Jorma Sipilä was the third social policy expert to serve as rector of the University of Tampere. He came to the University of Tampere in 1982 as a professor of social work.

Jorma Sipilä worked as a visiting researcher at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, from 1989 to 1990 and at the University of Kent in 1994.

Jorma Sipilä has analysed Finnish social policy in his numerous Finnish and international studies and textbooks. As professor emeritus, he has continued to work as an active researcher and social commentator. His research results on child welfare have been particularly important. In his numerous texts and speeches, Jorma Sipilä has emphatically defended the Nordic model of universal welfare.