European Bioeconomy Scene 2019

Francisco Gabriel Acién Fernández (Spain) is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Almeria, Director of Cathedra Cajamar on Bioeconomy and Coordinator of the H2020 EU Project SABANA, which focuses on the Sustainable production of biofertilizers and aquafeed from wastewater using microalgae. The main research topics in the project include the reuse of crop residues and biotechnology of microalgae.

Prof. Acién has participated in 12 European projects in addition to 30 national projects and contracts with companies. He is Vice-President of the European Algae Biomass Association (EABA), a member of the International Society for Applied Phycology, a member of Latino American Society for Algal and Environmental Biotechnology, and editor of the journals Algal Research and RELABIAA, in addition to working as a reviewer of international journals. He also collaborates with international projects, such as DeserBioenergy in Chile and CONACYT in Mexico, which aim to develop processes for the production of biofuels from microalgae in special locations. His major contributions in the field of Biotechnology of microalgae are related to the improvement of photobioreactor design, scale-up of production systems, and economic analysis of production processes. His most recent research focuses on microalgae biomass valorisation to improve the economic yield of microalgae-based processes.

Susanna Albertini has been an FVA New Media Design partner since 1995 and has integrated her specialisation in psychology of work and business organisations with multimedia and ICT-supported communications. Since 2000, she has been project manager and researcher in projects funded by the European Commission as an expert in game-based training, co-creation and creativity enabling factors, communication, impact and valorisation of research results. Albertini was also selected by the European Commission as an evaluator for Horizon 2020. Her main area of interest is a sustainable circular bioeconomy and societal challenges with a special focus on sustainable and inclusive growth.

Albertini is involved in several EU-funded projects, supporting the promotion, awareness raising and communication of the bioeconomy: European Bioeconomy Network, BIOVOICES, BIOWAYS, Biobridges and LIFT. She is one of the promoters of the European Bioeconomy Network, an alliance of EU-funded projects that support the bioeconomy uptake. In the context of the Network and the BIOWAYS, BIOVOICES, LIFT and BIOBRIDGES projects, her company FVA organises events, workshops and awareness-raising activities to promote the bioeconomy and address challenges and opportunities, engaging the quadruple helix stakeholders in the domain. FVA is also the promoter of the Bioeconomy Village, a ’hands-on’ roadshow targeting the general public and involving EU-funded projects, researchers, industry and policymakers as testimonials. Last year, the Bioeconomy Village included around 40,000 participants from Europe.

After graduating as MSc in Business Economics at University of Maastricht, Netherlands, Rob started with Cargill as Commercial Management trainee in 1996.  He held account- and sales manager jobs for starches during 1998-2002. In 2003, after a short assignment in a strategy project for Industrial Starches in North America, he became the BU Marketing Manager for Industrial Starches with the acquisition of Cerestar in 2003. He moved to the role of Segment Manager Paper in 2005 and in 2008 became the Supply Chain Director for the European Starches & Sweeteners business. In March 2014 he was appointed as General Manager for the Starches & Sweeteners plants in Sas van Gent and Bergen op Zoom and represented the General Managers of the other European sites within the European Starch & Sweeteners Leadership Team. In October 2016 he took on the newly formed position in Cargill as global Lead for bio based Coatings, Adhesives, Sealants, Elastomers (CASE). In June 2018, Cargill formed a global Bio Industrial Group within its Food Ingredients Bio Industrial (FIBI) Enterprise. As from February 2019 Rob will be the Business Development Director for a subset of Cargill’s Bio Industrial Group markets and technologies focusing on driving growth initiatives through internal development projects and external partnerships. He is based in the Netherlands.

Dr John Bell is Director for the Bioeconomy in DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission. He is responsible for leading the definition, implementation and investment of EU research and innovation policy and programming across the bioeconomy; from agriculture and food systems, oceans, marine and maritime issues to investment in new sustainable bio-based industries. This includes Horizon 2020, 3.8 billion Societal Challenge 2, the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the EUR 3.7 billion Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking and Food and Nutrition Security FOOD2030. He leads Oceans research and innovation strategies including the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance, the Bonus programme (Baltic Sea) and the BlueMed Initiative (Mediterranean).

