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.

email: paavo.pelkonen@bioacademy.fi
phone: +358 40 5463138