We would love to hear from you!
Do you have an interesting collaboration idea? Do you have a question about our social innovations in mind? Get in touch!
Read the introductions of our experts and network with them on social media. At the end of the page, you can find a form to contact the entire DiakHub team.
Anne Määttä
Doctor of Social Sciences, Bachelor of Social Services
working languages Finnish and English
email: anne.maatta@diak.fi
tel.: 0400 979932
Twitter, LinkedIn
Main interests
- service system, human-centric services, facilitation
- collaborative management
Anne Määttä works as a Senior Advisor of Service Structure Reform at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. She is experienced in research, development, and innovation work focusing on multidimensional problems in fragmented service systems such as complex service needs, multidisciplinary work, and collaborative management. She also works as a project manager at DiakHub.
Anne is one of the designers of Service Integration Design (SID), a systematic co-creation working method that supports interprofessional network cooperation and its management. She works closely with different stakeholders facilitating change processes in interprofessional networks.
In addition to her vast experience in research and development, she has been involved in developing Diak’s Master’s Degree Programme in Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Leadership.
Functioning and integrated services help people in vulnerable situations and clients with multiple service needs in particular. The right operator at the right moment helps shift the emphasis of the support from remedial to preventive.
Sakari Kainulainen
Doctor of Social Sciences, adjunct professor
working languages Finnish and English
email: sakari.kainulainen@diak.fi
tel.: 040 8696018
Twitter, LinkedIn
Main interests
- well-being, disadvantage
- developing metrics to measure well-being
Sakari Kainulainen works as an RDI specialist at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. He has researched well-being and disadvantage for over 30 years and holds an adjunct professorship in well-being research at the University of Turku and the University of Eastern Finland. Before his academic career, he was an entrepreneur for a decade.
During his extensive career, Sakari has published 30 refereed articles and about a hundred other scientific papers. He has acted, for example, as President of the Finnish Social Policy Association and as a member of the National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics (ETENE).
He is a developer of 3X10D®, a life situation assessment tool, amongst other distinguished metrics for measuring well-being. On the national level, he has played various roles in the development of quality assurance work at universities of applied sciences.
Although Finland is a welfare state, many people don’t have the possibility of a good life. There is loneliness, shortages of food and money, and even homelessness. Inequality is not only about the income gap but also diverse problems that hamper people from gaining a decent standard of living. The blame does not always lie with the affected person.
Reija Paananen
Doctor of Philosophy, adjunct professor
working languages Finnish and English
email: reija.paananen@diak.fi
tel.: 040 508 4294
Twitter, LinkedIn
Main interests
- young people’s well-being
- human-centric services, service system
Reija Paananen works as an RDI specialist and project manager at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. Her mission is to find ways to prevent young people’s social exclusion, disadvantage, and inequality.
Her main interests in research and development target well-being, human-centred services, and service system. She also holds an adjunct professorship in Social Medicine at the University of Oulu. Reija has worked previously as a senior researcher at the University of Oulu and the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare.
Reija has published 25 original research articles in valued international journals and several research articles and popular texts in Finnish. She develops youth-centred digital services and tools to measure well-being, like, for example, a digital service Zekki for 15 to 25 year olds.
It sometimes seems like young people and their well-being, needs and potential have been forgotten in the middle of the struggle for budgets and resources between different sectors. Well-being is marked by problem talk. It is no wonder that a young person becomes invisible.
Harri Kostilainen
Doctor of Social Sciences
working languages Finnish, Swedish and English
email: harri.kostilainen@diak.fi
tel.: 040 501 9394
Twitter, LinkedIn
Main interests
- social enterprises, social innovations regarding employment
- welfare services
Harri Kostilainen is an RDI specialist and researcher at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences and Executive Director of Finnish Social Enterprise Research Network (FinSERN). He has over 20 years of experience in social innovations and social enterprises in the context of the renewal of welfare services.
Harri has been an expert member of various international and policy groups regarding social enterprises and the possibilities they offer. For example, he was a member of a working group mapping initiatives to support social entrepreneurship and social innovation in the Nordic countries appointed by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Everyone’s contribution and capabilities should be taken into use purposefully and widely. Social enterprises might be a key to success in supporting those who need aid in employment.