INVEST Fellowship Programme

Experiences of a fellow

Professor Mary Daly visited INVEST during Autumn 2023:

“Visiting INVEST has been a great learning experience for me. The research fields covered are extremely important and the scholars at INVEST are bringing new perspectives to bear on a whole range of issues to do with inequality, life course, fertility, economic and social well-being, family formation and the well-being of children and young people.

It became clear to me during my stay that INVEST – Finland’s only social flagship – is creating knowledge that is relevant not only for Finland but much more broadly in Europe. The strong comparative and cross-disciplinary focus of the work of many – including the Director Professor Jani Erola and Professor Mikko Niemelä – is striking.

With my current interests in family and child-related policy, I was able to connect with the new Nordforsk-funded project on Children and Young People in Post-pandemic Nordic countries, led by Professor Mia Hakovirta. I also benefited greatly from discussions and a seminar with Professor Johanna Kallio and Dr Anna-Maria Isola and some of their PhD students. Their work – especially on poverty and social inclusion, young people and youth cultures – is very innovative in terms of mixing evidence from different generations of young people in Finland over time and developing child- and youth-centred frameworks.     

To see how the INVEST flagship brings together and integrates a broad-ranging set of research projects and themes is knowledge that I will take away with me.”

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Assistant Professor José David Moreno visited INVEST in spring 2022:

“The core of my research is focused on the eye-tracking methodology applied to the scientific study of reading.

During the development of my doctoral thesis, I carried out a three months’ research stay in 2017 at the Turku Eye-Tracking Laboratories of the University of Turku under the tutelage of Dr. Johanna Kaakinen and Dr. Jukka Hyönä. Our collaboration has been extremely fruitful since that, and after finishing my PhD, we planned new collaborative research projects.

Thanks to the INVEST fellowship programme I was able to visit Dr. Kaakinen and Dr. Hyönä for a month to strengthen our collaboration and to work in our new research project, focused on how personal stance and the presentation format of the information influence allocation of attention, epistemic emotions, and subsequent memory for the information presented in social media discussions. We found very interesting results which encouraged us to keep working in this research line. As always, my personal experience couldn’t be better, and I had a great time with the people of the Turku Eye-Tracking Laboratories. They always make me feel at home.

I am very thankful to the fellowship programme for the opportunity, and I am looking forward to visiting the INVEST team again as soon as possible.”

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Postdoctoral Researcher Giulio D’Urso visited INVEST in 2021:

“The core of my studies investigates the risk and protective factors related to school-bullying and victimization, and the consequences during life span from a longitudinal perspective.

My studies want to help in the creation and revision of public policies and good school-practises considering all actors within the educational system, and the social and emotional well-being of children and adolescents to prevent bullying and victimization.

Thanks to INVEST fellowship I had the opportunity not only to meet Christina Salmivalli and her wonderful research team, but to work with her for four months in a study on the consequences of victimization, with the collaboration of Jaana Juvonen from UCLA. I couldn’t have wished for better. 

I met fantastic people with whom I spent a memorable time, filled with formative moments both on a professional level and on a human level.  It felt like I had always been there, and leaving them all was tough. 

All of them have been an inspiration for my current and future research.

I hope to be able to visit INVEST group again as soon as possible.”

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Professor Dagmar Strohmeier visited INVEST in 2020:

“The core of my research centres on the question, what schools can do to realise fair life-changes to all young people, including immigrants and refugees in particular. My mission is highly related with the question of how a future welfare state ideally could look like.

Thanks to the INVEST fellowship programme I was able to visit Christina Salmivalli’s research group for two months. The highlights of my stay were the Lapland research retreat, the inspiring discussions during the weekly online research seminars and the personal meetings I had in Turku and Helsinki.

My future aspirations are to stay in touch with INVEST and come back soon!”