CNESS board

• HYGCEL
• BCfp
• 2IMATCH

Professor Aalto has worked as a visiting researcher in Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, Russia, and as a doctoral student, in the UK. 

Aalto develops new approaches to energy policy research such as the structuration approach, contributes to institutionalist literature and seeks to build paths for an interdisciplinary synthesis in the field of energy research, in order to find solutions applicable to the ongoing energy transition. This incluces also the security dimensions of the transition. 

Aalto, P., Claydon, A. (2024) ‘The politics of knowledge in black carbon mitigation: Policy entrepreneurship of Finnish actors and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’, Environmental Science and Policy 161, 103881. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103881

Aalto, P. (2021, ed.) Electrification: Accelerating the Energy Transition. Amsterdam: Academic Press/Elsevier. 

Kotilainen, K., Aalto, P., Rautiainen, A., Kojo, M., Valta, J., Sovacool, B. (2019) ’From national lock-in to policy mixes for Nordic electric mobility: What can we learn to accelerate future transitions?’, Policy Sciences 52: 573-600. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-019-09361-3 

Kilpeläinen, S., Aalto, P., Lehtonen, P., Toivanen, P. and Holttinen, H. (2019) ’How to Achieve a More Resource Efficient and Climate Neutral Electric Energy System by 2030: Views of Nordic Experts’, Review of Policy Research. DOI: 10.1111/ropr.12347 

Pääkkönen, A., Aro, K., Aalto, P., Konttinen, J., Kojo, M. (2019) ’The potential of biomethane in replacing fossil fuels in heavy transport – A case study on Finland’, Sustainability 11 (17), 4750, 1-19. doi.org/10.3390/su11174750. 

Aalto, P., Nyyssönen, H., Kojo, M. and Pal, P. (2017) ‘Russian nuclear energy diplomacy in Finland and Hungary’, Eurasian Geography and Economics 58(4): 386-417 (doi: 10.1080/15387216.2017.1396905)  

Lehtonen, P., Aalto, P. (2017) ‘Smart and Secure Borders through Automated Border Control Systems in the EU? The Views of Political Stakeholders in the Member States’, European Security 26(2): 207-25. (doi: 10.1080/09662839.2016.1276057). 

Aalto, P. (2016) ‘Modernisation of the Russian Energy Sector: Constraints to Utilising Arctic Offshore Oil Resources’, Europe-Asia Studies 68(1): 38-63. (doi: 10.1080/09668136.2015.1113509). 

Aalto, P. (2014) ‘Institutions in European and Asian Energy Markets: A Methodological Overview’, Energy Policy 74: 4-15 (doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.08.022) 

Aalto, P. (2014) ‘Energy Market Integration and Regional Institutions in East Asia’, Energy Policy 74: 91-100 (doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.08.021) 

Aalto, P., Dusseault, D., Kennedy, M.D. and Kivinen, M. (2014) ‘Russia’s Energy Relations in the East and West: Towards a Social Structurationist Approach to Energy Policy Formation’, Journal of International Relations and Development 17(1): 1-29 (doi:10.1057/jird.2012.29). 

Aalto, P., Korkmaz Temel, D. (2014) ‘European Energy Security: Natural Gas and the Integration Process’, Journal of Common Market Studies 52(4): 758-74 (doi: 10.1111/jcms.12108). 

Aalto, P. (2012, ed.) Russia’s Energy Policies: National, Interregional and Global Levels. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Aalto, P., Harle, V., Moisio, S. (2012, eds.) Global and Regional Problems: towards Interdisciplinary Study. Farnham: Ashgate (re-published by Routledge 2016).

Aalto, P., Harle, V. and Moisio, S. (2011, eds.) International Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave. 

Aalto, P., Blakkisrud, H., Smith, H. (2008, eds.) The New Northern Dimension of European Neighbourhood. Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies.

Aalto, P. (2007, ed.) The EU—Russia Energy Dialogue: Europe’s Future Energy Security. Aldershot: Ashgate/Routledge republished 2016.

Aalto, P. (2006) European Union and the Making of a Wider Northern Europe. London: Routledge. 

Aalto, P. (2003) Constructing Post-Soviet Geopolitics in Estonia. London: Frank Cass/Routledge. 

Aalto, P., Dalby, S., Harle, V. (2003, eds.) ‘The Critical Geopolitics of Northern Europe: Identity Politics Unlimited’, special issue of Geopolitics 8(1).