Bell’s professional background was in academia (Anglo-Irish Studies) and in Business Journalism in London. During his European Commission career, he has worked in External Relations on financial assistance programmes in the former Yugoslavia, public administration reform in Central and Eastern Europe, and on Poland’s accession to the EU. Bell was a member of the Cabinet of Commissioner David Byrne with responsibility for enlargement, food safety, tobacco control, public health and global health security issues, including bioterrorism. He was Chef de Cabinet to European Commissioner Meglena Kuneva on Consumer Affairs. As Chef de Cabinet to Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn on Research and Innovation, he was responsible for developing and funding Horizon 2020, mainstreaming innovation, financial investment and simplification.

A native of Dublin, Ireland, he was educated at University College Dublin and completed his Doctorate (D. Phil.) in Cultural Nationalism in Northern Ireland at St John’s College, Oxford University.

Mr Giovanni De Santi, Director, Directorate for Sustainable Resources, European Commission’s Joint Research Centre

Giovanni De Santi has held the position of Director of the Directorate for Sustainable Resources at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission since September 2017. The Directorate provides independent scientific evidence to support the development, implementation, evaluation and coherence of EU policies, mainly in the areas of sustainable development, agriculture, Earth Observation (Copernicus), environment and climate change, blue growth and fisheries, bioeconomy, industry and trade.

De Santi previously served as Director of the JRC Institute for Energy and Transport. He has been working for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre since 1985.

Giovanni De Santi holds a university degree in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and a PhD degree in Fluidodynamics.

Carla Domingues has been working since 2013 as Project Officer at Fórum Oceano – Association of Maritime Economy, the entity responsible for the management of the Portuguese Sea Cluster. Over the past years, she has been working with several stakeholders from companies, universities, RTD centres and public authorities, engaging in cooperation and networking activities, building consortiums, giving support to new project ideas and business opportunities and supporting international cooperation, particularly in activities related to the blue bioeconomy.

Recently, Fórum Oceano became a member of the newly created Collaborative Laboratory for Blue Bioeconomy, the main goal of which is to implement research and innovation agendas geared at generating economic and social value in the sectors of biotechnology and aquaculture and contribute to new uses and enhancement of natural resources.

She holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Aveiro in Portugal and carried out research for more than 10 years in the fields of marine ecology, genetics and the management of biological resources at CESAM (Aveiro University, Portugal), MEFGL (Bangor University, UK), and CIIMAR (Portugal).

Shiva Dustdar heads the Innovation Finance Advisory Division in the EIB. She has worked at the EIB since 2003, first in Risk Management, then in its Lending Directorate financing higher risk, innovative projects before joining the Advisory Services Department.

Before EIB, she was Director of High Yield at Fitch Rating Agency developing its European High Yield rating business and worked in the M&A Advisory and Emerging Markets Investment Banking Group at J.P. Morgan in New York and London.

Dustdar holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University and an Executive MBA from London Business School (LBS). In 2000, she co-founded the European High Yield Association (EHYA), which is now part of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME). In 2006, Credit Magazine nominated Dustdar to its Top 50 Women in Credit.

Mr Edwards is Climate Change and Land Use Policy Officer as part of BirdLife Europe’s policy team. He coordinates work on bioenergy, and works to ensure that the policies on the interface between climate action, agriculture, forestry, energy and circular economy are ecologically sound, and contribute to effective climate mitigation while not increasing pressure on biodiversity. Mr Edwards joined BirdLife in January this year, following an internship with the United Nations Development Programme on global biodiversity financing practises, which contributed to the completion of a master’s degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics at the Toulouse School of Economics. During his master studies he specialised in the link between ecology and economics. Mr Edwards has a technical background in water resource engineering including flood, irrigation and nutrient modelling, stormwater system design, and erosion protection.

Linda Fröberg-Niemi is the leader of the CleanTurku cluster in Turku Science Park Ltd. The cluster boosts innovation activities in cleantech and in the bioeconomy and circular economy in the Turku Business Region. CleanTurku actors consist of startups, growth companies and industry as well as research institutes, academia and different public sector representatives. Fröberg-Niemi has worked for Turku Science Park since 2011, dealing with issues related to innovation services and business development. She was responsible for founding the Smart Chemistry Park innovation platform and started its activities in January 2015. The Park supports startups and SMEs within the fields of chemical engineering, biotech and material science develop their business, delivering solutions to bioeconomy and circular economy ecosystems. Today, this is one of the main activities of the CleanTurku cluster. Fröberg-Niemi completed her doctoral dissertation in 2007 at the Process Chemistry Centre, Åbo Akademi University. Her research work was carried out in close collaboration with Finnish industry.

