Juha H?m?l?inen is Professor of Social Work, specialising in Social Pedagogy, at the University of Eastern Finland. He has a PhD in Social Sciences with Social Policy as major and a Licentiate Degree in Educational Sciences. His research has focused on the history of ideas and theory of social welfare, child welfare policy in particular. He has published on the concept and theory of social pedagogy and has examined the interconnections of social work and social policy, with a particular focus on historical aspects as well as the methodology of comparative research of social welfare and social work. In addition, he has distinguished himself in parenthood-, family- and youth research. He has carried out R&D projects into occupational wellbeing in organizations of social care and examined interdisciplinary dimensions in the system of welfare services. Juha was appointed as Professor of Social Pedagogy at the University of Tartu, Estonia, from 1996 to 2001, Professor of Social Work with an emphasis on Social Pedagogy at the University of Kuopio (known as the University of Eastern Finland since 2010) in 1998, and Professor in the Faculty of Social Studies at the University of Ostrava, Czech Republic, in 2008. He has been a member of the Board of the European Research Institute for Social Work since 2008, Editor-in-Chief of the Finnish Journal of Social Pedagogy since 2000, and Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland since the new university was established in 2010. Prior to this he was Head of Department at the University of Kuopio constantly between 1998 and 2010. He was honored as doctor honoris causa by the University of Ostrava in 2006 and as honorary member of the Finnish Society for Social Pedagogy in 2010. He was conferred with the First-class Order of Knighthood of the Order of the White Rose in Finland by the President of the Republic of Finland in 2007. Since 2017, he has served as Deputy Director of the Centre for Child Protection Research at Fudan University, China.