• Tampere University research platform 'Climate Neutral Energy Systems and Society' (CNESS)
• Tampere Centre for Security, Risk and Resilience (TASERR)

• Black Carbon Footprint
• Future Spaces
• Transport derived Ultrafines and the Brain Effects (TUBE)

• FEMMa
• ProCemPlus

• Bio4all (Business Finland)
• BL2F (EU Horizon)
• CNESS - Climate Neutral Energy Systems and Society

Supervisor or instructor in Ph.D. Theses (10 completed, 3 in progress): Bajamundi Cyril: Academic Dissertation in May, 2015. Kramb Jason: January, 2017. Keipi Tiina: December, 2017. Doppaneni Tharak: April 2018. Lampio Kaj: August 2018. Pääkkönen Anna: December 2019. Bhatnagar Anubhuti: September 2022, Niemelä Niko: April 2022, Abhishek Singhal: May 2023. Kanellis Georgios: 2012 – 2024, Losoi, Pauli: 2018-2023. Avishek Goel 2021 – 2025, Babak Arjmand 2022 – 2026. Also supervisor in 70 Master's Theses and 25 Bachelor's Theses.

Supervisor of Best Academic Dissertation (Tiina Keipi), awarded in 2019 both by Tampere University and Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK.

Since 2010: Pre-examiner or opponent in 15 academic dissertations, also external reviewer of 7 academic professorship/expert positions.  

Years 1999 – 2006 and 2009-2012: Carbona Inc. as part-time Consultant. Key merit: Successful process design related with a 20 MW Skive gasification CHP plant in Skive, Denmark. Years 1992- 1995: Enviropower Inc., Research engineer: Succesful pilot-scale demonstration of a renegenative sulfur removal process.

• Singhal A., Roslander C., Goel A., Ismailov A., Erdei B., Wallberg O., Konttinen J., Joronen T. (2024): Combined leaching and steam explosion pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass for high quality feedstock for thermochemical applications. Chemical Engineering Journal, Volume 489, 1 June 2024, 151298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2024.151298

• Losoi P., Konttinen J., Santala V. (2022): Substantial gradient mitigation in simulated large-scale bioreactors by optimally placed multiple feed points. Accepted for publication in Biotechnology and Bioengineering. https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.28232

• Bhatnagar, A., Khatri, P., Krzywonos, M., Tolvanen, H. & Konttinen, J. (2022): Techno-economic and environmental assessment of decentralized pyrolysis for crop residue management: Rice and wheat cultivation system in India. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 367. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132998

• Goel A., Moghaddam E. M., Liu W., He C., Konttinen J. (2022), Biomass chemical looping gasification for high-quality syngas: A critical review and technological outlooks. Energy Conversion and Management, Vol. 268, 15 September 2022, 116020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2022.116020

• Lappalainen J., Baudouin D., Hornung U., Schuler J., Melin K., Bjelić S., Vogel F., Konttinen J. and Joronen T. (2020): Sub- and Supercritical Water Liquefaction of Kraft Lignin and Black Liquor Derived Lignin. Energies, 13(13), 3309. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13133309

• Doddapaneni T., Ramasamy P., Tolvanen H., Rintala J., Konttinen J. (2018): Techno-economic evaluation of integrating torrefaction with anaerobic digestion. Applied Energy Volume 213 (March), pp.272–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.01.045 

• Keipi T., Li T., Løvås L.T, Tolvanen H., Konttinen J. (2017): methane thermal decomposition in regenerative heat exchanger reactor: Experimental and modelingstudy. Energy. Energy 135 (September), pp. 823-832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.06.176 

• Kramb, J., Konttinen, J.T., Gomez-Barea, A., Moilanen, A., Umeki, K. (2014) Modeling biomass char gasification kinetics for improving prediction of carbon conversion in a fluidized bed gasifier. Fuel 132 (September), pp. 107–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.04.014 

• Konttinen J., Backman R., Hupa M., Moilanen A., Kurkela E., (2013) Trace element behaviour in the fluidized bed gasification of solid recovered fuels – A thermodynamic study. Fuel 106 (April), pp. 621–631. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2012.10.009 

• Konttinen, J.; Zevenhoven, C.A.P.; Hupa M.M. (1997): Hot Gas Desulfurization with Zinc Titanate Sorbents in a Fluidized Bed. 2. Reactor Model. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 36 (6), pp. 2340-2345. 

• Konttinen, J. T.; Salo, K.; Ghazanfari, R.; Feher, G.; Lehtovaara, A.; Mojtahedi, W.: Pilot Scale Experience on IGCC Hot Gas Cleanup. In: Proceedings of the Advanced Coal-Fired Power Systems '95 Review Meeting, Volume 1. June 1995. U. S. Department of Energy, Morgantown Energy Technology Center. Morgantown, WV, USA, 1995. 

• INTERRFACE
• ProCem+
• Trineflex

Publications in Google scholar 

Current projects
 

LiquidAI (2023-2025)

• A BF funded project to develop Liquid Software for highly connected IoT-Edge-Cloud continuum. Compared to past efforts on Liquid Software, we in LiquidAI we consider Machine Learning components, too. This is a collaborative effort with University of Jyväskylä.