Nils Hannerz is Head of Research and Innovation at IKEM, the federation of chemical, plastic, life-science and refinery industries in Sweden. Mr Hannerz works with industry policy in the areas of innovation and bioeconomy and forming private-public partnership within bioeconomy and circular economy. He is a co-founder and Member of the Board of BioInnovation, Sweden’s major private-public programme on bio-based innovations where the forestry, chemical and textile industries work together. He is also a Member of the Board of SusChem Finland, a co-founder of SusChem Sweden and part of the Program Council Innovation at CEFIC as a representative for the Nordic federations of chemical industries. Mr Hannerz holds a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He is a Certified Architect of Business Model Creation, Organization and Leadership. He holds a strong belief that industry needs to focus more on finding market niches where bio-based products have a premium value for the customer and that society needs focus on a free common market for bio-based feedstock.

Kirsi Heikel is a journalist and anchor at the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE.

She has more than 25 years’ experience covering politics, economics and foreign affairs.

Udo Hemmerling was born on 6 May 1971. From 1990 to 1996 he studied economics at the University of Marburg. Since 1998 he has been working at the Deutscher Bauernverband, DBV (German Farmer Association), being responsible for the department of economic and regional policy and statistics since 2003, being head of the division for law, social affairs and economic policy from 2007 to 2011, and being responsible for energy politics since 2009.

Mr Hemmerling he has been deputy general secretary at the Deutsche Bauernverband since November 2011.

He was active in coordinating the reforms since 2003/2005 on behalf of Deutscher Bauernverband, in the range of Common Agricultural Policy. Since 2015 he has been Chairman of the COPA-COGECA Working Party on “direct payments and greening”, and also member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

Mr Hemmerling is currently working on financial and economic topics, renewable energy and publishing the annual DBV-Situationsbericht (report of trends and facts on agriculture).

Jaana Husu-Kallio has been the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland since February 2012. Since 2016, she has been Chair of the management board of the European Food Safety Authority, of which she has been a member since 2012.

Her previous positions include Director-General of the Finnish Food Safety Authority (from 2006) and Deputy Director-General of DG Health and Consumer Protection of the European Commission (from 2002). Before joining the European Commission, she worked in the Ministry as Chief Veterinary Officer.

Dr. Husu-Kallio graduated with a degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Helsinki (1984) and attained a PhD in veterinary microbiology in 1990 and a specialization degree in infectious animal diseases in 1992. She has been a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry since 2004 and received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry of the University of Helsinki in 2008. She acted as a member of the Management Board of the University of Helsinki in 2010–2013 and as Chairman in 2014–2017.

Matti Häyry is Professor of Philosophy at Aalto University School of Business. After a period (1975-81) in the military, he studied moral and political philosophy at the University of Helsinki (PhD 1990), where he also worked as a teacher and researcher. At the turn of the millennium, he moved on to hold professorships at the University of Kuopio, the University of Central Lancashire the University of and Manchester, before returning to Helsinki in 2013. Häyry has researched the ethics of technology-related policies from the start of his career and headed a number of major research projects on them, funded by the Academy of Finland (AoF), the European Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust, among others. His recent and ongoing projects include Synthetic Biology and Ethics (AoF), Bioeconomy and Justice (AoF), the Role of Justice in Decisions on Bioeconomy (Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry), and A Just Management Model for Sustainable Systemic Change / The Updated EU Bio-economy Strategy (Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry).

Dr Mika Härkönen, Manager, pilot plant development at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. He is project leader for the new Bioruukki Pilot Centre expansion and coordinates research infrastructure and pilot plant development and coordinates networking in the field of the bioeconomy and circular economy.

Härkönen holds a D.Sc. (Tech.) in polymer technology completed in 1995 at Helsinki University of Technology. He has worked at VTT since 2006. Previously he worked for 15 years in the plastics and petrochemical industries (Borealis, Neste), involved in R&D and management tasks for product development and piloting.

Härkönen’s main areas of technical expertise are scale-up, piloting and polymer technology. More recently, he has focused on processes and products produced from bio-based raw materials and on collaboration and networking projects at European level.

