Dr. Outi Luova is a Senior University Lecturer at the Center for East Asian Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Turku, Finland, where she also serves as Vice-Director of the Center. In addition, she holds the title of Docent in East Asian Studies at the University of Helsinki. Dr. Luova acts as Director of the Finnish University Network for Asian Studies and is the Principal Investigator of the Finnish team in the EU-funded Horizon project “ReConnect China.”

With a disciplinary background in history and China studies, Dr. Luova’s research has primarily focused on local governance in China. Her current work examines the implementation of China’s science policies at the local level. Among her major recent publications are the co-edited book *Chinese Economy* (in Finnish, with Juuso Kaaresvirta, 2024); the article “Local Environmental Governance and Policy Implementation: Variegated Environmental Education in Three Districts in Tianjin, China” published in the 2020 special issue “New Directions of Urban Studies in China” in *Urban Studies*; and the edited volume *Greening China’s Urban Governance: Tackling Environmental and Sustainability Challenges* (Jørgen Delman, Yuan Ren, Outi Luova, Oscar Almén, and Mattias Burrell, eds., Springer, 2019). List of Publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6637-920X