Grand Prize of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters 2026 awarded to Professor Tuomas Heikkilä#
Professor Tuomas Heikkilä MAE from the University of Helsinki has been awarded the Grand Prize of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters
– the Professor E. J. Nyström’s Prize 2026, worth €50,000 – in recognition of his versatile and pioneering research in medieval studies.
Professor Tuomas Heikkilä (Photo: Paula Virta)
Professor Heikkilä’s career is marked by scholarly originality, success in international competition for research funding, and a strong ability to initiate and lead multidisciplinary research projects that reshape the foundations of his field. Watch the interview
with Tuomas Heikkilä (in Finnish).
The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters
awards eight distinguished researchers and three upper secondary school teachers in recognition of their significant contributions to science and education. The total prize sum amounts to €166,000 and includes prizes from the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation and the Ruth and Nils-Erik Stenbäck Foundation.
About Tuomas Heikkilä#
Tuomas Heikkilä, PhD, MAE, is one of the most influential Finnish medievalists. He is currently employed at the University of Helsinki as a Professor of Church History. Previously, he served as the Director of the Finnish research institute in Rome, Italy (2013 - 2017), a Visiting Research Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (2010), and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Gothenburg (2009). Prof. Heikkilä was elected as member of the Academia Europaea History and Archaeology Section in 2022.
Full citation by The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters#
The Grand Prize of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters – Professor E.J. Nyström’s Prize
Professor Tuomas Heikkilä, University of Helsinki
Tuomas Heikkilä (b. 1972) has served as Professor of Church History at the University of Helsinki since 2019. He defended his doctoral dissertation at the same university in 2002. From 2013 to 2017, he was Director of the Finnish Institute in Rome (Institutum Romanum Finlandiae), where he led a research project on medieval calendars and concepts of time. He has also held visiting research positions at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies (2010) and the University of Gothenburg (2009). He has been a member of the Academia Europaea since 2022.
Tuomas Heikkilä is one of Finland’s most internationally recognised medievalists. His research is characterised by a multidisciplinary approach in which he has innovatively applied and further developed methods such as the digitisation of medieval sources and algorithmic stemmatology to study the historical development of hagiographic texts and monasticism. His projects focus on medieval literary culture, manuscript studies, and the dissemination of information in Northern Europe. His work has illuminated the circulation of texts, the spread of literacy in the Nordic region, and their broader social significance. Heikkilä has also played a central role in the systematic preservation and analysis of parchment fragments and other source materials in Finland for the Diplomatarium Fennicum web service, which has provided important new material for international scholarship.
Heikkilä’s research introduces perspectives that challenge established interpretations and develops creative analytical methods that have generated significant new data for the field. His academic leadership is particularly evident in the major Nordic ERC Synergy Grant consortium project “CODICUM: The Medieval Book and Networks of Northern Europe, c. 1000–1500: Texts, Crafts, Fragments”, scheduled for completion in 2031. In this project, Heikkilä’s research team, together with other Nordic groups, investigates how the literary culture of Northern Europe became integrated into broader Western European cultural networks during the Middle Ages. This type of ERC funding in the humanities underscores the high international standing of Heikkilä’s research at the University of Helsinki.
Heikkilä also leads other international projects, including “CHARM: Combining Humanities and Natural Science Research to Study Medieval Texts, Scribes, and Craftsmanship” (2024– 2028), funded by the Academy of Finland. The project combines biocodicology, radiocarbon (C14) dating, and isotopic analysis of parchment with the study of manuscript traditions.
Heikkilä supervises doctoral students in both the PhD Programme in Theology and Religious Studies and the doctoral programme in History and Cultural Heritage.
Heikkilä’s publications are characterised by a multidisciplinary methodological toolkit and the systematic use of digital humanities approaches. His research teams have produced data and publications that have substantially expanded understanding of medieval literary culture in Finland and Europe, while also providing datasets and methodological frameworks for future research.
Professor Heikkilä’s career is marked by scientific originality, success in international competition for research funding, and a strong ability to initiate and lead multidisciplinary research projects that reshape the foundations of his discipline. In addition, he is highly active in public engagement as a widely respected speaker and author. He is known for his books on the legend of Saint Henry (2005) and the outlaw Lalli (2022), as well as for numerous columns, contributions to public debate in newspapers and social media, and sustained advocacy for the humanities in contemporary society.