Mikael Höysti is Head of the Department for Culture and Resources at the Secretariat for the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM). He is responsible for Nordic intergovernmental cooperation in the fields of Culture; Children & Youth; Gender Equality; and Fisheries (Aquaculture), Agriculture, Forestry and Foods (FAFF).

Mr. Höysti graduated from Åbo Akademi University and has previously worked for the city of Turku, Finland. He has a long experience in management positions in the public sector and has been Head of Department at the NCM secretariat in Copenhagen since 2012.

During his time at the NCM, he has had been responsible (together with his excellent team) for establishing the Cooperation Programme for FAFF (2017–2020), which focuses on two main strategic areas: developing the Nordic bioeconomy and sustainable food systems.

The NCM has also adopted a specific cross-sectoral Nordic bioeconomy programme called 15 Action Points for Sustainable Change, which sets goals specifically so that primary production can gain added value by upgrading biomass to more valuable produce.

The NCM is committed to promoting and integrating Gender Equality, sustainable development and children’s rights, and to engaging and involving children and youth in all aspects of its work.

Janno Joosep is an entrepreneur and founder of Furcella Plc, Estonian skincare brand BERRICHI, a flagship in natural and organic cosmetics in Baltic Sea region.

Mr Joosep started his career on 1999 in printing company Print Best as sales representative. He grew within and with company to it’s sales director. Within 14 years in company, Print Best grew into biggest Estonian printing house.

In 2009 Mr Joosep founded Helios, a publishing house which has leading position in local book-market, launching annualy numerous best-sellers and monthly cross-word magazines. He has co-owned Bike&Ski sportsgear shop and online store since 2012. Since 2017 AgroMarine, a company also co-owned by Mr Joosep, has started test farming of blue mussels in four sea areas on the coast of Saaremaa in Baltic Sea.

On 2015 Mr Joosep co-founded Furcella Plc with his wife and partner Berit Joosep. In 2017 they launched natural cosmetics brand BERRICHI. Berrichi is unique due to it’s science based formula which was developed in cooperation with Tallinn University and is protected with patent. Berrichi’s key ingredients come from different algae and pure oils from traditional herbal cure. During first years on the market, Berrichi gained huge popularity, and won numerous beauty awards on local and international competitions. Furcella has been partner of Baltic Blue Biotechnology Alliance since 2016 and partner of Organic Estonia since 2018.

Jyrki Katainen is Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness.

Prior to this term, he was European Commission Vice-President for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro from July to October 2014. Before this, he served as Prime Minister of Finland (2011–2014) and Minister of Finance (2007–2011). He has also served as a Member of Finnish Parliament (1999–2014) for the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus).

Jyrki Katainen is Vice-President of the European People’s Party (since 2015 and from 2006 to 2011) and was Chairman of the National Coalition Party of Finland between 2004 and 2014. He was Member of the Finnish Delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly 2003–2007, Member of the Administrative Council of the Finnish Broadcasting Company 2003–2005, Member of the Finish Delegation to the Western European Union Parliamentary Assembly 2004–2005 and Deputy Member of the Finnish Delegation to the Nordic Council 2001–2003.

Jyrki Katainen has a MSc in Political Science from the University of Tampere, Finland (1998) and studied as an Erasmus exchange student for one year at the University of Leicester, UK.

His hobbies are running, cycling, cooking and tennis.

Mr Kottulinsky grew up in a farming community in Austria. He is forester by training and holds a business degree from the University of Buckingham/UK. He has spent the majority of his professional career in China, Africa and South America developing businesses and local presence for Austrian industry leaders. As VP Biorefinery & Pulp Trading for Lenzing AG, Mr Kottulinsky is deeply involved in responsibly managing a global forest based value chain and the development and marketing of wood based performance materials.

Barna Kovacs is currently working as counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU. He has been appointed as the Secretary General of the BIOEAST Initiative. Between 2009-2017 he worked as scientific and policy officer in the European Commission. His responsibilities covered research project management and policy definition, contributing to conceptual reflections of the work programmes, strategic documents and new approaches for the implementation of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the Bioeconomy Observatory. In 2016, Kovacs was appointed as Secretary for the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research. He was a focal point for relations with the EU Member States, coordinating foresight exercises in the field of bioeconomy. In the period of 2004-2009 he worked in the European Parliament in Brussels. His scientific background covers management and business administration, focusing on the socio-economic aspects of agriculture, localised agri-food systems.

