New Deputy programme manager of Bio4Energy

Elisabeth Wetterlund, associate professor of Energy Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, has been appointed new deputy director of the research environment Bio4Energy. Bio4Energy is a Swedish strategic research environment with emphasis on research that uses the forest as raw material for sustainable production of energy carriers, new materials and biofuels.

–It is a very exciting assignment. Bio4Energy is one of three strategic research environments within  the energy field in Sweden and Luleå University of Technology is a leader in several of the research topics included, Elisabeth Wetterlund, says.

A national research program

Bio4Energy is a joint national research environment between Umeå University, Luleå University of Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå and RISE.

Bio4Energy's new Programme managers are Leif Jönsson and Christoffer Boman, both researchers at Umeå University. Bio4Energy states that Deputy Director Elisabeth Wetterlund, will be a great asset in the new leadership team as she, as a systems analysis researcher, has insight into many of Bio4Energy's research areas. In her own PhD project, she applied system analysis to gasification of biomass and has continued to do research in this area. She has been Bio4Energy's coordinator at f3 The Swedish Knowledge Center for Renewable Transportation Fuels, for several years. f3 is a national center for collaboration between industry, universities, institutes and authorities for a sustainable transport sector. She is also a visiting research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, an independent international research institute in Austria, with research on, among other things, climate change, energy security and sustainable development. .

–I want to continue working for collaboration in Bio4Energy. The strategic projects are a good example and I want to create more such meeting places. New perspectives can also be useful for the more specialized research, Elisabeth Wetterlund, says.

Luleå University of Technology should take more space

She believes that Bio4Energy has an important function for Luleå University of Technology, because the University has research within both the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and theFaculty of Science and Technology regarding the transition to a bio-based society. The forest industries in Norrbotten and Västerbotten are strong industrial partners for Luleå University of Technology, when it comes to research on biorefinery processes, for the conversion of forest raw material and forest waste.

–Luleå University of Technology has a long tradition of working with industry. These forest-based value chains involve a great many stakeholders, and here I see that Luleå University of Technology can take up more space, Elisabeth Wetterlund, says.

Bio4Energy has been operating for ten years

Bio4Energy has existed since 2010, following that the government of that time decided to give 43 collaborative clusters the chance to develop strategic research areas that would put Sweden on the map internationally as a strong research nation. Bio4Energy was commissioned to develop methods and tools for efficient and sustainable biorefinery from forest raw materials and bioenergy solutions. Bio4Energy is now approaching the end of its second program period in December 2020.