Matti La Mela

Matti La Mela is an Associate Professor (docent) in Digital Humanities at the Department of ALM. His background is in social science history and he has broad experience in multidisciplinary digital humanities research. His recent work has focused on methods in digital history, property rights on nature (allemansrätten), innovation history, and research infrastructures (parliamentary data, historical patent data).

My current research regards two areas in digital history of property rights, involving application of digital and AI-based research methods and the digitisation of historical source materials in the 19th and 20th centuries: 1) patents and innovation history, 2) the Nordic tradition of allemansrätten, public access to nature.

On-going research projects:

1) "Making public property: a digital history of allemansrätten in Sweden and Finland, 1880–1950" (PI Matti La Mela), project grant by Vetenskapsrådet (2024-02209), 2025-2027

The project studies the roots of the Nordic allemansrätten, a right of public access to nature. Despite allemansrätten’s role today as a constitutional principle, a building block of Nordic identity, and a slogan for country branding, This project fills the gap and examines the diverse perceptions, local conflicts, and future visions about the use and access to non-timber nature (wild berries and mushrooms) in Sweden and Finland in 1880-1950, a period before the term “allemansrätten” was commonly used. The project challenges today’s interpretation of a traditional allemansrätten and sheds light on the conflicts, structural inequalities, and differences in conceptual trajectories in making this public property in the two countries. Methodologically, the project combines computational analysis of bilingual textual corpora (parliamentary sources, newspapers) with the use of archival material (court cases, association sources). The project collaborates on the digitisation of the minutes of the Finnish Diet of Estates with the SWERIK (Swedish Riksdag 1867–2022) research project.

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2) “Transnational innovation: a computational study on language change and co-creation in France and Sweden during the Second Industrial Revolution” (PI Matti La Mela), Research fellowship at Institute d'études avancées de Paris, RJ Advanced Studies Program, 2025-2026, events at Uppsala in 2026-2027 after the fellowship.

This project in digital social science history studies the emergence and movement of new and impactful technical knowledge in digitised patent documents in Sweden and France during the Second Industrial Revolution. The project employs novel methods in computational text analysis to examine language change, exploring how innovation takes place collaboratively in this transnational (and translational) space. The project will also discuss the development of standards and frameworks for linking national patent databases at European and international levels.

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3) Swedish Patent History and markets for technology, including sub-projects:

“Micro dynamics of markets for ideas: Patent trade, costs and litigation during the industrialization of Sweden” (PI Fredrik Tell), Jan Wallander’s and Tom Hedelius’ Foundation, 2024-2027

"From invention to innovation: Novelty, impact and value of patents in 20th-century Sweden” (co-supervisor of PhD student Yunting Xie), Lars Erik Lundberg Foundation for Research and Education, 2024-2028

"Early innovations in Sweden: Mapping patents and inventors before the modern patent system, 1835-1885" (PI Matti La Mela), Åke Wibergs stiftelse, 2025-2027.

The aim of the project is study patenting behavior and innovation in historical contexts and to study the emergence of a market for technology through the new Swedish Historical Patents database. Also, the projects digitise archival material related to the historical patents, that is used to enrich the current database.