Government’s
Analysis, Assessment and Research Activities unit has commissioned two research
projects from FIIA. Director Teija Tiilikainen will lead a project on the
prospects of Nordic cooperation in foreign and security policy until the end of
March 2018. Programme Director Mika Aaltola will lead a project on US global
role and transatlantic relations until the end of 2017. Both projects were
granted 80,000€ and they will be launched in the beginning of March.
FIIA has
also been granted MATINE (Scientific Advisory Board for Defence) funding
(51,030€) for a 1-year project entitled “Societal Resilience in the Age of
Competitive Interdependency: Prospects and Challenges”. Programme Director Mika
Aaltola and Senior Research Fellows Harri Mikkola and Juha Käpylä will take
part in the project. Harri Mikkola will coordinate the project. At the end of the project, a FIIA Report will be published and a closing seminar organized.
Furthermore,
the Korea Foundation has granted $25,000 to Senior Research Fellow Elina
Sinkkonen for a research project on “Geopolitical and Ideological Tensions on
the Korean Peninsula and Their Regional Ramifications”. The project starts in January and it will produce a FIIA Report to
which Elina Sinkkonen and Senior Research Fellows Bart Gaens, Jyrki Kallio and
Katja Creutz will contribute. The report and the closing seminar are planned for later this year. After this project, Sinkkonen will stay at FIIA
on a 4-year Kone Foundation research grant. Her research project will focus on
changing authoritarianism in China.