Speakers

Dr. Kimmo Himberg is Rector of the Finnish Police University College, and currently chairs the Management Board of CEPOL, the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training.  He has a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from University of Helsinki and a PGCert in Criminal Justice Management from University of Birmingham.  He started his career as a scientist at VTT, a governmental applied research institute, focusing on environmental and food safety issues.  In 1991–2011 he was director of the National Bureau of Investigation Forensic Laboratory (NBIFL), a national forensic service, and chaired the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI) in 1999–2000 and 2003–2005.  Dr. Himberg is an adjunct professor in quality management at the University of Helsinki.  He has provided expert services for EU Commission, Council of Europe, Interpol and UNODC, published 61 research articles and given 120 oral presentations in scientific conferences and meetings.

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Katja is a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, which she joined in 2012 after completing her PhD in ’Police Professionalisation via Academic Education’ at University of Manchester. At CCCU she has led on the undergraduate policing programmes aimed at those aspiring for a career in policing, including preparation for the new College of Policing licensed Professional Policing degree. Katja’s teaching and research areas span criminology, policing and criminal psychology related fields. She is particularly interested in police training and education, police professionalisation and organisational culture, sociology of professions, diversity issues within criminal justice context, particularly hate crime, vulnerable people, gender and sexuality, as well as the intersections between sustainability and justice.

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Mr. Matti Vuorensyrjä works as a Senior planning officer in the R&D department of the Police University College of Finland. He has 25 years of research experience, and has published peer reviewed books, book chapters, and articles on e.g. performance management, productivity, efficiency, the cost disease theory, intention of leaving / staying in job, evaluation of education, forecasting, occupation-specific stressors, and burnout. He holds MA in political science, MA in history, and Licentiate degree in political science, all from the University of Tampere. He also holds Teacher’s diploma from the Applied University of Tampere, and is currently preparing his dissertation on management studies in the Department of Management Studies, University of Tampere.

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Having retired in 2014 as a Superintendent after a 30-year police career, during which he served in Thames Valley Police (England) and in various Scottish forces and agencies, Andrew is now a 3^rd year PhD student at the University of the West of Scotland. His thesis is entitled ‘Police Professionalisation through Higher Academic Education: A comparative analysis of Scottish, Swedish and Finnish Initial Police Learning Programmes’. In an attempt to understand the divergent approaches to the role of academic education in the initial learning programmes of each country, his research has focused on the interplay between culture, history and politics in shaping the development and implementation of policy. Some of the key research findings from his study will be shared at the conference.

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Dorian Schaap is an assistant professor in public administration at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His Ph.D. dissertation was a cross-nationally comparative study of citizens’ trust in the police and police trust-building strategies. He has published on police culture, football vandalism and policy transfer of police strategies. Additionally, he contributed to the evaluation of the Police Law 2012 by studying continuity and change in the Dutch police system. His current research project is financed by the Dutch national police organization and consists of a comparison of higher police education systems in Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany), Norway, and Finland. His research interests focus on international comparisons of policing and police organizations, especially regarding trust, legitimacy, police policies and strategies, and modernization processes.

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Dr. Paula Di Nota received her doctorate from York University in Cognitive Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience. Using a variety of experimental techniques including neuroimaging, Dr. Di Nota investigated how short-term training and long-term expertise influence patterns of brain activity to facilitate attention, learning, and memory. This work was supported by several competitive research grants from Canadian provincial and federal funding bodies, including the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and Justice Institute of British Columbia, her current applied research focus is on health, resilience, and performance in police and other first responders. Specifically, Paula’s research investigates the complex relationship between training, stress physiology, and behaviour including critical decision-making and lethal use of force. She has also participated in translating her research findings into policy reports that make evidence-based recommendations for current training and worker’s compensation practices for Canadian public safety personnel. Together with colleagues at Finland’s Police University College, Dr. Di Nota’s recent work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Frontiers in Psychology.

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Juha-Matti has been a police officer for over 20 years and has several years of experience in special units, including K-9 unit and Regional Special Response Team (RSRT). He is a doctoral candidate at the University of Tampere in the Faculty of Education. In close co-operation with researchers at the University of Toronto, Juha-Matti’s primary research and pedagogical interest focuses on understanding and developing situational awareness in policing, and using evidence-based approaches to police training whenever possible.

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Helene O. I. Gundhus is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo, and professor II at the Norwegian Police University College. She obtained her Dr. polit in criminology at the University of Oslo in 2006. From 2006–2016 she worked at Norwegian Police University College, and was appointed professor in police science in 2013. Gundhus was a project member of Crime Control at the Borderlands of Europe, headed by professor Katja Franko, UiO. From 2015 to 2021 she is doing a study on digitalization of policing in Norway, addressing risk management and precautionary logics in the police. This project is part of ‘New Trends in Modern Policing’, funded by Research Council of Norway. She has published widely on issues to do with police methods and technology, police education and professionalism, crime prevention and security, migration control and transnational policing. Her research interests lie in the intersection of police science, criminology and science and technology studies. Gundhus is, among other, author of Technologies of Insecurity (co-edited with H.M. Lomell and H. O. Gundhus; Routledge-Cavendish, 2009), and Moral issues in intelligence-led policing (co-edited with  N. Fyfe and K.V. Rønn; Routledge, 2018). She has published articles in journals such as British Journal of Criminology, European Journal of Policing Studies, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Professions and Professionalism and Scandinavian Journal of Criminology and Crime Prevention and Theoretical Criminology.

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Dr Juha Syrjä is the Chief of Analysis at the National Police Board and he is in charge of analysis at the Finnish police. Before taking up this responsibility, he was in charge of Analysis Coordination at Europol – the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation. The background of Dr Syrjä is within the Finnish police and he has served as a police officer both local and national level. He holds a Doctor in Criminal Justice -degree from University of Portsmouth. His doctoral thesis studied the role of law enforcement intelligence analysis in knowledge management and the level of professionalization of law enforcement intelligence analysis

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Dr. Jarmo Puustinen is currently working for Ministry of the Interior as Superintendent.
Jarmo started the police career in 1992. He has graduated from the University Police College in 2006 as a senior officer and University of Tampere 2017 as Doctor of Administrative Sciences in Security Management. During the university studies he specialised to the image of police and drifted deeper and deeper into international cooperation of technology innovations. He has several years’ experience from international working groups as ENLETS, ROADPOL and the latest EUCB. He is chairing ENLETS Drone and Counter Drone Working Groups, ROADPOL Technology Working Group and providing expert services for Commission of the EU. He has also great experience about peace keeping missions from the UN. He is Finnish representative for H2020 i-Lead project management and WP5 chair.