Project on Nordic cooperation
Director Teija Tiilikainen will lead a project on the prospects of Nordic cooperation in foreign and security policy until the end of March 2018.
Project on US global role
Programme Director Mika Aaltola will lead a project on US global role and transatlantic relations until the end of 2017. Like the project on Nordic cooperation, the project was granted 80,000€ and was launched in the beginning of March. Both projects were commissioned by the Government’s Analysis, Assessment and Research Activities unit.
Project on resilience
FIIA has also been granted MATINE (Scientific Advisory Board for Defence) funding (51,030€) for a one-year project entitled “Societal Resilience in the Age of Competitive Interdependency: Prospects and Challenges”. Programme Director Mika Aaltola and Senior Research Fellows Harri Mikkola (who will coordinate the project) and Juha Käpylä will take part in the project.
Projects on Korea and China
The Korea Foundation has granted $25,000 to Senior Research Fellow Elina Sinkkonen for a research project on “Geopolitical and Ideological Tensions on the Korean Peninsula and Their Regional Ramifications”. The project started in January. Elina Sinkkonen and Senior Research Fellows Bart Gaens, Jyrki Kallio and Katja Creutz will contribute to the project. After the Korea project, Sinkkonen will stay at FIIA on a four-year Kone Foundation research grant. Her research project will focus on the changing authoritarianism in China.
New Pact for Europe
The Finnish National Reflection Group led by FIIA visited Lisbon in the end of January to discuss the key challenges of the EU with the Portuguese reflection group. The final report providing a Finnish view to the ongoing debate on the future of Europe will be published in May. The project promotes a Europeanwide debate on reform proposals by addressing several fundamental questions which need to be answered to develop the EU. It is supported by a consortium of European foundations and a high-level Advisory Group chaired by Herman Van Rompuy.
Seminar videos
FIIA has started publishing video recordings of selected seminars. The presentations of the 10th Annual FIIA Day seminar, “Assessing Global Trends”, and another seminar, “Oil and Geopolitics”, are already available on the FIIA website.
Staff News
Dr. Mark Katz has joined FIIA for six months in the framework of the CUSPP (FIIA’s Center on US Politics and Power) exchange programme in the beginning of April. He works as a Professor of Government and Politics at Schar School of Policy and Government of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His focus at FIIA will be on multiple challenges to US foreign policy. He is also an expert on Soviet and Russian foreign policy and global role.
In May, Leo Michel, an expert on US defence and security policy, will return to FIIA for six months. His second visit is also in the framework of the CUSPP exchange programme.
Adjunct Professor Jussi Lassila will join FIIA’s EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia research programme in the beginning of April. He has published widely on Russian media and politics.
Senior Research Fellow Charly Salonius-Pasternak visited Oxford University in January-March.