Maarit Laihonen gained her doctorate from Aalto University (Department of Management Studies) in 2017 and is now working as a postdoctoral researcher. Her doctoral thesis discussed the politics of nuclear energy from the perspective of societal legitimation, and her current research concentrates on strategies and management models of bioeconomy, unorthodox organisations, and developing ethnographic methods. She also works in a multidisciplinary artistic-scientific group, ‘Interfaces for Empathy’, developing empathic methods for groups and communities in a post-fossil world. Earlier, she worked for example as a visiting scholar at Harvard University. In general, her research interests involve the economy and politics, environmental governance, social studies of science and technology, and changing university. She lectures on corporate responsibility, business ethics, and qualitative methods. She has served as the vice president of the Finnish Society for Political Economy Research since 2015.

Christine Lang is an entrepreneur in biotechnology and a consultant on bioeconomy to the German government, co-chairing the German Bioeconomy Council. She is also Associate Professor for Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the Technical University Berlin and vice-president of the German Association of General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM). In 2001, Lang founded Organobalance GmbH, which is an R&D company to develop novel microbial active ingredients and strains for food, feed, personal care and pharma applications. In September 2016, Organobalance became part of Novozymes S.A., where Lang served as the CEO until June 2018. Christine Lang is also co-founder and head of BELANO, a scientific board of medical AG that focuses on the production and sales of microbiotic products for human health.

Lisa Lehner is a Forest Policy Officer for international and national affairs at the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism in Austria. She works at the Directorate for Forest Policy, Forest Economy and Forest Information, linking Austria’s longstanding tradition of sustainable forest management and its highly innovative forest-based sector to the international forest policy arena. She is a forestry graduate of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. Her Master thesis focused on the perception of bioeconomy in the Austrian forest-based sector. Earlier she worked at the Austrian Research Centre for Forests as well as at the European Forest Institute’s Regional Network Office in Vienna. Lehner is actively engaged in the board of the Austrian network “Women in Forestry” and was founding and board member of the International Forestry Students’ Association at BOKU.

Jari Leppä is the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in Finland. He is a dairy farmer and Finnish politician, representing the Centre Party. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1999 elections. In Parliament, Leppä has been chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and a member of the Presidium Council in 2007–2011 and 2011–2015. Between 2007 and 2015, he was also a member of the Parliamentary Forum on International Affairs.

Jussi Manninen is Executive Vice President at VTT. He is responsible for the business area of ‘Solutions for Natural Resources and Environment’. The business area consists of 450 research professionals working in three research areas: ‘industrial biotechnology and food solutions’; ‘biomass processing and products’; and ‘sustainable energy and chemical technologies’. Manninen moved to VTT from the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, where he was responsible for the implementation of the Finnish Government’s key projects on the ‘Bioeconomy and Cleantech’ and the Finnish Bioeconomy Strategy.

Manninen holds a PhD in Process Integration from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). Earlier, he worked at VTT for 15 years in research, development and innovation management in the fields of energy, the forest sector and the bioeconomy.

Katrien Molders is Communication Manager at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (Ghent, Belgium), a pilot facility for process development, scale-up and custom manufacturing of bio-based products and processes. She takes care of all communication-related issues for BBEPP and is currently also coordinating the Pilots4U and SmartPilots projects. Convinced that a shift to a sustainable bio-based economy will attract sustainable investments, create sustainable jobs and address the societal challenges Europe is facing, Mrs Molders actively engages in communicating the role and the impact of pilot facilities in enabling such a transition in a variety of ways, including by reaching out to regional, national and European policy makers as well as EU citizens. Katrien Molders received a Master of Science degree in BioSciences at Ghent University. After working for a few years on a commercial side in private companies, she understood that her true passion lies in supporting and communicating about the implementation of scientific innovations in order to create a more sustainable society. Prior to her position at BBEPP, she worked for the Institute for Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries (now known as International Plant Biotechnology Outreach), the European Plant Science Organisation and the MELISSA project run by the European Space Agency.

