Research group

Adjunct Professor and University Teacher of Social Policy, Dr. Johannes Kananen has more than twenty years of experience from research on the welfare state. He has published several national and international studies in the field, and directed a development project funded by the Prime Minister’s Office, Finland. In addition, he has advised the Parliament, government and civil society in matters related to social policy and the welfare state. The conceptual starting points of creative social policy draws on Kananen’s earlier work where he has explored the purposes and future possibilities of social policy (Kananen, 2024). Kananen facilitates the co-creative work of the team of researchers and the co-creators.

Keith O’Neill MSc is a doctoral student at the University of Turku and was until recently a project researcher at Abo Akademi University, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies. O’Neill has a background in sociology and prior to starting his doctoral work was working as a research coordinator for the Immigrant Council of Ireland, and more recently as a youth counselor in Canada, working with young people experiencing homelessness in the area of healing and empowerment. O’Neill is currently working on a doctoral thesis and has published his first article (July 2023) on the topic. He is interested in exploring creative policy solutions to address how organisations and initiatives can be more responsive to the needs of the people and communities that they serve. A central interest of his work is to understand the mechanisms which create a dichotomy between social service and social change.

DSocSc Reeta Hautaniemi finished her PHD in Sociology in 2023. Her dissertation concerned the social construction of a collective identity in a third sector organization in therapeutic cultural context. She has worked in many research and development projects at the University of Turku focusing on health and social services, cross-municipal services and expert organisations. Hautaniemi has experience in collecting, analysing and reporting qualitative and ethnographic data. Her current research interests include a focus on institutional practices in discovering and actualizing the creative potential of vulnerability.

Maarit Mäkinen is a project researcher at the University of Turku, Faculty of Social Sciences, working on the Creativity in Social Policy project. Mäkinen holds a Master’s degree in Social Policy and is currently completing degree studies in logotherapy. She has extensive experience in national project and civil society work, as well as coordinating and developing networks within the cultural and social sectors. Her work aims to understand how creative and social processes unfold within networks, contributing to broader discussions about creativity, social policy, and human agency. She utilizes discourse analysis and network mapping to explore the dynamics of communication and relationships within social networks.

Anyara G. Wise holds a Master’s Degree in World Politics and currently works as a specialist in a capacity building project aiming to increase futures thinking and foresight in civil society. In her work with civil society organizations she applies participatory futures methods, including workshops and dialogues, to identify both obstacles and future possibilities for their activities. Her approach combines political science, sociology and futures studies, and her research interests comprise power, cultural hegemony, and discursive transformations, especially at the meso and macro levels. She is interested in identifying and defamiliarising common sense discourses of the future through a lens of critical futures studies, and in researching communities creating counter-hegemonic discourses of the future.