Cronberg was born in Helsinki, Finland and currently resides in Polvijärvi, Northern Karelia. She holds two Ph.D. degrees: in technology from Lund University, Sweden and in business administration from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Cronberg has worked in various positions in both business and education, such as an associate professorship at the Technical University of Denmark, among others. She has long exercised political leadership in Europe's networked society. She was a Member of the Finnish Parliament from 2003 to 2007 and the Minister of Labour from 2007 to 2009. She chaired the Green League party from 2005 to 2009 and served on several parliamentary committees. She was a member of the EU Competitiveness Council and of the EU Employment and Social Affairs Council. Cronberg has been involved in technology and the social sciences policy. She directed the North Karelia regional development council from 1993 to 2001 and led the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute from 2001 to 2003. She was a member of the Danish Parliament Technology Council and the Norwegian Research Councildealing with IT and society. She was a member of the European Commission Information Society Technologies Advisory Group from 1999 to 2002; chaired the EU COSTA4 Group that examined the relationship between technology and society and contributed to the VALUE think-tank that focused on the interaction between research and society. The focal point in Cronberg's work in recent times has been peace and security. After the Cold War she worked both in Russia and in the US studying the conversion of military industries into civilian uses. Together with Stanford University and the Perm Technical University she and her team studied the transformation processes mainly in the aerospace industry. As the Regional Director of North Karelia she was instrumental in establishing "soft borders" between Finnish border regions and the Karelian Republic on the Russian side. Her work led to the establishment of Euregio Karelia, a cross-border region with common development programmes and projects. Later, as the director of COPRI, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute she was involved in the further development of the Copenhagen School of Security Studies, doing also work on missile defence and dual-use technologies. In her political work she has specialised in defence and security matters, lately in questions of nuclear disarmament. Her choice of committees in the EU Parliament reflects these interests, as does her work as the Chair of the Parliament's delegation for relations with Iran. In addition to her native Finnish, Cronberg is fluent in Danish, English, French, German, Russian and Swedish. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the turn of the year 2008/2009.
