Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen

Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oulu

Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in 2006 and has worked in the universities of Durham, Leiden and Hull. Kuukkanen is a founder and co-director of The Centre for Philosophical Studies of History, and published on the philosophy of science and on the philosophy of history. He has been awarded Fulbright and EURIAS fellowships. His book Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography (Palgrave, 2015) was chosen as the best monograph in philosophy of historiography in 2016 by International Commission for the History and Theory of Historiography.

Research interests

• Philosophy of History and Historiography
• Philosophy of Science
• Historical Philosophers of Science
• Philosophy of the Historiography of Science
• Philosophy of Conceptual Change and Conceptual History

Ulla Härkönen

Ulla Härkönen works as an emerita professor in early childhood education science (ECE) at the University of Eastern Finland. Her career in ECE field is now over 50 years consisting of qualifications to work as a kindergarten teacher, university lecturer, author, rector, vice head, docent, researcher, supervisor, and professor.

Research topics have focused on theories of historical pedagogues, work education for small children, gender in society and ECE, meanings of the concepts of 'early childhood education' and 'preschool', Bronfenbrenner ecological systems theory, and the general systems theory, and others. Ulla Härkönen has created the new theory named The Pedagogical Systems Theory (PST) for early childhood education. Methodologically she has worked with objective hermeneutics, phenomenological and phenomenographical approaches, and especially systems thinking. She has familiarised herself with qualitative research and different kinds of language, text, content, and concept meaning analysis methods.

Ulla Härkönen has worked in the UNESCO project Reorienting Teacher Education towards Sustainability, and in the JTEFS project Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability. She worked as a Foreign Expert, Executive President and a National Coordinator of the BBCC Baltic and Black Sea Circle Consortium. She has been co-opted onto the Honorary Member of Daugavpils University (UN DESD: 2005-2014). Professor Härkönen organised the 10th JTEFS/BBCC Conference and acted as a President of it. This scientific work has been done in parallel with the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Professor Härkönen has given several international and national key-notes, she has worked as an editor-in-chief and reviewer in high-level journals of her professional fields of ECE, especially sustainable development and systems thinking in science, teacher education, practice, and culture. She is continuing supervising students and publishing her literature.

Valeriu Mija

Valeriu holds a PhD degree in Political Sciences from the Moldovan State University (USM) in 2016. He also earned the Master's Degree in Security Studies from the US Defense Post-graduate School in Monterey, California in 2003 and Executive Education in International Security from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2008. He is a former military diplomat with 20 years of security-related experience.

Valeriu has been teaching course on research methodology in political sciences at the Moldovan International Independent University since 2018. Also, he was teaching courses in international security at the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Moldova as well as at the Moldovan Institute for International Relations.

The research topics have focused on the of international relations' theories and paradigms as the main ones - Neorealism, Neoliberalism and Neo-constructivism. Based on Thomas Kuhn approach, Valeriu Mija deconstructs and reconstructs main elements of the paradigms to better understand the different scientific approaches in the process of researching a political phenomenon. Methodologically, he presents the essence of the principal approaches in political sciences - Positivism (Deductive Rationalism) as well as non-Positivism: Instrumentalism (Inductive Empirism) and Interpretivism (Critical Theory, Constructivism, Hermeneutic Theory) that overall distinguish particularities of the modern political science. Besides, his practical academic research covers topics on political categories such as neutrality in international relations, international conflicts, international regimes and international security organizations.

Valeriu Mija has an experience working at the OSCE Mission to Georgia for more than 2 years and also of accomplished 2½-year assignment as Security Advisor with the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. He previously served as Security Adviser in the OSCE ODIHR Election Observation Missions in Azerbaijan (2013, 2018, 2020), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2018), Montenegro (2018, 2020), Kazakhstan (2016), Kyrgyzstan (2017), North Macedonia (2019), Ukraine (2014, 2019), Uzbekistan (2014, 2015, 2016).

Juha Törmänen

Juha Törmänen is the Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Inclus, a software platform for joint decision making, evaluation, and analysis of perceptual data. He is also a long-time core member of the Systems Intelligence Research group in Aalto University.

