During the Marcus Wallenberg Prize event a group of 31 young PhD and PostDocs were selected to participate in a three-day-program that connects young talented researchers with a focus on sharing inspiring forest-related research, stimulate collaboration, and create networking opportunities.
This year’s participants were from eight countries; Austria, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and US and represented 18 different universities or research institutes. The young researchers are able to participate through the sponsorship of the
Erik Johan Ljungbergs Educational Foundation, universities and research institutes.
The Young Researchers’ program kicked off with a much appreciated and inspirational panel discussion with two of the MWP Laureates 2023, Drs. Joseph Buongiorno and Richard Haynes.
The inspirational talks continued with two presentations by MWP Young Researchers’ Alumni; Rebecka McCarthy Tune, Sveaskog, who shared her work within the forest industry as a forest management specialist dealing with ongoing climate challenges, and Johan Erlandsson, Cellfion AB, who talked about how his cellulose-based research within clean-energy storage contributed to the formation of a start-up company. The Young Researchers also had the opportunity to listen to entrepreneurs, two start-up companies that both contribute to making forest management more innovative and sustainable; Olle Gelin, AirForestry, who explained their innovative idea of using drones to offer fossil-free thinning from the air, and Adnan Avdagic, Arboair, showed how their technology offer a digitized, sustainable, precision forestry management system.
Lecturers at the MWP 2023 Young Researchers’ Program
On the second day of the program, the young researchers participated and presented their own research through 3MT presentations. In this event, members of the MWP Selection Committee participated and gave valuable insights to the young researchers. Both the committee and the young researchers ranked their favorite presentations and three presentations were awarded;
1st prize – Jowan Rostami, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
2nd prize – Stefania Bertella, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, Helsinki, Finland
3rd prize – Yagmur Bas, Luleå University of technology, Luleå, Sweden
All 3MT presentations were filmed and the recordings are available at the Marcus Wallenberg Prize Youtube channel: MWP Young Researchers’ 3MT presentations 2023.
During the whole event, the young researchers displayed their research on posters, and a poster session took place in connection to the MWP Symposium. Three of the posters were awarded by the MWP Selection committee;
1. Neptun Yousefi, Aalto University, Finland
2. Mikko Valkonen, Aalto University, Finland
3. Rebecca Östmans, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
To learn more about the Young Researchers’ research projects read their abstracts that are available here: Young Researchers’ abstracts 2023.
In the evening, the young researchers attended the Marcus Wallenberg Prize Ceremony and Banquet, a memorable evening, and an excellent way to celebrate the Laureates and their accomplishments.
The third and final day of the program, the young researchers participated in the MWP Symposium, and the event concluded with interesting presentations from two research initiatives made by the Wallenberg Foundations; WISE – Wallenberg Initiative Material Science for Sustainability, which was presented by Magnus Berggren and WWSC – Wallenberg Wood Science Center, which Carl Moser presented.
Jussi Kumpula, Managing Director, Metsähallitus
Maximilian Schulte, Young Researcher program, PhD student SLU
Elisabet Salander Björklund, MWF board
Liisa Rohweder, WWF Finland
The application period for the MWP Young Researchers’ Challenge 2024 will open in early Spring of 2024. Stay tuned for more information!
