Dr Iro Särkkä is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the research programme for Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO. Her areas of expertise include Finnish, Nordic, French and European foreign policy, multilateral security frameworks, NATO and the EU, as well as questions of political behaviour.
Recently, her research interests have included studying and conceptualising national identity change in small states, securitisation theories and Nordic security.
Särkkä has previously worked as a Senior Advisor of the Doctoral School for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, as a Researcher and Special Advisor in the Finnish Defence Forces, as a Visiting Lecturer at the National Defence University in Finland, as well as a politics teacher at the University College London, UK.
She holds both a PhD and Master’s degree in political science from the University of Helsinki.
In her doctoral thesis “Rhetoric of NATO in Finland’s Security Policy Debate” (2019) she focused on studying changes in Finland’s security policy and NATO during the post-Cold War period.
She is also a graduate of University College London (UCL), UK and Science Po Lille in France.
Särkkä actively engages in public debate on Finland, NATO, and global security issues in both national and global media.
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