The Aleksanteri Institute , is a special research division affiliated with the University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

, which is a centre of research of Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

 and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 for the country of Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. It was founded in 1996. It has grown rapidly into a working community of around 50 scholars, including doctoral students in the Institute's Graduate School who work at their respective universities. The Institute has a board of trustees that represents the University of Helsinki and other interest groups. The Institute also has an international Advisory Board and is also guided in its various activities by the executive boards of the master's programme and of the Graduate School and by an editorial board.
As of 2008, the director of the Aleksanteri Institute is professor of Sociology Markku Kivinen

Markku Kivinen

Markku Jalmari Kivinen is a professor of sociology and a director of the Aleksanteri Institute since 1996. His academic career began in the early 1980s when Kivinen joined Erik Olin Wright's Comparative Project on Class Structure and Class Consciousness. Since then, he has more than 300 on key...

.

Kikimora Publications

The Institute publishes research results and textbooks relating to Russia and Eastern Central Europe in the Kikimora Publications series. Series consist:

Kikimora Series A consists of dissertations.

Series B of other scientific monographies and anthologies.

Working papers are published as Aleksanteri Papers mostly in in electronic format.