Dr Georgу V. Safonov appointed as Principal Scientist

Dr Georgу V. Safonov has been appointed as Principal Scientist for EFI’s Bioeconomy Programme. Dr Safonov will be leading EFI’s research activities on forest bioeconomy markets. The work will include market outlook studies for forest bioeconomy markets in Europe, taking into account global interrelations with important global actors such as Russia and China He will start in the position on 1 August 2021 at EFI Headquarters in Joensuu, Finland.

“Increasing our capacity in markets research is important to understand better the profound structural changes in the global and European forest bioeconomy development. Dr Safonov brings valuable experience for these topics from the viewpoint of economic studies as well as linking bioeconomy to decarbonisation of industrial development”, says Prof Dr Pekka Leskinen, Head of EFI’s Bioeconomy Programme.

“It is a great honour for me to join EFI’s highly professional team. The world is rapidly changing towards sustainable and climate-neutral future. Expansion of bioeconomy is one of the key solutions for effective “green” transition in Europe and other parts of the world. EFI has a strong position to contribute its expertise to this process, which I will be happy to support”, Dr Safonov says.

Dr Safonov’s previous work has focused on roles of bioenergy and bioeconomy in decarbonization pathways, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainability, and development economics. He has previously worked as Director of the Center for Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, The National Research University - Higher School of Economics, in Moscow, Russia. He also has wide international experience in UNDP, GEF, World Bank, OSCE, UNEP, WWF projects as well as visiting Researcher at the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia, Niigata, Japan. Dr Safonov received his PhD in 2001 from the Economic Department of Lomonosov’s Moscow State University.

More info: Pekka Leskinen, firstname.lastname@efi.int