Grants awarded to University of Vaasa researchers – flagship project explores political content on social media in the age of AI

The South Ostrobothnia Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded a total of €203,500 to researchers and doctoral candidates at the University of Vaasa. The largest individual grant, €66,000, was awarded to the research group led by Professor Tanja Sihvonen. The funding supports a flagship project examining political content on social media in the age of artificial intelligence.

– We study how AI operates as part of social media platforms, how it is used to express positions on political issues, and how its growing use is shaping the politicisation of platforms. In particular, we focus on visual content such as images and videos, and on how young people and young adults interpret them, says Sihvonen.

The project analyses how platform features and content characteristics influence the spread of political content. Data will be collected from TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

The South Ostrobothnia Fund also awarded grants to the following:

• Juha Arrasvuori and the MINCA group: €2,500 for the development costs of the Scope3.fi web platform supporting emissions reduction work
• Marjo Honkaranta: €16,000 for a doctoral dissertation on collaboration in research projects and science communication
• Muhammad Kamran Khan: €32,000 for a doctoral dissertation on testing methods for the safe and reliable integration of renewable energy technologies into power grids
• Katja Lösönen: €32,000 for a doctoral dissertation on identity-based information influence and societal information resilience
• Tiina Petrelius: €16,000 for a doctoral dissertation on the rights of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, particularly their right to family life
• Maija Viitasaari: €16,000 for a doctoral dissertation on responsible human resource management and its impacts
• Pirjo Yli-Viitala: €8,000 for a doctoral dissertation on the renewal of manufacturing industries
• University of Vaasa: €2,000 for an installation in the Arts-Based Approaches track at the NordiCHI 2026 conference
• University of Vaasa: €4,000 for organising the National Conference on Legal Studies

In addition, Hussain Khan, Dilshan Wittahachchi and Trang Xuan received grants to study the Finnish language.

The Kymenlaakso Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded Ville-Pekka Niskanen €14,000 for postdoctoral research examining experiences of misinformation among decision-makers, media, stakeholders and residents in sustainable development discussions and projects in the Kymenlaakso region.

Earlier this year, the Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded three additional grants to University of Vaasa researchers, totalling €96,000:

• Touraj Hashempour: €32,000 for a doctoral dissertation on modelling and reducing exhaust noise from large combustion engines
• Hamid Hosseininesaz: €32,000 for a doctoral dissertation on the role of digital financial literacy in reducing financial fraud in Finland
• Tiia Vuorinen: €32,000 for the first year of a two-year doctoral grant on stakeholder engagement in sustainability-oriented service ecosystems