Jussi Mälkiä (Sea Captain, Master Mariner 1990, Turku) is the Chairman and founder of Meriaura Group. Meriaura Group is a growing, Turku-based family-owned group of companies that provide marine transport and ship management services, logistical solutions and environmental technology. Mälkiä studied environmental and circular economy at the University of Turku. He started his career by working for environmental and fair trade NGOs, including Greenpeace. Mälkiä founded Meriaura Group in 1986 to show in practice how to combine business and sustainable development. Once the maritime transport business became profitable and large enough, he started concentrating on environmentally friendly businesses, such as developing marine fuels from waste and closed circulation food and energy production. The main motive in his business is to find profitable businesses that also decelerate climate change.

Mrs Oana Neagu is Director of the General Affairs team at Copa and Cogeca, which itself is an EU agricultural lobby organisation representing 23 million farmers and 22,000 agri-cooperatives.

She is an agricultural economist and holds a Master’s degree in business administration. She previously worked at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Agriculture as a Policy Officer in charge of managing market measures. Prior to joining the Commission in 2006, she served as Counsellor for European Integration at the Ministry of Agriculture in Romania and was involved in preparing Romania’s accession to the European Union.

Michael O’Donohue received a PhD (Protein Biochemistry) from the University of Portsmouth in 1991. Since 1996, he has been working for INRA (France) in the field of enzyme engineering, especially applied to biomass-active enzymes. O’Donohue has coordinated several large projects focused on biorefining, including the FP7 flagship project BIOCORE, which set out to design a multi-feedstock biorefinery concept.

Since 2016, he has been head of INRA’s CEPIA division, which focuses on ‘Science for Food and Biobased Product Engineering’. Moreover, he is coordinator of the EU-IBISBA infrastructure project that entered onto the ESFRI roadmap in 2018. The French node (IBISBA-FR), including the infrastructure and preindustrial demonstrator Toulouse White Biotechnology (TWB), was added to the French infrastructure roadmap in 2016 and became operational in 2018.

During his career O’Donohue has published over 80 publications (in WoS), mostly in the field of enzymology and biotechnology. H index=30

Mari A. Sandell (PhD) is deputy director of the Functional Foods Forum at the University of Turku and an associate professor in sensory perception at the Faculty of Medicine. She is also an affiliated scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in the United States. She is fascinated by individual differences in multisensory perception connected to wellbeing and experiences as well as sensory-based food education for children and adults. Sandell is principal investigator in several projects funded by the Academy of Finland and Business Finland. She is also principal investigator at the new research platform Flavoria, which is a living lab for researching real-life consumer experiences towards a biofuture and the circular economy in food systems. Sandell has received the Polak Young Investigator Award (USA) and the Academy of Finland Award for Social Impact. She is a former president of the Finnish Society of Food Science and Technology and is the current chair of the Food Culture Society in southwest Finland. Sandell is also an active member of the European Sensory Science Society (E3S). Together with partners such as companies, researchers, society actors and cities, along with consumers, her research activities include potential concepts for innovative, sustainable, tasty and healthy food products and services. Practical examples of co-creative activities are consumer-driven multisensory food experiences (FoodiEX), an operating model to develop the food chain in southwestern Finland (Innotori) and snacking combined with gamification (Snacks).

DSc (Tech) Leena Sarvaranta has been Head of EU Affairs at VTT since 2007. VTT is a fully state-owned, non-profit company with a specific public service mandate from the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. VTT collaborates with various stakeholders, and today, VTT is among the most active European research organisations participating in EU programmes.

In 2014-2018, Sarvaranta served in the Strategic Research Council under the Academy of Finland. The Council is a funding mechanism for long-term research to support decision-making across society. As a member of the Government Foresight Group in 2016-2019, she took part in the coordination of national foresight efforts. She also works in a coordination group for Smart Specialisation Strategy of Helsinki-Uusimaa Region. At all levels, circular bio-economy, enabled by digitalisation, is at the core of Finnish priorities.

Sarvaranta has also gained experience from various EU-level initiatives, more recently the Strategic Forum for Important Projects of Common European Interest (2018-2019), and prior to that from High Level Groups on Key Enabling Technologies (2010-2011, 2013-2015) as well as Expert Evaluation Panels of PPPs in FP7 and H2020.

Kristine Sirma is the Head of Sustainable Agriculture Development Division at the Ministry of Agriculture of Latvia.

Kristine Sirma has been working in the ministry for 13 years. She previously worked with sectoral issues related to the common organisation of agricultural markets. For the last 6 years, her division has been in charge of developing and promoting the concept of bioeconomy within the ministry and in other ministries. It also works to raise awareness and knowledge about EU climate and energy policies and sustainable agriculture production among policy-makers and farmers’ organizations.

