Principal investigator
Jarmo Vakkuri, principal investigator and co-director of WP1 in BRIDPOL research project, is Professor at the Faculty of Management, Tampere University, and the director of the research group on Public Financial Management. His research concentrates on performance measurement in public administration, theories of decision-making, hybrid organizations and governance, and urban policy-making.
Directors of thematic work packages of BRIDPOL project
Jan-Erik Johanson, co-director of WP1 in BRIDPOL project, is a professor of administrative science and chair of administrative sciences at the Tampere University, Finland. Johanson is President of the Finnish Association of Administrative Studies, and he serves as board member of Nordic administrative Alliance (NAF).
Tero Erkkilä, director of BRIDPOL WP2, is Professor of Political Science at the University of Helsinki. His research interests include global governance and policy, public institutions, and collective identities. He has studied government transparency and ombudsman as global institutions of accountability, global rankings and knowledge governance, higher education governance, and digital and algorithmic governance.
Nina Helander, director of BRIDPOL WP3, is a Professor of Knowledge Management, and she works at Tampere University in the Unit of Information and Knowledge Management. Her research focuses especially on digitalization, value co-creation and knowledge management. She has been leading several multidisciplinary research projects, including projects that have focused on digitalization and data-based value creation. At the moment, she is involved in projects that focus on digital platforms and hybridity. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Information Systems at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Ilari Karppi, director of BRIDPOL WP4, is adjunct professor of regional studies at Tampere University where he teaches local and regional governance. His research focuses on three aspects of cities and urban development: sustainability as an urban development object, visionary planning as a means for pursuing resilient urbanity, and complexity as a systemic feature in urban decision-making. Ilari is a life-long proponent of ethnographic methods and deep fieldwork involvement while studying planning and development processes. He works and teaches currently, in addition to the BRIDPOL involvements, sustainable urban mobility in city and metropolitan scales.
BRIDPOL Project Researchers
Elina Vikstedt is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University Faculty of Management and Business. Her research focuses on sustainability accounting and sustainability performance in public sector and hybrid organizations, and she is interested in the role of value co-creation, collaboration, and partnerships in advancing sustainable development policies. In BRIDPOL, Elina Vikstedt focuses on WP1, analyzing the theoretical links between hybridity and sustainability policies.
Luiz Alonso de Andrade, MSc/MPP, is a doctoral researcher at Tampere University Faculty of Management and Business. Luiz’s recent research targets social policy implementation and professionals, hybrid service systems, digital self-services, and hybridity in higher education governance. Luiz is also a Brazilian social security civil servant on leave, where he led cross-sectoral collaboration and digitalisation projects.
Konstantinos Kostas is a Doctoral Researcher in Political Science at the University of Helsinki. Konstantinos’ research interests include public management, political theory, new institutionalism, democratic governance, and administrative thought. In his dissertation, he studies the interrelation of automation and human-centricity in institutional design of AI policy. Konstantinos focuses on WP2.
Joel Hänninen is a world politics (political science) doctoral researcher in University of Helsinki. He is especially interested in political economy of platforms and algorithms. His prospective dissertation focuses on big tech and social responsibility from a critical theory perspective. In BRIDPOL, Joel focuses on WP2.
Juho Mölsä is a Doctoral Researcher in Political Science at the University of Helsinki. His dissertation project investigates the role of Ombudsman institutions in Finnish and Swedish policy processes. Mölsä is especially interested in Science, Technology and Innovation policies. In BIRDPOL, he focuses on WP2.
Ville Aula researches the use of data and AI in public policy, as well as digital politics. He has published several journal articles and reports aimed at decision-makers. Ville has studied at the London School of Economics, where he defended his PhD in 2024, and has master’s degrees from the Universities of Helsinki and Oxford. In BRIDPOL, Ville works with WP2 themes.
Jonna Käpylä MSc (tech), MSc (soc) works as a university teacher and researcher in the field of information and knowledge management at the University of Tampere. Jonna researches sustainable value creation in cross-sector cooperation and is an active developer of technology education and sustainable pedagogy. In BRIDPOL, she focuses on WP3.
Iina Sankala, MSc (Admin.), works as a researcher at Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business, specializing in sustainable urban development. Her most recent research topics include safe and smart events, sustainable urban security, and integrative planning of land use and economic development in vital city-regions. Her other areas of expertise include urban governance and smart cities. Iina focuses on WP4.
Teija Vainio (PhD) received her doctoral degree in information technology from Tampere University of Technology. Her research addresses two broad topics: human-technology interaction and urban technology design. She has a long-standing interest in the technological development of urban environments and studies architecture and regional science. Her current research interests focus on the technology design methods and design of smart, safe and sustainable urban environments. Currently, she works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business. Teija focuses on WP4 and explores the links between WP1 and WP4.