Mikael Wigell is an internationally recognized thought leader in geoeconomics. His pioneering research over the last ten years has helped establish geoeconomics as scientific field and he is one of the world’s most cited geoeconomics scholars. He is the co-founder and current President of the Geoeconomics Society and Co-Editor-in-Chief of two major academic publishing outlets – Springer Studies in Law & Geoeconomics (a book series), and Law & Geoeconomics (a science journal).
He currently leads the ‘Geoeconomics Research Initiative’ funded by the Research Council of Finland, having previously led large geoeconomics research projects funded by the European Commission, NATO, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the Government of Finland.
Mikael Wigell has long-standing experience with advising both corporate and political decisionmakers in applying geoeconomics. He has written reports for major international organizations, including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Development Bank of Japan, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the Government of Finland. He has been a Member of the Development Policy Committee of the Finnish Government and is a regular invited expert in the Parliament of Finland. He is Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, and External Geopolitical Advisor to Hill & Knowlton Strategies.
Mikael Wigell currently serves as the Research Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). He has held various leadership positions at FIIA, where he established the geoeconomics research branch in 2012. It has since become one of the world’s leading geoeconomics research hubs. Mikael has taught at various universities around the world, including John Hopkins University, SAIS, and Oxford University, where he was Visiting Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre in 2018. He currently serves as Adjunct Professor at Tampere University.
He has been President of the Finnish International Studies Association, and he has a doctorate from the London School of Economics.
