Description of research and teaching

Sebastian Godenhjelm is a university lecturer in political science and public management at the Swedish School of Social Science (SSSS). He is has been a visiting researcher at the Department of Political Science at Lunds University in Sweden and worked as a visiting researcher at Cornell University, a coordinator for the research and coordination centre FO-RUM, a Planning Officer for the Department of Political and Economic Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences as well as an Administrative assistant in political science at the SSSS.

Godenhjelm has also worked as a senior officer at the Ministry of Justice, and has conducted several evaluations for the Ministry of Labor and the Economy, the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture as well as the think tank MAGMA. He is chairman of the Finnish Section of the Nordic Federation of Public Administration (NAF) and has previously been a member of the board of the Nordic Political Science Association (NoPSA), the Finnish Political Science Association (VTY), and the secretary of NAF. He is also a member of the Special Interest Group (SIG-13) on public sector project management.

Teaching
During his employment at the SSSS Godenhjelm has participated and participates in the planning and teaching of several courses at Bachelor´s, Master´s and Doctoral level.

Godenhjelm´s teaching experience relates to the political and legal structures in Finland, administrative politics, as well as organizations and their political influence. His current teaching includes courses related to collaborative and interactive governance, project governance and innovation, political theory, applied leadership as well as research methods. Godenhjelm also participates in the supervision of Bachelors thesis work at the SSSS and Master´s thesis supervision work at the Master´s program in Social Science on politics and administration in collaboration with the HELSUS Co-Creation Lab.

His teaching also includes leadership courses in the newly established master’s programme in social and health research and management, at the Faculty of Social Science. He also teaches in, and coordinates, the thematic syllabus on leadership, which involves six different programs at the University of Helsinki as well as the Open University.

Godenhjelm has planned the thematic study program on Communication in the public sector as well as Swedish language master level education in administration and organizational studies at the Department of Political and Economic Studies.

Research interests
Godenhjelm´s research interest centres around public management, participation, actors and processes in regional development in Finland. The research area is linked to the relationship between traditional forms of governing versus new forms of governance often characterised as temporary network type project organizations.

His most recent research interests include forms of Explorative governance, Projects as hybrid organisations, as well as collaborative governance and stakeholder management.