She represents the ministry in the FAO Committee on Agriculture and the Global and European Soil Partnerships.

Before joining the Ministry, Kristine Sirma worked for more than 6 years at the Sanitary Border control as a veterinary inspector.

She holds degrees from Latvia University of Agriculture, Department of Veterinary Medicine and from the University of Latvia, Department of Chemistry and Department of Life Science.

In the National Encyclopedia published in 2018, Kristine is named the founder of bioeconomy in Latvia.

Karl-Henrik Sundström was appointed CEO of Stora Enso in August 2014. He joined Stora Enso in August 2012 as CFO and as a member of the Group Leadership Team. In June 2013, he took on the role of Executive Vice President of the Paper and Wood Products division.

Prior to joining Stora Enso, Mr. Sundström held the role of CFO of NXP Semiconductors in 2008–2012. Before that, he held several managerial positions at Ericsson, including CFO.

He is a member of the board of Mölnlycke, Chairman of the tax delegation for Swedish Business and Commerce and a member of the board of the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

Karl-Henrik participated in an Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1997 and holds a degree in Business Administration, Finance and Accounting from Uppsala University, Sweden.

Dr Petri Suuronen is Director of the Blue Bioeconomy programme at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). The programme develops aquaculture production technologies, promotes profitable fisheries, rebuilds migratory fish populations, develops value-added aqua-biomass products, and improves genome-based tools for fish breeding. He holds a Ph.D. in aquatic ecology and fisheries science, and has extensive experience in fisheries. Suuronen worked at the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of FAO from 2009 to 2017, where he developed management measures and low-impact fishing strategies to increase profitability in fishing and reduce ecosystem impacts of fishing. Between 1996 and 2009, Suuronen was a Research Director at the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute. He has participated in several European-level projects related to the development of responsible fisheries and has published around 65 scientific papers and many other articles. He has also given presentations on different aspects of fishery development.

Tugomir Majdak has held the post of State Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia since 2016, and before that, he was Deputy Minister of Agriculture. Mr Majdak is responsible for issues relating to agriculture and in particular for agricultural policy. He has 21 years of work experience in the field of agriculture and rural development, including strategic planning.

His previous work experience includes the negotiation process in Chapter 11 “Agriculture and Rural Development”, and he has a great deal of experience in pre-accession and structural funds for rural development SAPARD/IPARD and EAFRD.

Mr Majdak graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Zagreb. In 2017, he acted as spokesperson in the Special Committee on Agriculture of the Council of the EU. In the period of 2008–2013, he was the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia in the Committee on Rural Development of the European Commission. His most active participation was in regional cooperation as the representative of the Republic of Croatia (2008-2013) and the chair of the Assembly in 2011 in the Permanent Workgroup for Regional Rural Development of South East Europe (SWG).

Majdak has been involved in several projects related to promoting sustainable growth and renewable energy sources in rural communities.

Niklas von Weymarn holds a Doctor of Science degree in bioprocess engineering from Aalto University in Finland. He has also studied economics and innovation strategies. His job career begun in 1999, when he took on the position of Research Scientist at Cultor Technology Center (renamed DuPont). Since then he has held the positions of Project Manager, Team Leader, Program Manager, Technology Manager and Vice President for Research at Aalto University, VTT, CLIC Innovation and Metsä Fibre, respectively. He is currently CEO of Metsä Spring, the venture capital arm of Metsä Group. He is currently also a Board member of the Bio-based Industries Consortium BIC, the private partner behind the BBI JU.

Eleni Zika is the Head of Programme of Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU), a EUR 3.7 billion partnership between the EU and the industry, aiming to sustainably convert biological residues and waste into greener products for various applications in different sectors. BBI JU is an instrumental medium for delivering the bioeconomy in Europe by de-risking investments, promoting innovation and advancing the reindustrialisation of rural areas in particular.

Ms Zika has more than 15 years’ experience in research and programme management as well as in science and technology policy focusing particularly on the socioeconomic impact of innovation. She previously served as Head of Sector for Fundamental Life Sciences at the European Research Council (ERC), overseeing funding operations in the domain of health. Before joining the EU institutions, Eleni was responsible for the strategy and implementation of International Policy at the UK Medical Research Council. She is a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the US National Academies, and holds a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.