The 15th General Assembly of the European Network InnovaWood was held from 28th to 30th March 2017 near Helsinki (Tuusula), Finland. This year the General Assembly was hosted by our member Luke (Finnish Institute of Natural Resources). The event was attended by 35 representatives from 23 organizations, including universities, technological centres and research institutes from 16 European countries.
The programme included the InnovaWood Thematic Group workshop, new members’ presentations, invited speakers’ session and the poster session. Opportunities were provided to discuss future initiatives to enhance the positioning of InnovaWood as a leading network in the sector. As a part of the local host programme, the GA participants visited the Metsä Wood Kerto® LVL mill.
During the event, the network members also elected a new president and vice president and two new members of the executive board. Professor Mark Irle (ESB - Ecole Supérieure du Bois, France) was elected as the new IW president with Erik Lernoy (NIBIO, Norway) as his vice president.
Professor Joris van Acker (Ghent University, Belgium) was warmly thanked for his devoted service as the IW president during the last four years.
The two new elected Executive Committee members are Francesco Balducci (COSMOB , Italy) and Patrick Pammer (Wood K-Plus, Austria). As well two new coordinators for the IW Thematic Groups were appointed: Mikko Kurttila (Luke, Finland) and Magdalena Nowaczyk-Organista (ITD, Poland).
The next gathering of the IW members will take place at the Special Service Package (SSP) event in Koper, Slovenia, from 18-19th May 2017. The first day of the event will be an interactive workshop to discuss the complete EU landscape for research and innovation, grand challenges and EU policies that are related to the European activities of the InnovaWood member institutions. The second day will be dedicated to preparation of project proposals, where we will focus on how to improve the impact section of our proposals. The event includes as well a brokerage session for an upcoming call in the expected co-fund programme for the forest-based sector.