BioAcademy Finland is a fresh future oriented Academy located in Finland, North Europe – next to Russian Federation – owned by highly recognized and experienced academic professors and teachers and having a wide pool of experts and teachers from business life, policy and academy. Finland is known of it’s merits in international conflict solving and negotiations. Logically also our products, teaching and workshop methods, emphasize conflict and problem solving.

​Our Expertise is on Bioeconomy; focused on Natural resources management and forestry, green economy, renewable energy, biochemistry and climate change; strategies, policy, interenational education and training as well as research and development projects.

BioAcademy’s Education strategy underline student centered and problem oriented solutions, leading to innovations and entrepreneur skills.

At BioAcademy, educational innovations and a deep commitment to understanding and meeting our clients’ needs are the twin foundations of our success. BioAcademy will provide talented and multi-culturally oriented international students with an academic training eco-system for the fields of bioeconomy, green business and other educational services according to the concept of the sustainable management of renewable natural resources. The training combines best practices of the Finnish society with the demands of problem solving between global and local approaches to utilize bioresources in the context of ecosystem services. BioAcademy brings together multicultural experts from around the globe to provide best possible solutions for training and education. BioAcademy provides both complete turn-key solutions and tailor-made collaboration in curricula development, joint courses, foreign study excursions, leader’s academy and result oriented work-shop services.

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about us

paavo pelkonen

​Prof. Emer. (University of Eastern Finland)

​Dr (Agriculture and Forestry)

Prof. Paavo Pelkonen, is the Chair of BioAcademy. In addition he holds the positions of an Emeritus Professor in Production of wood and peat for energy at the University of Eastern Finland, where he has done a long career of around thirty years. During his university career Paavo served almost a decade as the Rector of the University of Joensuu as well as the Dean of the Faculty of Forestry. Furthermore he has held many high ranking academic positions in Finland but also in international networks. Since 2006, he has been the Vice-president of IPFE (International Partnership for Forestry Education) and a member of EAALS (European Accreditation Agency for the Life Sciences) Board, since 2010. Paavo has also hold the position of Director of the Executive Board of the Finnish Forest Research Institute and the chairman at the Research Council for Biosciences and Environment and a member of the executive board in the Academy of Finland.

Throughout his career his passion has been in finding ways to produce enough sustainable and renewable energy for the society – also very strongly through developing the internalization and global networks of education and research as well as the career development of the young people. Currently he is actively building links between Europe and emerging economies like India, China and Africa in education and research. The idea is to provide more opportunities for young talents all over the world to reach academic education in a way that interlinks industry, science and the whole society to ecosystem of learning – the triple helix educational model.

paavo.pelkonen@bioacademy.fi

+358 40 5463138

liisa tOIVOnen, CEO

​Adj. Prof., (University of Eastern Finland)

​Dr (Agriculture and Forestry)

Adj. Prof. Liisa Toivonen, is the CEO of BioAcademy. In addition, she holds a position of Adjunct Professor in Energy wood production at the University of Eastern Finland, where she has done a long career of more than 20 years. During her university career at UEF she served as the Director of International Relations, Director Professor of the Finnish-Russian Cross-Border University (CBU) and as a Finnish Co-Director of Sino-Finnish Environmental Research Centre in Nanjing University, China. Liisa has always been very active in developing international cooperation, in addition to her university positions she has hold the posts of e.g. Secretary General of the Silva Network, and member of Interim Council of IPFE Global Partnership for Forestry Education. On the other hand she has always been active in research and development, specialized wide-ranging in rural development, renewable natural resources, forestry and bioenergy, education and policy.

Her passion is to effect on development towards the sustainable future. She has been successful in bringing world leaders, industrial innovators and scientists together to find solutions to global problems through bioeconomy forums; the Koli Forum (2011-2013) and Barcelona Bioeconomy Forum (2014). Empowering young experts by providing enough information of alternative futures is currently one of the sectors she is actively working e.g. to develop international educational modules about bioeconomy. Currently she is actively developing cooperation with India, China, Africa and some Arabic countries.          

liisa.toivonen@bioacademy.fi

+358 50 541 7337

teemu purmonen, financing director

CEO, (Proper Project Office Ltd)

MSc (Educational Sciences)

MSc Teemu Purmonen, is the Financing Director of BioAcademy. At the same time he is working for Proper Project Office as a CEO. His masters’ degree he obtained from Educational Sciences in 2002. His work history includes both working at the private sectory as well as at the governmental and municipal organizations; e.g nine years experience in EU - project activities in diverse managerial and specialist positions. Furthermore, he is a member of trade and service committee, Chamber of Commerce for North Karelia, since 2014. Teemu has a broad and holistic view about SME development and he is a qualified Business Advisor for SME’s trained by Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry. In addition, he has completed the certification in Quality Management (ISO 9001, ECE 109).

He has been the National Board member, Junior Chamber of Finland (JCI Finland) (2011) and Board member, Junior Chamber of Joensuu (JCI Joensuu) (2008-2011). Since 2011 he has also been a member of educational foresight committee, Regional Council for North Karelia, and a member of Entrepreneur’s association. He has been a Project Designer in Employment and Economic Centre for North Karelia (TE-Centre) (2002-2005). His research work includes Designing and teaching educational courses in English and Swedish languages for CCE personnel, investigation of job satisfaction, job well-being and work motivation within the staff of 250 employees in the CCE business unit.

teemu.purmonen@bioacademy.fi

+358 50 246 4638

Karthikeyan Natarajan, marketing director

Researcher, (University of Eastern Finland)

MSc (European Forestry)

MSc Karthikeyan Natarajan, is the Marketing Director of BioAcademy. At the same time, he is working as a Researcher at the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu since 2011. His native is Dharapuram, Tamil Nadu, India. From where he came to Europe with a prestigious Erasmus Mundus MSc European Forestry scholarship in 2008-2010. He is finishing his doctoral research in optimizing the bioenergy (CHP, biofuel) production in Finland. In addition, his research expertise include biomass, green business models, energy planning strategies, supply chain, and social sustainability. He has received numerous awards including Fortum Foundation Scholarship, Cultural Foundation scholarship, CIMO foundation, Erasmus Mundus and so on. Currently, he is leading the international case studies (India, Poland) as a part of project ‘Sustainable Bioenergy Solutions for Tomorrow’ with a funding volume of 16 million euros (2012-2016), which is one of EU’s biggest bioenergy projects. Furthermore, he is also teaching ‘bioenergy and bioeconomy’ -courses to the master and PhD level students at the UEF.

During his career, Karthikeyan has developed a vast network with Finnish/Indian energy companies, Universities, research organizations and government departments. He is now fulfilling his dream to use his research skills and contacts to establish cooperation between India and Finland that would facilitate the training and education of leaders of tomorrow.

karthikeyan.natarajan@bioacademy.fi

+358 44 0570309