Aino-Maria Ruggiero

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Communication Sciences at LUT School of Engineering Science and a member of the Disinformation, Propaganda and Soft Power Research Lab (https://www.lut.fi/en/research-groups/disinformation-propaganda-soft-po…) at LUT.

Previously, I worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute, Hanken School of Economics, where I studied societal resilience and the role of critical infrastructure for crisis preparedness, civil protection and total defence in the new NATO countries, Finland and Sweden. This project was funded by the Peter Wallenberg Foundation.

Before that, I contributed to the EU-funded project sCience & human factOr for Resilient sociEty (CORE, grant agreement No 101021746). I was a work package leader of a sub-project, where we explored how the security of supply is organized within the disaster management and disaster risk reduction frameworks of different EU countries. My research focused on the Finnish comprehensive security model, the role of citizens in the security of supply, citizens’ home preparedness, and how preparedness advice is communicated to citizens.

In an Academy of Finland -funded project Cash and/or Carry: The challenges and modalities of delivering aid in conflict zones (No 3037), I studied how the different aid modalities are discussed in the news media at the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

I received my PhD in 2017 at the University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication, with my research focusing on crisis communication in the context of terrorism. My research was conducted as part of an EU-funded project, CATO (CBRN crisis management: Architecture, Technologies and Operational Procedures), dealing with crisis management in the case of terrorism using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear devices.

Areas of interest: crisis preparedness, comprehensive security, security of supply, societal resilience, supply chain disruption, crisis communication, stakeholder relations, governmental communication

Recent publications

Ruggiero, A., & Tikka, M. (2025). Crisis communication in the context of terrorism: Process approach to complex crises. In A. Schwarz, M. Seeger, & S. Kim (Eds.), The handbook of international crisis communication. Wiley.

Ruggiero, A., Piotrowicz, W. D., & John, L. (2024). Enhancing societal resilience through the whole-of-society approach to crisis preparedness: Complex adaptive systems perspective – The case of Finland. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 114, 104944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2024.104944

John, L., Piotrowicz, W., & Ruggiero, A. (2024). Supply chain disruptions and their impact on the energy sector during COVID-19. In Advances in environmental accounting and management. Emerald.

Sarker, S., Ruggiero, A., John, L. & Piotrowicz, W. (2023). Comparative analysis and case briefs of preparedness and security of supply. Public deliverable, available online: https://www.euproject-core.eu/achievements/public-deliverables.html

John, L., Ruggiero, A. & Piotrowicz, W. (2023). Combined systems dynamics model and policy brief of cascades across events, sectors, and supply chain disruptions. Public deliverable, available online: https://www.euproject-core.eu/achievements/public-deliverables.html

Hakala, S. & Ruggiero, A. (2022). Kohti kriisinkestävää yhteiskuntaa. In Kantanen, Helena & Koskela, Merja (Eds) Poikkeuksellinen viestintä, ProComma Academic. Helsinki: ProCom ry, 28–46.