Both research and teaching of regional politics, policy and development at the University of Oulu focus primarily on regional transformation. The processes of regional transformation inescapably touch upon societal processes which are, in turn, closely associated with political economy, state culture, political decision making and governmental rationalities. No wonder then that one can approach the politics, economy or culture of regional transformation from many angles and by utilizing diverse methods and research materials. Even if regional transformation is inescapably an interdisciplinary field, not a “property” of any institutionalized discipline, human geography offers a set of concepts and related theoretical ideas that are particularly valuable in the study of the changing regional politics/policy and development.

The staff of the regional politics/policy and development currently focuses on the following research themes:

1. Operation of EU’s spatial policies, especially in the northernmost regions of the Union.
2. Spatial dynamics of the knowledge based society
3. Transformation of regional policies and associated governmental rationalities in Finland
4. Rural policies of the EU and Finland (with particular emphasis on northern rural areas)
5. Transformation of regional political ideas and concepts

In addition, political geography of the Arctic should be mentioned as an emerging field of research and teaching.

All political decision making has spatial or regional dimension. This is one of the reasons why, in historical perspective, the study of regional politics, policy and development has had intimate connections with political power. The study of regional politics, policy and development is nonetheless also a scholarly field which not only has a long history but which is also characterized by rich conceptual and empirical work that is published in numerous academic journals and presented in academic conferences. We feel that the interaction between policy circles and the academic scholars of the study of regional politics, policy and development must be based on careful theoretical and empirical scholarly work. The primary goal of the study of regional politics, policy and development at the University of Oulu is therefore to produce both theoretical and empirical knowledge on regional transformation and publish these insights in high quality international journals. This high quality work potentially has “policy relevance” which, in one way or another, can be utilized by the policy sector in the ongoing attempts to manage and govern regions and places in a complex world.

Staff

Sami Moisio (professor) is a political geographer with interests in state spatial transformation, regional restructuring, political economy, European integration and Arctic political geographies. He joined the department in 2010, having previously worked at the Universities of Turku and Lapland and the Academy of Finland. Sami has acted as a visiting lecturer at the University College London and as a visiting scholar at UCLA. In addition to several publications in Finnish, he has published in journals such as Geopolitics, National Identities, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Geography Compass, Scottish Geographical Journal, Political Geography, Cooperation and Conflict and World Political Science Review. Sami has contributed articles to international edited books, and has, with colleagues Pami Aalto and Vilho Harle, compiled a book International Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches to be published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2011. He sits on the international advisory board of Geopolitics, published by Routledge.

Toivo Muilu (professor) is a rural geographer with special emphasis on rural development and policies and northern rural areas. He is a joint professor of the University of Oulu and the MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Economic Research. Toivo has visited several European universities as a short-term visiting lecturer and coordinated many research projects, funded by e.g. the Academy of Finland, ESF, ERDF and the Ministry of Agriculture. Besides Finnish forums he has published in Journal of Rural Studies, Environment and Planning A, Energy Policy, Scottish Geographical Journal, Geografiska Annaler B andTijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, in addition to several international edited volumes and proceedings. Toivo is a member of the editorial boards of Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska, Sectio B, Geographia, Geologia, Mineralogia et Petrographia (Lublin, Poland) and The Open Environmental Journal.

Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola (postdoctoral researcher) is a political geographer with special emphasis on political borders, border areas, European Union and Schengen. She has previously published papers on issues of borders, cross-border regionalization and European Union’s policy in journals such as Geopolitics, Space & Polity (co-authored with Anssi Paasi) and Current Issues in Tourism. She is currently working in a three year-long research project ‘Border management, biopolitics, and narratives of border crossing’ (2011-2013) at the Academy of Finland (project no.137847).

Katri Suorsa (postdoctoral researcher) is an economic geographer. Her special interests include issues related to innovation policy, innovation systems, and regional development especially in European peripheries. She obtained her PhD in 2009 in University of Oulu. Currently she works in the department as a postdoctoral researcher (with teaching responsibility). Previously she has worked as a doctoral student in the department, as a researcher in Lönnrot Institute, Kajaani University Consortium, as a project planner in Thule Institute, University of Oulu and as a postdoctoral researcher in University of Turku. She has published in Fennia, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Technology and Society and European Planning Studies. She is a book review editor of Terra, the Journal of the Geographical Society of Finland and the vice-chairperson of Geographical Society of Northern Finland.

Johanna Hautala (doctoral student) is an economic geographer who studies academic knowledge creation process and context in her PhD. The empirical cases consist of distinguished and international research groups. She has worked as a visiting researcher in the Centre for Research on Innovation and Industrial Dynamics in the University of Uppsala. She presents her studies in conferences organized by, for example, Association of American Geographers and Regional Studies Association. In addition, she has published an article in Knowledge Management Research and Practice.

Juho Luukkonen (doctoral student) categorizes himself as a political geographer with interests in the field of regional development policies and spatial strategies. He is particularly interested in the discursive dimension of regional development. Juho is presently working with his doctoral thesis in which he studies the Europeanization of spatial planning and development in northern Finland. In future, he wants to explore the adaptation of certain hegemonic development discourses in wider contexts. Juho has so far published his articles in journals of Fennia and Town Planning Review.

Examples of publications

• Dittmer, J., Moisio, S., Ingram, A. & Dodds, K. (accepted). Have you heard the one about the disappearing ice: Recasting Arctic geopolitics. Political Geography.
• Hautala, J. (2008). Internationalization of knowledge creation at the university. The case of the University of Oulu, Finland. In Ylinenpää, H. (ed.). Proceedings. 2nd Conference on Nordic Innovation Research, December 3-4 2007; Luleå University of Technology.
• Hautala, J. (forthcoming). International academic knowledge creation and ba. A case study from Finland. Knowledge Management Research and Practice.
• Jauhiainen, J. S., S. Harvio, J. Luukkonen & H. Moilanen (2007). Regional development zones: tools for competitive territorial cohesion in Finland? Fennia. International Journal of Geography 185(1)
• Luukkonen, J. (2010). Territorial cohesion policy in the light of peripherality. Town Planning Review 81(4).
• Moisio, Sami (2011). Beyond the domestic-international divide: State spatial transformation as neoliberal geopolitics. In, Aalto, P., Harle, V. & Moisio, S. (eds.), International Studies: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
• Moisio, S. & Harle, V. (2010).  On the interface: The Finnish geopolitical tradition in human geography and in IR. Cooperation and Conflict 45(4).
• Moisio, Sami (2010). Geographies of Europeanization: The EU’s spatial planning as a politics of scale. In, Bialasiewicz, Luiza (ed.), Europe in the World: EU geopolitics and the transformation of European space. Ashgate, Aldershot.
• Muilu, Toivo (2010). Needs for rural research in the northern Finland context. Journal of Rural Studies 26(1), 73-80.
• Prokkola, Eeva-Kaisa (2011). Regionalization, Tourism Development and Partnership in the European Union's North Calotte Sub-programme of INTERREG III North. Tourism Geographies 13 (4) (forthcoming)
• Prokkola, Eeva-Kaisa (accepted). Cross-border regionalization, INTERREG III A initiative and local cooperation in the Finnish-Swedish border area. Environment and Planning A.
• Snäkin, Juha-Pekka & Muilu, Toivo & Pesola, Tuomo (2010). Bioenergy decision making of farms in Northern Finland: combining bottom-up and top-down perspectives. Energy Policy 38(10), 6161-6171.