Sirkka Heinonen (Ph. D)

Dr. Sirkka Heinonen acts as professor in futures studies at FFRC since 2007. She has a long experience and expertise in futures research, in which her project focus on technology foresight, futures research methods, the future of cities and rural areas, sustainable knowledge society, social media, future work and mobility and lifestyles. She reported on the state-of-the-art and scope of futures research in other countries to help organize Finnish Futures studies in 1980s. In late 1990s and again in 2008 she was involved in preparing the Finnish Government’s Futures Report, regarding climate and energy scenarios. Dr. Heinonen has expertise in studying the perceptions of time, futures thinking, technology and nature within the framework of history of ideas, and anticipating the impacts and risks of technology on society. Previously she worked for over 25 years as a futures researcher at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Dr. Heinonen has developed the Pioneer analysis and Futures Clinique method as well as is among the few practitioners covering a large array of methods such as e.g. scenario building and Causal Layered Analysis (CLA).  She has a long international and national experience in leading university, government and private sector foresight projects. Furthermore, she is the President of the Finnish Society of Futures Studies, Member of the Club of Rome, and a Chair of the Helsinki Node of the Millennium Project. In 2013 she was appointed as a Guest Professor for University of Science and Technology (USTC) in Hefei, China, and most recently invited as Finnish Governmental foresight expert to the OECD Government Foresight Expert Network in April 2015.