6GSoft (2023-2026)

• A BF-funded project to address the following challenges: "Developing and managing 5G and especially 6G software will demand totally new software development methods, tools, processes, and architectures. We need novel industry-scale software engineering to support the integrated development of heterogeneous systems that include software platforms, cloud, big data, AI, edge, IoT, and quantum computing. The number of connected devices will explode, and they all have software. They range from micro-level devices with very limited processing capability to larger connected devices with strong processing power and large applications in the cloud. Different parts of the distributed systems are owned and managed by various stakeholders. Current architectures, orchestration, and scalability methods and tools are not capable of supporting such complex, heterogeneous, and highly distributed 6G software systems. In addition, the application of current technologies will create a very high energy overhead, due to the lack of optimization for such a large number of connected devices."
  This is a collaboration project with University of Oulu, LUT University and University of Jyväskylä.

Microblock (2021-2023)

• An EU-funded multi-disciplinary project to investigate use blockchain-based micro-credentials for study credits. For further informations see: https://www.tuni.fi/en/research/microblock-advancing-exchange-micro-credentials-ebsi-0 

DELI (2023-2025)

• A cross-disciplinary infrastructure (FIRI - Academy of Finland) project to build platforms and tools for energy researchj.

Recently ended projects

• VISDOM is an international Eureka/ITEA3 project that develops new types of visualisations for software development. We concentrate visualisations that are based on data from several tools and our special focus is in DevOps-type projects. For further information, see the project-wide web-page: iteavisdom.org .
• CityIoT vendor independent IoT platform for smart cities: For more information see https://pervasive.cs.tut.fi/?p=2820 and https://www.cityiot.fi/english/ 
• ProcemPlus whose main objective of ProCemPlus project is to study the formation of individual energy communities into broader business-oriented energy ecosystems through several research themes and concrete pilot-cases related to the development of energy communities, and to analyze the role of microgrids and energy communities in the future energy ecosystem. The role of our team is related to design of the required information system and related software/platform economy. For more information see information about the earlier Procem-project and web-page of this new ProcemPlus project .

See, google scholar and similar places for the academic publications.  

Together with my colleagues from the other universities in Finland we wrote a report (with recommendations) about software in Finland. See: https://www.alliedict.fi/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AIF-2023_Ohjelmistot-Suomessa-korkeakoulukorjaus-1.pdf (in Finnish)

Chair of the board of the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies

Recent select publications 

Ulybina, Olga, Laia Pi Ferrer & Pertti Alasuutari: “Intergovernmental organizations in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic: Organizational behaviour in crises and under uncertainty”. International Sociology 37(4), 2022, 415–438. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/02685809221094687

Qadir, Ali & Pertti Alasuutari: ”The Discursive Side of Sociological Institutionalism in the Study of Religion”. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 2022: 1-23, DOI https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-bja10075

Alasuutari, Pertti & Ali Qadir: Epistemic Governance: Social change in the modern world . London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2019. 

Alasuutari, Pertti & Valtteri Vähä-Savo: Owning worldwide principles: The case of American exceptionalism. Social Science Information 57 (4), 2018, 533–552. 

Pi Ferrer, Laia, Pertti Alasuutari & Leena Tervonen-Gonçalves: Looking at others in national policy-making: the construction of reference groups in Portugal and Spain from 2008 to 2013. European Politics and Society 20 (3), 2018, 333–347. 

Alasuutari, Pertti, Marjaana Rautalin & Jukka Tyrkkö: The rise of the idea of model in policymaking: The case of the British parliament, 1803–2005. European Journal of Sociology 59 (3), 2018, 341-363. 

Alasuutari, Pertti: Authority as epistemic capital. Journal of Political Power 11 (2), 2018, 165-190. 

Wang, Li & Pertti Alasuutari: Co-construction of the tourist experience in social networking sites: Two forms of authenticity intertwined. Tourist Studies 17 (4), 2017, 388–405. 

Alasuutari, Pertti: The Synchronization of National Policies: Ethnography of the Global Tribe of Moderns. London: Routledge 2016. 

Alasuutari, Pertti & Ali Qadir: Imageries of the social world in epistemic governance. International Sociology 31 (6), 2016, 633-652. 

Alasuutari, Pertti: The Discursive Side of New Institutionalism. Cultural Sociology 9 (2) 2015, 162–184. 

Alasuutari, Pertti: Following the Example of Other Countries? Policy Analysis of New Legislation in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 16 (3) 2014, 266-279. 

Alasuutari, Pertti and Ali Qadir: Epistemic governance: an approach to the politics of policy-making. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 1, 2014, 67–84.

• Researchgate
• TCuPS