Meri Löyttyniemi has been appointed as the Research Manager of the Sustainability Transformations Doctoral Education Pilot at the University of Eastern Finland Department of Social Sciences, starting from 1 August 2024. Her main role will be to coordinate the doctoral education pilot, which will be implemented in collaboration between ten universities and the Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE. The doctoral education pilot seeks to advance sustainability transformations research in an interdisciplinary and extensive manner.
Meri Löyttyniemi, MSc (Economics and Business Administration), moves to her role at the University of Eastern Finland from Aalto University, where she has worked as a Senior Sustainability Advisor. Löyttyniemi is recognised as a pioneer of sustainability in higher education in Finland, and she is also the founder of the Nordic Sustainable Campus Network, NSCN. Her extensive networks span across the globe. She has also served as the vice chair of the national sustainability and responsibility working group of UNIFI, which created the sustainability theses for universities in 2020.
Meri Löyttyniemi has extensive business knowledge and experience in working in diverse societal roles. Previously, she worked at Miltton Brussels as an EU lobbyist and, before joining Aalto, she worked at Helsinki University of Technology as a project manager for environmental education. Currently, she is finalising her doctoral dissertation on sustainability management in Finnish universities at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics.
Led by the University of Eastern Finland, Sustainability Transformations is a doctoral education pilot implemented jointly by ten Finnish universities and the Finnish Environment Institute. The doctoral education pilot will train 40 doctoral graduates in 2025–2027. The Ministry of Education and Culture, together with the Research Council of Finland, has granted 10.2 million euros to the doctoral education pilot in sustainability transformations. The participating universities, i.e. Aalto University, LUT University and the Universities of Helsinki, Eastern Finland, Jyväskylä, Lapland, Oulu, Tampere, Turku and Vaasa, will hire the students admitted to the doctoral education pilot.
Sustainability transformations research is interdisciplinary and solution-oriented, focusing on climate change, biodiversity loss and depletion of natural resources. Themes of research include, citizens’ lifestyles, planetary health and well-being, production and consumption, governance and law, and cultural transformations. Professor Arto O. Salonen is the Academic Director of the doctoral education pilot.
For further information, please contact:
Professor Arto O. Salonen, arto.salonen@uef.fi, tel. +358 50 359 0613
Meri Löyttyniemi, meri.loyttyniemi@aalto.fi, tel. +358 50 313 7549
