Our Communications Specialist feels that we need to redefine our relationship with nature – and dreams of swimming with dolphins.
Johanna Osváth (Master of Social Sciences) started in the Nessling Foundation as Communications Specialist in 2021. Osváth is responsible for planning and coordinating the Foundation’s communicational operations and works closely with the Science and Executive Director towards implementing the Foundation’s objectives.
“I’ve been welcomed to the Nessling team so well – my colleagues have gone out of their way to make things very easy for me”, says Johanna.
The role of communication as part of Nessling Foundation’s operations has been growing and will further increase due to Puistokatu 4 project, which will be carried out together with Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation. These changes finally led to the conclusion of recruiting a professional communications specialist.
Johanna has worked diverse communicative jobs in both the public and private sector. She joins Nessling Foundation from the Finnish National Academy for Education. Johanna also works as a free writer and literary critic.
In her master’s thesis from 2020 Johanna studied the narrative frames in which global warming was represented and discussed over in the Finnish media.
“I’m very much excited to be able to represent and actuate the values Nessling Foundation embodies. I feel that in order to restrain the ecological crisis we need a broader collective and cultural shift in our understanding of what “nature” is and how we as humans position ourselves in it. Here, we need to bring out scientific facts in a way not only few but many can understand, and this is, I think, the core of my new job. It has been interesting to acknowledge that the idea of affecting the public opinion favorable towards scientific research has been already put on record in our 1978 constitutions”, Johanna comments.
A special place in Johanna’s heart has been reserved for animal rights. One of her biggest dreams is to one day encounter a wild dolphin in its natural habitat.
In addition to awarding working grants for projects promoting environmental conservation, Nessling Foundation mediates scientific information and provides communicational support to grant receivers. The Foundation has required a communication and interaction plan from its grant applicants since 2015. The impact on the public opinion and society is more effective when research is being actively interpreted to the public.
“The Foundation’s main goal is to motivate its researchers into active societal participation. Building an ecologically sustainable future requires solutions and understanding brought to us by scientific research. Communicational skills of individual scientists play a significant role in the overall picture”, comments Research Director Minttu Jaakkola.
