Research at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Research in the faculty is multidisciplinary and crosses both disciplinary and subject boundaries. For example, issues of ethnicity, identities, migration, poverty and crises are common to applied linguistics (language education policy, integration), music, arts and culture, history and ethnology.
Impact is a cross-cutting objective that we promote through close societal interaction, cross-sectoral collaboration and determined research, development and innovation. We work with a wide range of partners, both internal and external. We contribute to the development of policies and services in areas such as welfare, social and health care, administration, culture, language training, technology and communication.
The faculty's unique combination of disciplines enables the study of well-being from many perspectives.
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is home to three Centres of Excellence in Research designated by the Academy of Finland. Their broad research agendas renew research, develop creative research environments and innovations, and train talented new researchers for Finnish research and industry.
Pasi Ihalainen is Professor of Comparative European History concentrating on the history of political discourse in the long term and from comparative and transnational perspectives.
As an Academy of Finland Professor, (period of years 2021–2026) he studies the history of representative democracy and especially tensions between parliament and the people between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, combining quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse digitised parliamentary debates from nine Northwest European countries.
His previous research topics include political pluralism, parliamentarism, nationalism and internationalism. Professor Ihalainen is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
The European Research Council (ERC) is a prestigious research funder. The ERC promotes cross-cutting research excellence through long-term research funding. The faculty has three ERC-funded researchers.
The ERC's mission is to stimulate excellent research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven research excellence in all fields, based on scientific excellence.
ERC-funded researchers at the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥
The dissertation is evidence of a doctoral student's ability to apply independently and critically the methods of scientific research. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences produces around 40 doctoral theses each year, all of which contain new, scientific and well-founded knowledge.
You can search for doctoral dissertations in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in the JYX Archive of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥.
JYX Archive
The Faculty has two special national tasks assigned by the Ministry of Culture and Education, which are only carried out by the Faculty
The national tasks of the Centre for Applied Language Studies are related to language assessment and language education policy. The Centre's activities are networked nationally and internationally and involve cooperation with researchers, policy-makers, teachers and other key actors in language education. The Centre's research aims to develop language education in a broadly forward-looking way, taking into account societal needs and issues.
The national mission of the Sign Language Centre is to implement, develop and coordinate the highest level of research and education in sign language in Finland in cooperation with other actors in the field. The Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ is the only university with a sign language academic community.
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences has unique cutting-edge laboratories for innovative and experimental research, where more research is carried out than in the humanities and social sciences in general. The laboratories are well equipped and constantly maintained. Coordination of laboratory activities ensures that all customers from staff, including PhD students from different disciplines and faculties have adequate and equal access to such infrastructure. The versatile infrastructure is widely used by also by customers outside university.
The laboratory coordinator and technicians assist with practical matters, act as support staff and offer help according to the needs of the researchers, such as data management. In addition, several members of the institute's research staff have been trained to use the infrastructure. Laboratory time bookings are made through the JYU electronic space reservation system.
