Research News | December 2025

Photo: KuvA Research Days 2025 (Pavel Rotts)

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News and projects

Research Advisory Board (RAB) visited Uniarts Helsinki

The Research Advisory Board (RAB) visited Helsinki in October 2025. The theme of this year’s visit was research profiling. RAB commended the university’s research community for enhancing collaboration between units. According to the panel, engagement both between academies and with the Research Institute has increased. The panel also highlighted significant progress in the reform process of research activities and in the coordinated organisation of doctoral programmes.
Read more

Ossi Naukkari­nen is the new vice rec­tor for re­search

The Uniarts Helsinki Board has appointed Professor of Aesthetics Ossi Naukkarinen from Aalto University as vice rector for research for a five-year term from 1 September 2025 to 31 August 2030. Uniarts Helsinki’s vice rector for research leads the development of research and doctoral education and promotes the related national and international cooperation. Ossi Naukkarinen, PhD, has a long track record of holding university management positions. He has served as the vice rector for research in 2018–2023 and as the vice dean for the School of Arts, Design and Architecture in 2012–2018, both at Aalto University.
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Research Pavilion#6: Polymorphic vitality presented a series of events in the fields of arts

The Uniarts Helsinki Research Pavilion (RP#6) celebrated its10th anniversary and presented in the summer and autumn 2025 in total nine research events. In December 2025 was arranged the events Folk music improvisation laboratory; Aes­thetic, Po­etic, Per­for­ma­tive: Artis­tic Think­ing and Prac­tices of Writ­ing and Id­i­or­rhyth­mic Imag­i­nar­ies re­search ex­hi­bi­tion. The RP#6 was funded by Niilo Helander Foundation.
Read more about Research Pavilion events

KuvA Research Days 2025

The Uniarts Helsinki's Academy of Fine Arts (KuvA) Research Days on 9 - 12 December celebrated the past ten years and more to come of the event. This year KuvA Research Days included materialisations and presentations of doctoral projects and brought together philosophers, artists, and researchers to share their thoughts on color, painting, and language. Idiorrhythmic Imaginaries 1 – 2 event days included a series of discursive and performative presentations that resonated with the projects presented in the eponymous Research Pavilion's Idiorrhythmic Imaginaries research exhibition.
Read more about KuvA Research Days

Cu­ra­tor Nina Lieben­berg cre­ates spaces where sci­ence meets po­etry

Uniarts Helsinki’s postdoctoral researcher Nina Liebenber has curated exhibitions and interventions in unexpected locations, such as the Viikki Arboretum and the pathology department at the University of Helsinki. In November, researchers at the University of Helsinki encountered “measurable and poetic” experiences when Liebenberg brought her mobile Synzoochory series to the Viikki, Meilahti and Kumpula campuses. The project encouraged scholars to reconsider the relationship between humans and plants through exhibitions, workshops and symposia. Synzoochory formed part of the Uniarts Helsinki Research Pavilion and was a collaboration between Aalto University, and the University of Helsinki.
Read more about Nina Liebenberg's Planthology project

Fredrik Pacius Prize to Nathan Riki Thomson

The 2025 Fredrik Pacius Prize of the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland has been awarded on 11 December 2025 to professor, musician and researcher Nathan Riki Thomson for his pioneering work in developing Finnish music education. Thomson has initiated and developed the Global Music degree programme at the Sibelius Academy. It is a unique learning environment that promotes intercultural understanding, collaboration and artistic innovation through music, and represents a diverse and flexible approach to voice, music, culture and identity. The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland awards the Fredrik Pacius Prize annually from the Fredrik Pacius Memorial Fund.

Diverse voices shaped the IN.TUNE university alliance’s first research event

The IN.TUNE alliance of eight universities organised the first Annual IN.TUNE Research in Education Event, AIRE 2025, in Vienna this November. Uniarts Helsinki's Sibelius Academy's postdoctoral researcher Dr Assi Karttunen and doctoral researcher Johanna Lehtinen-Schnabel represented the Sibelius Academy at the event. They returned home feeling inspired and enriched by new ideas and connections made.
Read more about AIRE 2025 in Vienna

Rethinking Music Heritage Conference closed Kone Foundation project

On 15–17 October 2025 Uniarts Helsinki hosted an international conference titled Rethinking Music Heritage. The conference was the closing event of the research project Diversity of Music Heritage in Finland, funded by the Kone Foundation. The conference programme included a screening of a documentary film about the project, and the general atmosphere is encapsulated in a video.
See the video
Read the conference report

The SMIL project brings the performing arts into everyday school life

Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy is currently coordinating an arts education project that explores what happens when teaching in the performing arts is integrated into comprehensive schools and pre-schools. The experiment will lead to a draft curriculum that includes the performing arts as a school subject, alongside visual arts and music.
Read more: “Learning with the whole body” – Malax brings the performing arts into schools with impressive results

CARPA9 Conference gathered 135 participants

The 2025 CARPA9 conference explored pedagogical approaches to, in, and for performance making in a climate changed world. The ninth colloquium was arranged by the Performing Arts Research Centre, together with master’s programmes of the Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, and the Performance + Ecology Research Lab of the Creative Arts Research Institute (CARI) of Griffith University, Australia. The conference was organised in Helsinki on 28–30 August 2025.
Read more

 

