Sari Karttunen
Senior Researcher
Presentation
I joined Cupore as a Senior Researcher in 2010, having worked at various institutions, including the Research Unit of the Arts Council of Finland and Statistics Finland. My research specialties include artistic occupations and the knowledge base for cultural policies. I’m interested in equality, inclusion and diversity issues, and the dismantling of structural discrimination. Since 2005, I have been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Jyväskylä.
In recent years, my research has focused on community art practices. From 2015 to 2021, I led a subgroup titled “Socially responsible arts institutions and artists” at Cupore, as part of the ArtsEqual project coordinated by the University of the Arts Helsinki. From 2020 to 2023, I worked part-time at the University of the Arts Helsinki within the UK-funded Music for Social Impact project. In 2024–25, I am affiliated as a visiting researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki, focusing specifically on gender-based violence in the arts sector (see below, Buscatto et al., 2025).
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Research projects
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2026 (ongoing research)
Creative Industries and the Arts
The Value of Copyright
The ability to determine the value of intellectual property is important from the perspectives of both business growth and securing financing. However, in Finland, companies have only rarely identified all of their intangible assets, and the tools for determining the value of copyright assets are insufficient.
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2026 (ongoing research)
Creative Industries and the Arts
As an artist in Finland
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2025 — 2026 (ongoing research)
Cultural Policy Structures and Resources
State of Cultural Policy
The State of Cultural Policy project aims to improve the overall understanding of the current state of cultural policy in Finland and to promote informed public discussion. The project has published the State of Cultural Policy 2025 report and created platforms for knowledge-based discussion through Timeout dialogues organised across Finland, as well as through the State of Cultural Policy event held for the first time in May 2026. The event also piloted the cultural policy governance barometer presented in the report.
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2021 (ongoing research)
Creative Industries and the Arts
Diversity and equity in arts and culture
Cupore’s research frequently addresses issues of diversity and equality in the arts and culture sector. The Ministry’s Working Group for Cultural Policy, Immigrants and Promotion of Cultural Diversity (2021), and the subsequent Ministry’s Action Plan to Promote Diversity in the Arts and Culture Sector (2023) proposed that Cupore begin regular reporting on these topics.
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2026
Cultural Citizenship
High-Quality Basic Education in the Arts in Espoo, Helsinki and Vantaa
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2023 — 2025
Creative Industries and the Arts
Artists’ Social and Psychological Well-being at Work
Cupore is participating in a subproject focusing on the arts, culture and events sectors in the Mental Health Toolkit project coordinated by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in 2023–2025.
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2023 — 2025
Cultural Policy Structures and Resources
Copyright questions in scientific research
Cupore conducts a research project on copyright issues related to scientific research. The topics concern especially the use of copyrighted research material and the availability of research publications.
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2022 — 2023
Cultural Policy Structures and Resources
VISMA
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2020 — 2021
Creative Industries and the Arts
Cultural policies and regional economic impacts of cultural events
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2018 — 2020
Creative Industries and the Arts
Art in use
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2017 — 2019
Cultural Citizenship
EspooCult
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2017 — 2019
Cultural Policy Structures and Resources
The evaluation of the operational subsidies of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland
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2016 — 2017
Cultural and Creative Spillovers
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2015 — 2021
Cultural Citizenship
ArtsEqual
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2014 — 2016
Creative Industries and the Arts
Impacts of festivals and cultural events on cultural policies and local economies
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Creative Industries and the Arts
The role of curators in the production of contemporary art
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2026 (ongoing research)
Creative Industries and the Arts
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Cupore's publications
Open Close- Cupore's publications 2026 Basic Arts Education at a Turning Point
