At the University of Helsinki I have been in charge of literary research and teaching in English (1997-), Head or Associate Head of the Department of English (later the English Unit) (2001–2011), Deputy Member of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Arts (2010-) and Director of the research community Interfaces between Language, Literature and Culture (2010-).

At the national level I have been active in the Runeberg Society in Åbo [Turku] (Chair 2000–2006), the Finnish Graduate School/Doctoral Programme for Literary Studies (Director 2003–06, Vice Director 2007–2011), the Society for Swedish Literature in Finland (Board Member 2000–11), the Literary Studies Committee of the Society for Swedish Literature in Finland (Chair 2000–2011, Vice Chair 2011-) and the Fulbright Center (Finland) (Board Member 2008-; Chair 2009–2011). Membership on Finnish editorial boards include the Åbo Akademi University periodical Finsk Tidskrift (2000–2008) as well as the publishing series Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland (2000–1201) and Tampere Studies in Literature and Textuality (2001-).

International research projects: Semiotics and Translation (2001), Network of Popular Imagination (2002), The Concept of Literature (2005), Why Literary Studies? Raisons d’Être of a Discipline (2011) and Nordic Network for Cognitive Approaches to Literature (founded in 2014). Other international assignments: the International Comparative Literature Association (Member of Committee on Literary Theory 2005–11), the International Association of Literary Semantics (Board Member 2006-), Nordic Journal of English Studies (Member of Editorial Board 2002-) and Journal of Literary Semantics (Member of Editorial Board 2004-).