Upcoming conferences

Call for presentations: Drama Boreale - forces and frictions 

Drama Boreale is a triennial conference on drama and theatre pedagogy. The 2026 conference’s theme will be ”Forces and F(r)ictions" and it will be held at Uniarts Helsinki’s Theatre Academy, on 6–8 Aug 2026. The conference is aimed at creators, teachers, artists and researchers. Deadline for proposals is 30 December 2025.
Read more

Call for proposals: ICMS 16: Music as a Meaningful Art

The 16th International Congress on Musical Signification will be held at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, on 2–6 June, 2026. Deadline for proposals is 31 January 2026.
Read more

7th Folk Music Researchers’ Symposium 27–28 February2026

The symposium of Folk Music Researchers envisages the role of folk music education in building sustainable futures.
Read more and register

Artist Pedagogy and Artistic Thinking: Perspectives and Practices

The conference Artist Pedagogy and Artistic Thinking: Perspectives and Practices will be held on the Sörnäinen campus on 27–28 August 2026, with an online post-conference event on 4 September 2026. The conference registration will be open in June 2026. The conference is arranged by Uniarts Helsinki's Research Institute and it is funded by the Research Council of Finland’s research profiling funding.
Follow the conference webpage for updates

Doctors in Performance Festival Conference 2027 will be arranged in Latvia

Uniarts Helsinki's Sibelius Academy invited on September music performers and researchers to take part in Doctors in Performance (DIP2025), the sixth festival conference of music performance and artistic research in Helsinki. The event gathered 115 participants from 16 different countries. The next Doctors in Performance Festival Conference will be arranged in the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLMA) in Latvia on 1–7 September 2027. Anu Lampela was involved in launching the first Doctors in Performance conference in Helsinki on 2014.
Read Anu Lampela’s interview

Recent publications

Find our researchers and their publications
Keep up to date with research and artistic activities at Uniarts Helsinki via the University of the Arts Helsinki Research Portal, read publications in Uniarts Helsinki's Taju repository, and browse doctoral examinations on their own page.

Read the latest journal

Ruukku No. 23. 2025. Re-Imagining builds on the Art of Research VIII conference, held at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Espoo, Finland, from 30 November to 1 December 2023.
https://ruukku.journal.fi/article/view/177956/119854

New monographs

Aavanranta, O. & Välimäki, S. (ed.). 2025. Counterpoints of art and research: concepts, practices, and demarcations from the Finnish academia. Taideteoreettisia kirjoituksia Kuvataideakatemiasta: 19. Taideyliopiston Kuvataideakatemia.
taju.uniarts.fi/items/43f4831d-427c-4d85-b1cc-fef85a5e2576

Arteaga, A. & Gansterer, N. (ed.). 2025. Contingent Agencies. Inquiring into the emergence of atmospheres. Hatje Cantz.

Sami Alanne’s new book studies music, therapy, and traumas relating to the work done with refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, and their families. It can be used for reference on how to sensitively approach persons from different cultures, and especially refugees, with music and music therapy methods.
• Alanne, Sami. 2025. Music, Music Therapy and Refugees: Aspects of Trauma. Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-94766-7

University researcher Kai Lehikoinen’s monograph examines socially engaged art as a field of study and its potential in higher arts institutions’ third mission: interacting with communities and contributing to society. The book explores arts universities’ role in promoting social responsibility and cross-sector collaboration, offering theoretical analysis, practical examples, and insights into the societal impact of socially engaged art.
• Lehikoinen, Kai. 2025. Creativity, Society, and the Role of Socially Engaged Art in Higher Arts Education. Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032702995 (Open Access)

Elisa Järvi’s quarter-tone piano on a new recording
SibaRecords releases Elisa Järvi's recording In tune – tune in!, which demonstrates the quarter-tone piano's potential by combining MIDI technology with an acoustic grand piano. The digital version will be released on 5 September on streaming platforms. The physical version will be released on 3 October by Naxos Deutschland.
• Listen to the recording: https://eclipsemusic.lnk.to/IntunetuneinMusicforquartertonepiano

New AEC report on Innovating Curricula in Higher Music Education
The European Association of Conservatoires (AEC) introduces Innovating Curricula – Building Capacity for Innovation in Higher Music Education Institutions, aimed at supporting institutions in reimagining curricula and structures to reflect the evolving role of musicians in society. Created by the ARTEMIS Capacity-Building Working Group which included Dr. López-Íñiguez, the publication offers insights for professionals and students on curriculum innovation.
• Read more and the report on the AEC website: https://aec-music.eu/news-article/innovating-curricula-building-capacity-for-innovation-in-higher-music-education-institutions/

Other publications

Aavanranta, O., Elo, M. & Rouhiainen, L. 2025. Strategies for making artistic research public: a case study of the Uniarts Helsinki Research Pavilion project. Frontiers.
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2025021111567

Autio, M. 2025. Approcreations - Weight of an Absent Ancestry. RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research, 23.
https://doi.org/10.22501/ruu.2832020

Fornhammar, L. & Hyytiäinen, M. 2025. Towards a collaborative higher music education curriculum: a singer-composer duoethnography. Nordic Research in Music Education, 6, 46–69.
https://nrme.no/index.php/nrme/article/view/6136

Marttinen, R., & Anttila, E. 2025. Those Finns are on to something: introducing the Finnish model for leisure activities. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 1-11.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00313831.2025.2587955

Renko, E., & Valtonen, J. 2025. Wonder, Mercy, Connection, and Paradoxical Revelation: Exploring Participants’ Experiences of Creative/Reflective Writing and Fiction Reading in a Finnish Narrative Medicine Course. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 1–14.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10401334.2025.2593261