His expertise relates to applying decision making and data analysis methodologies to perceptual and/or subjective data, and to helping people understand complex data sets better with static and interactive information visualisations. He has developed psychometric inventories for measuring individual and organisational systems intelligence capabilities, and interactive visualisations for exploring differences between Finnish parliamentary election candidates and voting districts. With Inclus, he continues consulting and supporting decision making and evaluation processes in various corporations, ministries, and governmental and municipal organizations.

Mr. Törmänen has also worked as an analyst responsible for technical methods development and application at the international conflict resolution organisation Crisis Management Initiative, working in countries such as Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, South Sudan, Ukraine and Moldova, and is well-versed in hard and soft methodologies for conflict prevention and resolution.

Professor/senior researcher Dr. Psych. Anita Pipere

To characterize my work experience, interests and engagement related to the field of methodology and philosophy of science, I will use the metaphor of pendulum, able to fluctuate in seemingly infinite planes, thus describing the inevitable predestination of scientist in 21st century - to fulfill the mission of metamodernism, trying to connect unconnectable keeping the optimistic and future oriented state of mind. Teaching since 1995, I have moved from psychology and pedagogy to philosophy of education, than to research methodology focusing on qualitative research, and lately I am looking forward to teach the philosophy of science and logic for doctoral students in medicine, pharmacy and psychology. My research interests, pertaining to the topic of newly created journal, have been linked to the identity of researcher, qualitative research methodology, interdisciplinary/ transdisciplinary research and dialogicality in philosophy of science. Two latest publications (in press) in this field are the paper in journal Worlds Future: The Journal of New Paradigm Research (Pipere, A., & Lorenzi, F. (2020). The dialogical potential of transdisciplinary research: Challenges and benefits) as well as the collective monograph (in Latvian) Methodology of scientific work: Interdisciplinary perspective (Mārtinsone, K. & Pipere, A. (Eds.)(2020). Zinātniskā darba metodoloģija: Starpdisciplinārā perspektīva. Latvia, Riga: Riga Stradins University) could serve as the road marks of my ongoing travel.

Juha-Matti Huusko

Dr. Juha-Matti Huusko is a mathematician mostly working in complex analysis. In particular, he has done research about differential equations, univalent functions and Nevanlinna theory.

He has a strong experiance in teaching and producing teaching materials. During academic year 2019-2020 he made the material for two first-semester mathematics online courses.

He has a broad knowledge of various fields and a habit to actively discuss scientific topics. In particular, the complex analytic tools related to photonics are a natural topic of discussion in his current university, University of Eastern Finland.

Dr. Huusko is active in the academic culture. He has arranged workshops in scientific festivals and established a local journal.

Dr. Huusko is also a down-to-earth handy man. He is a well-known source of information for practical things such as funding, paperwork, accommodation and technical things.

Research interest

• Complex analysis
• Differential equations
• Operator theory
• Univalent functions
• Harmonic mappings
• Different languages

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Ari J. Tervashonka Chairman of the method council

PhD (History), M.Sc. (Philosophy)

Ari Tervashonka is philosopher and methodological developer. Mr. Tervashonka is currently finishing his dissertation on Maxwellian theory heritage in the field of history of science by summer 2021. His research concentrates on the themes of the history of electromagnetism, ether theories, and historical turn from natural philosophy towards specialized sciences. His other efforts have been in the field of academic private mentoring, qualitative research problems and methodology, philosophy of science, and intuition.

His approach is indirect, and the concept of proof is provided typically by multiple conceptual arguments based synthesis. Objective holism and abstract functional explanations are the goals of Tervashonka's research focus.

Mr. Tervashonka has practised private academic mentoring since 2009 and journalism for years. He promotes scientific theoretical pluralism, freedom of expression and formats and has developed scientific criteria and protocols for Metodologia journal as the chairman of the Finnish methodology society.

Lectures and lecture tour has entailed research strategies of qualitative research problems, methodological guidelines for each individual case and systematic analysis as a method. Lectures entail general scientific and methodological lectures in the fields of philosophy, history, journalism, geopolitics, Europe studies, international politics, systematic theology, and political studies.

Research interests

• Systematic analysis
• Intellectual history and theory history
• Philosophy of science
• Methodology (mostly for complex qualitative problems and function-based interpretations)
• Interdisciplinary projects and communications
• Mentoring of academically excellent pupils