Rate My Professor Sirkku Juhola

Sirkku Juhola is Professor of urban environmental policy in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences. She leads the Urban Environmental Policy research group within the Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme. Her academic background includes a PhD in International Development Studies from the University of East Anglia, an MSc in Environment and Development from the University of East Anglia, and a BA in International Relations with Development Studies from the University of Sussex. Juhola serves as Adjunct Professor in Social and Public Policy at the University of Jyväskylä since 2013 and as guest professor at the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, Linköping University, Sweden. She supervises doctoral students in the Doctoral Programme in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences.

Juhola's research specializations cover sustainability science, environmental governance, climate policy, and climate change adaptation, emphasizing urban contexts and cities' roles in tackling environmental challenges. She has directed research projects in developed and developing countries, advancing theoretical and methodological approaches to urban sustainability and resilience. Career highlights include her role as deputy chief scientist of the Nordic Centre of Excellence on Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR), four years—including two as vice-chair—in a scientific organization advising the Finnish Government on climate policy, and membership in the Future Earth Finland core group. Her contributions extend to public talks on urban environmental policy.

Among her key publications are "Redefining maladaptation" (Juhola et al., 2016), "A systematic review of dynamics in climate risk and vulnerability assessments" (Jurgilevich et al., 2017), "Cities, settlements and key infrastructure" (Dodman et al., 2023), "Challenges of adaptation to climate change across multiple scales" (Juhola and Westerhoff, 2011), and "Adaptive climate change governance for urban resilience" (Boyd and Juhola, 2015). Recent works include analyses of urban greening viability, private sector climate risk adaptation, and coherence in urban heat plans. Juhola's scholarship significantly influences urban climate governance discussions worldwide.