Marjaana Niemi

My areas of expertise include urban studies, environmental history, and the social history of medicine and public health. My current research focuses on urban citizenship, the role of infrastructure and public services in urban development, and the historical and contemporary transitions of European cities. I am particularly interested in industrial and ecological transitions and in how urban development unfolds through multiple, uneven temporalities. My work explores how planning visions of the future, the long-term temporalities of infrastructures, and residents’ everyday experiences intersect, collide, and co-produce processes of urban transition.

Recent research projects:

Conflicting Temporalities in Transitions: Urban Industrial Heritage Encountering Green Deal Futures (CONTEMP), consortium project funded by the Research Council of Finland 2026 - 2030 (Consortium PI) 

Historical and Regional Imaginaries Shaping Transitions (HIT), 1.9. 2026 – 31.8. 2029, (Consortium PI), Horizon Europe (RIA).

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia), member of the board 
(2026–); chair of the History & Archeology group 2024 -  

Council of Finnish Academies (COFA), the Committee for International Affairs, deputy chair 
2025–, member of the committee 2022 –  

International Commission for the History of Towns (ICHT), board member 2017 -

Finnish National Committee for Historical Sciences, chair 2023 - 

European Association for Urban History (EAUH), president 2014–2016, treasurer 2010–2014, 
2019–2022