Giacomo Bottà is a university researcher in the JustDe project. He received his PhD in comparative studies from the Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM Milan. He is a docent in urban studies at the University of Helsinki and in music research at Tampere University.

In his career, he has aimed at determining how cultural expressions, and music, in particular, can be used to better understand space and spatiality on the one hand, and communities and societies on the other. He developed projects in relation to urban cultures and scenes, urban branding, interculturalism, creative cities, cultural planning, and the urban night and worked with various qualitative methods. 

Besides Helsinki, he held research and teaching positions at the University of Freiburg, University of Strasbourg, Karlsruhe Music University, and Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences. In 2011- 2012 he was Von Humboldt Foundation experienced researcher in Freiburg.