: Professor Johanna Kantola as the Principal Investigator; Dr Anna Elomäki and Dr Petra Ahrens as Senior Researchers; Dr Cherry Miller and Dr Barbara Gaweda as Postdoctoral Researchers; and Dr Valentine Berthet and Liliia Antoniuk as PhD researchers. Dr Berthet completed her doctoral degree within EUGenDem in September 2022. For more info about the team, please check the About us page.

CCindle

I am the PI at the University of Helsinki for the EU Horizon Europe funded research project CCindle: Co-Creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces Across Europe,  (2022-2026). The project studies threats to democracy and gender in contemporary Europea and the responses of feminist change-makers, engaging with them to strengthen their voices. I am the co-director of WP4 on feminist institutional responses (with Emanuela Lombardo, Complutense University Madrid) and a team leader in the University of Helsinki where we are in charge of studying feminist responses in the EU level, both in the civil society and in the context of the European Parliament. Dr Valentine Berthet works as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project in the University of Helsinki.

Gender and Power in Reconfigured Corporatist Finland (GePoCo)

I was the director of the research project GePoCo funded by the Academy of Finland (2016-2020) and the University of Helsinki Research Funds (2015-2017). Paula Koskinen Sandberg, Armi Mustosmäki, Anna Elomäki and Milja Saari were postdoctoral researchers and Ville Kainulainen and Miikaeli Kylä-Laaso PhD researchers in the project. Considering the crucial role played by the corporatist system in Finland there is strikingly little research into its gendered practices in relation to different policy fields or as gendered organizations and decision-making. These were the tasks we undertake in this project. [Read more]

Academy of Finland Research Fellow Project (2012–2018)

Drawing on extensive interview material with politicians and party workers in the Finnish and European parliaments, my research project “Feminized actors or masculine institutions? Gender, Power and Party Politics in Finland” provided analyses political parties in Finland from a gender perspective. [Read more]

Tasa-arvovaje 

Together with my colleagues Anna Elomäki, Anu Koivunen and Hanna Ylöstalo I was involved in a research network funded by the Kone Foundation (2016–2017). The aim of the project was to popularize scientific knowledge about gender equality and bring it into public debates about economics and austerity politics and to political decision-making. [Read more]