- Cupore's publications 2026 State of Cultural Policy 2025
- Cupore's publications 2025 Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture
- Cupore's publications 2025 Copyright Questions in Scientific Research
- Cupore's publications 2024 City cultural official as a strategic agent
- Cupore's publications 2024 We made it! The value of volunteering for festivals
- Cupore's publications 2023 Artists with Foreign Background in Finland
- Cupore's publications 2021 Diversity in the field of arts and culture
- Cupore's publications 2021 Expanding professional responsibility in arts education
- Cupore's publications 2021 Capturing societal impact
- Cupore's publications 2020 Public Art in Planning and Development
- Cupore's publications 2020 City Development and Cultural Policy
- Cupore's publications 2020 The road to an inclusive city
- Cupore's publications 2019 Participation in cultural events and creative leisure activities in Espoo
- Cupore's publications 2019 The Impacts of Arts and Culture Festivals
- Cupore's publications 2017 KUULTO and Tampere Together
- Cupore's publications 2016 Festivals in Finland
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Other publications
Open CloseSelected publications (2015-)
Buscatto, M., Karttunen, S., & Provansal, M. (2025). Conclusion. In M. Buscatto, S. Karttunen, & M. Provansal (Eds.), Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work (pp. 231–240). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0436.10
Buscatto, M., Karttunen, S., & Provansal, M. (2025). Introduction. In M. Buscatto, S. Karttunen, & M. Provansal (Eds.), Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work (pp. 1–14). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0436.01
Castro-Cifuentes, J., Gibson, J., Karttunen, S., & van Zijl, A. (2025). Reclaiming musics, shaping selves and healing moments: Motivations for participatory practice among musicians in Belgium, Colombia, Finland and the United Kingdom. International Journal of Community Music, 18(1), 47–67. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijcm_00118_1
Rossi, L.-M., & Karttunen, S. (2025). The Helsinki School: Gendered Image Shaping and Gender-Based Violence in a Photography Branding Project. In M. Buscatto, S. Karttunen, & M. Provansal (Eds.), Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work (pp. 101–126). Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0436.05
Westerlund, H., & Karttunen, S. (2025). Transforming Higher Music Education. Systems Learning through Counter-Stories of Finnish Socially Engaged Musicians. In A. Petri-Preis & A. Ziegenmeyer (Eds.), Turning Social. The Social-Transformative Potential of Music Mediation. mdwPress.
Karttunen, S., & Koskela, K. (2024). City cultural official as a strategic agent: Governing partnerships and networks towards sustainability. City, Culture and Society, 37, Article 100581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2024.100581
Westerlund, H., &; Karttunen, S. (2024). The protean music career as a sociopolitical orientation: The mutually integrated, non-hierarchical work values of socially engaged musicians. Musicae Scientiae, 28(3), 502–519. https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649231222548
Ilmola-Sheppard, L., Rautiainen, P. Westerlund, H., Lehikoinen, K., Karttunen, S., Juntunen, M-L. &, Anttila, E. (2021). ArtsEqual : equality as the future path for the arts and arts education services. University of the Arts Helsinki.
Luonila, M., Renko, V., Jakonen, O., Karttunen, S. & Kanerva, A. (2021). The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Field of Finnish Cultural Industries: Revealing and Challenging Policy Structures. Teoksessa E. Salvador, T. Navarrete & A. Srakar (toim.) Cultural Industries and the Covid-19 Pandemic: A European Focus. Routledge.
Westerlund, H., Karttunen, S., Lehikoinen, K., Laes T., Väkevä, L. & Anttila, E. (2021). Expanding professional responsibility in arts education: Social innovations paving the way for systems reflexivity. International Journal of Education & the Arts. http://www.ijea.org/v22n8/
Luonila, M., Kurlin, A., & Karttunen, S. (2020). Capturing societal impact: the case of state-funded festivals in Finland. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 13(3), 397–418.
Sloboda, J., Baker, G., De bisschop, A., Karttunen, S., Mazzola, A., Rojas, J., Van Zijl, A., Westerlund, H. & Zapata Restrepo, G. (2020). Music for Social Impact: an overview of context, policy and activity in four countries, Belgium, Colombia, Finland, and the UK. Musiikkikasvatus – Finnish Journal of Music Education, 23(1–2), 116–143.
Karttunen, S. (2019). Self-Precarization and Structural Poverty: The Case of Finnish Grant-Oriented Visual Artists. Recherches sociologiques & anthropologiques, 50(2), 27–51.
Karttunen, S. & Houni, P. (2018). ArtsEqual 2015–2021: The challenges of a Large-Scale Research Initiative in Finland. Conjunctions, 5(1), 1–11.
Karttunen, S. & Luonila, M. (2017). Festivals in Finnish Cultural Policies: Cure-All or False Hope? HTHIC Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality International Conference 2017. Conference Proceedings. University of Turku & Elgin Co. Publication of Turku School of Economics, Pori Unit A55/2017, 115–125.
