Permanent research professor position to Kristiina Lång and 5-year tenure track contract to research professor Raisa Mäkipää in Luke
Kristiina Lång nominated as a permanent Research Professor at Natural Resource Institute (Luke) from 1 July 2022 onwards.
What are the most topical themes in your current research?
I mostly study different ways to conserve the carbon stock in the field soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.
What can we expect from your future work?
There are a lot of new test results coming from peat fields where the groundwater level has been raised with the aim of slowing down the greenhouse gas emissions from peat decomposition. Such pilot activities are important now that society is investing, for example, in the development of wetland cultivation and other drainage of drained areas.
What is the focus of your future work?
My aim is to promote the sustainability of land use so that the use of agricultural land in the future meets the climate challenges while giving farmers new sources of income from climate work. I look forward to working with a variety of companies to develop wetland value chains.
Research professor Raisa Mäkipää’s tenure track professorship continues with the second 5-year contract
Research professor Raisa Mäkipää has been nominated for a second 5-year term as Luke’s Research Professor from 1 October 2022 onwards.
What are the most topical themes in your current research?
For peatlands used for agriculture and forestry, we will develop sustainable cultivation and forest management methods that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from peatland soils. Possible means of reducing emissions are the conversion of arable land, such as cattail or reed canary grass, to wetland cultivation on arable land. In the case of hexagonal drained peatland forests, on the other hand, continuous afforestation is being tested, which avoids large emissions after clear-cutting and the need for rehabilitation drainage. In peatlands, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions is regulated by the height of the groundwater and the resulting microbial activity. Research on microbial communities, their activity and the factors that regulate it, will be continued in the EU-funded HoliSoils project (https://holisoils.eu/) together with European partners. The aim is also to link the changes in the microbial community and their connection to the stability of soil organic matter to the soil models developed in the HoliSoils project and the scenario analyzes that apply them. The aim is to find ways to maintain the carbon stock of European forests and especially forest soils and to strengthen carbon sinks, Mäkipää says.
In Luke, the research professors serve in tenue track positions which are evaluated every five years. A research professor may be appointed to a permanent position after two successful five-year terms if supported by the scientific evaluation. The evaluation is carried out by three external professor-level experts, and at least two of them are from abroad. The focus of the evaluation is on the past performance and merits as well as on the future research plan.
