Administration at the university

In addition to the customary referee and expertise assignments at the University of Helsinki and around the world, I have been the Chair of three different departments at the University of Helsinki: the Department of English, the Department of General Linguistics, and the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature. I have in particular been active on the university’s Swedish-language board, in the university’s Svenska verksamhetsnämnd (promoting the status of Swedish at the bilingual university), and in the university’s equality committee. I am at present the director of the Doctoral program for Language Studies (Helslang), which has some 250 PhD students all writing their dissertations on different languages.

Research policy

I have been fortunate to be able to influence research policy in Finland through a number of positions of trust. I have i.a. been a member of the Research Council for Culture and Society at the Academy of Finland (Finland’s National Science Foundation) for two periods and I have been a member of the language panel (panel no 21) of the Finnish publication forum (Jufo) since the panel was established. I was elected a member of the Humanities section of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters in 1998. My latest big challenge was to chair a working group that prepared the new Language Policy of the University of Helsinki in the fall of 2014.

I have also been active within European research policy and I have in particular had several assignments of expertise in the Nordic countries. I have i.a. been an expert member in Review Panel 3 of the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens jubileumsfond) for two periods, and I was for several years the Chair or a member of the Joint Committe for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) and of its publication board (NOP-HS). In 2014 I submitted a White Paper about the future of NOS-HS.

Mediation and tasks in society at large

I have worked with several minority groups and especially been involved in working for the rights of people using Finland-Swedish Sign Language. This work was recognized and highly appreciated when my department and I received the distinction of having offered the best Finland-Swedish service to the Deaf in 2006.