The University of Helsinki's Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Director Hanne Appelqvist describes its significance in the ability to give researchers the time, space and community to devote themselves to their research, even when its value cannot be known in advance.
The University of Helsinki's Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies was founded in 2001 to strengthen research in the humanities and social sciences. The impetus came from then-Rector Kari Raivio, who believed that fostering interdisciplinary research required the University to extend investment to fields that often had more limited access to external funding than, for example, the natural sciences or medicine.
The approach chosen, following careful investigation, was modelled on the international Institute for Advanced Study concept. Its most famous example is the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, established in 1930. Its founder and first director, Abraham Flexner, had a bold idea: to gather outstanding researchers from a range of fields, give them time and space, and keep administrative responsibilities to a minimum.
"Even then, it sounded like an anarchic idea: let researchers have complete freedom to pursue the questions that interest them," says Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.
Time to come together
While the Collegium gives researchers at different stages of their careers the opportunity to focus on their own projects, the model also rests on the idea of a physical community. Researchers come to the same place, share the rhythms of daily life and attend a weekly Tuesday seminar at which they present their work to colleagues from other disciplines.
The result is a kind of scholarly cross-pollination. When a philosopher, a historian, a sociologist or a theologian explains the premises of their work to researchers who do not share their conceptual framework or research tradition, the assumptions underpinning their own work are brought into relief.
Out of this, the conditions for collaboration emerge, though such things cannot be mandated from above.
"Academic collaboration depends on trust. And trust takes time to develop."
A shared space and physical presence are thus central to how the Collegium operates. Trust builds gradually through the meetings, seminars, discussions and the course of daily work.
An international community in the heart of Helsinki
Researchers typically spend one to three years at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. No one remains there permanently; the fixed term is precisely what gives researchers the exceptional freedom to concentrate on their work.
"Teaching-intensive work over many years ultimately leaves little time for acquiring new knowledge, reflecting on one's own research, or systematically consolidating research findings," says Appelqvist.
Internationality is another key characteristic of the Collegium. Over 25 years, it has become markedly more international. Originally a strongly Finnish institution, today over 70% of its researchers come from outside Finland. This academic year alone, researchers have arrived from countries including South Africa, Japan, Singapore and Czechia.
Appelqvist is nonetheless careful to point out that internationality is not an end in itself. What is important is that researchers from different disciplines, countries and academic traditions bring with them a range of knowledge-based perspectives.
The study of humanity at the core of democracy
The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies brings together researchers primarily from the humanities and social sciences. Appelqvist argues that the significance of these fields is set to grow as societies contend with phenomena such as the crisis of democracy, climate change, AI, pandemics and geopolitical uncertainty.
"If people have created a problem and its solution is in human hands, it seems strange to think that we could solve it without disciplines that study people and human behaviour".
Yet the humanities and social sciences do more than help us address the great questions of our time. Appelqvist notes that it is no coincidence that wherever those in power seek to move society in a more authoritarian direction, the humanities and social sciences are typically among the first to come under pressure - fields that concern themselves with human beings, communities, language, culture, history, power and societal systems. These are, in short, the kinds of questions that are indispensable to understanding any open, democratic society.
"The greatest strength of the humanities and social sciences lies in their capacity to uphold an open, democratic society."
Free research does not happen by itself
The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies is celebrating its anniversary at a time when academic freedom is the subject of growing discussion.
"Academic freedom is not merely the absence of external pressure. It also requires structures in place that make academic research possible," says Appelqvist.
Research needs time, concentration and room to take intellectual risks. If a researcher's daily working life is built around short-term projects, relentless funding applications and immediately measurable outcomes, the space for bold and far-reaching questions diminishes.
This is why institutions are needed that foster the conditions for curiosity, critical enquiry and creative, sustained research and which allow researchers to pursue their own questions even when these initially seem elusive or difficult to apply in practice.
Same symphony, different players
Kevin Durrheim, this year's holder of the Jane and Aatos Erkko Professorship at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, has described the Collegium as a symphony of many voices. Appelqvist finds the comparison apt: "The musicians may change, but the music plays on."
The Collegium's significance extends beyond what any one researcher produces during their time there. Researchers come and go, and each brings with them their own field, their own questions and their own ways of thinking. The community's daily life is formed around these changing voices, while the core idea stays constant: creating space for researchers to think and converse.
It is precisely from this that genuinely new and original thoughts can arise, whose potential we cannot yet begin to predict.
