The Faculty of Law has four updated focal areas of research: Democratic digital futures, Just and sustainable economies, Democracy and constitutionalism, and Power and justice.
The Faculty Research Day was organised on Monday 20 April, and this year the topic was the updated focal areas of research.
– The focal areas remain relatively unchanged, but the world has changed and the things that we focus on our research has changed as well, and that is reflected in our focal areas of research, Dean Mika Viljanen said.
Focal areas reflect and communicate the existing Faculty research orientations. Focal areas serve both as internal and external communication platforms and as vehicles for strengthening the Faculty’s research identity. Externally, focal areas consolidate information on about Faculty research, offer clear points of contact for research partners and the wider public, and contribute to the Faculty’s visibility and brand.
All Faculty researchers are invited to join one or more focal areas. Externally funded research projects and emerging research groups should also join focal areas. Focal areas are expected to contribute actively to the organization of research activities within the Faculty. Each focal area is expected to organize at least one event per year.
Vice Dean for Research Teemu Juutilainen led the discussion of the four new focal areas along with the coordinators.
Democratic digital futures
We investigate how digital technologies reshape law, affecting democracy, economies, and work. Our research addresses e.g. the regulation of AI and algorithmic decision-making, intellectual property rights, platform governance, and blockchain communities. We challenge the narratives of technological inevitability, emphasizing legal imaginaries that resist concentrated power, safeguard rights, and reclaim democratic agency in shaping inclusive and accountable digital futures.
Coordinators: Professor Tuomas Mylly and Postdoctoral Researcher Toni Selkälä.
Just and sustainable economies
We examine how legal frameworks shape assets, ownership, and markets as our economies become subject to increasing ecological and technological pressures. We study property rights, intellectual property rights, and regulation of digital assets, as well as legal frameworks governing sustainability and land use. We analyze how law restructures economies, mediates competing claims, and produces legitimacy, power, and justice in global governance. In these ways, our research informs building equitable futures.
Coordinators: University Lecturer Juha Vesala and Doctoral Researcher Venla Mathlein.
Democracy and constitutionalism
We study constitutions, courts, and governance across national, European, and international contexts. Our research investigates fundamental rights, rights of marginalized groups, the effects of authoritarianism and disinformation, and precedents across legal fields. We examine what legal structures can sustain and support legitimate democratic governance and facilitate safeguarding and realizing fundamental rights.
Coordinators: Postdoctoral Researchers Pekka Pohjankoski and Jussi Jaakkola.
Power and justice
We analyze law as a field of power, authority, and contestation. Our research addresses criminal justice, questions of gender, indigeneity, and racialization, migration, victimhood, (state-)corporate crimes, and social harms. We employ doctrinal, empirical, and interdisciplinary approaches to examine how law is used to legitimize or resist hierarchies, rethink justice, and imagine transformative futures of accountability and social change.
Coordinators: Professor Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi and Postdoctoral Researcher Johanna Vanto.
