Seed money scholarship for PhD students in CBU

I was lucky to be in the bunch of the M.Sc. graduates who were applying for the first call of CBU doctoral programme in November 2010. It was initiated for all interested PhD candidates who received CBU seed money as scholarship to initiate a PhD work. The money were given for two months in order to find the supervisor and agree upon the chosen topic, besides that the money were aimed to prepare research plan for future PhD research at the faculty. In my opinion the given financial was very important due the fact that CBU programme is aimed towards cross-border cooperation and for that reason the travelling abroad and meeting with supervisors from abroad, e.g. from Russia were required. In the bunch were 8 PhD students who were selected to first call of Doctoral Programme, six from them were originally from Russia, one from Poland and one from Bangladesh. The students were coming University of Eastern Finland, University of Tampere, Saint-Petersburg State Forest Technical Academy etc. Students were representing the public health, information and communication technology, international relationship and forestry and environmental engineering programmes. As a result of the preparation work we had to prepare research and study plan, also present a Power Point presentation describing the objectives and main steps of the project development. The CBU doctoral student seminar was held in Borealis building of the University of Eastern Finland on 11^th of November 2010. The students and coordinator of CBU doctoral programme agreed to undertake their studies in the graduate schools of CBU partner universities. At the seminar I presented the preliminary topic of my research related to the possibilities of applying MOTTI software in Russian conditions. This software was originally developed in Finland and used here in everyday forestry practices, however it is important to examine whereas the model is applicable to Russian conditions. Even though I stuck with that topic for a while I had to change the subject of my topic later on, I understood that it is quite common practice. The financial side of the research is important and I think that the idea to initiate seed money for PhD candidates to prepare high quality research plan and find suitable supervisor was very good idea. Besides that the call for this scholarship was publically available and was communicated through CBU central webpage, for that reason I would advise for potential PhD candidates to monitor this web resource.

Writing a Master Thesis at CBU

Hello everybody. I would like to tell you some important matters to keep in mind when writing master thesis. Normally the thesis at CBU is a final milestone which student needs to overcome in order to graduate from the studies. I started to write my Master as part of the project work in Finnish Forest Research Institute, by the way it is also quite common practice that the material from applied period is partly used for the Thesis at university.

The main topic of my study was related to analysis of transportation efficiency of forest chip export from the Republic Karelia to Finland. The title of the thesis is “The analysis of efficiency of forest chip transportation from Russian Karelia to Finland”. Low utilization of forest chips in Russian Karelia and increased demand on biofuel provides an opportunity to export the wood in form of forest chips from Russian Karelia to Finland. In my opinion the title has to reflect the main purpose of the study in one sentence. The main aims of the study have to be defined before you start with data collection, and then you start with methodology writing.

Below I would like to give an examples of main aim and some methodology description from my thesis. The field data collection was an entire part of my thesis. The qualitative and quantitative parameters of cross-border transportation were estimated during the study from different scientific sources, various companies working on cross-border transportation of forest chips. The estimation of run parameters on studied transportation route the calculation of proportion of transportation costs in overall supply costs and payloads of forest chip trucks. Besides that the analysis of quality characteristics of exported forest chips from Russian Karelia to Finland was done in Värtsilä and Lahdenpohja terminals. In addition the interviewing of drivers both in Republic of Karelia and Finland was done, only those drivers who are involved in cross-border transportation of forest chips. Obtaining of field data requires use of own car, so be prepared to use your own car or ask your friend in advance.

Writing a Master thesis in my opinion is a multidimensional study, in my case the most difficult part was to convince the truck drivers the about the importance of studies topic and relevance of their respondents. My own experience of interviewing showed that direct conversation is the best way to retrieve the most relevant information. Another difficult part of the work and probably the most important is thesis compiling, when I have collected a lot of material the next question was: what should I do with all these information? I recommend using one method and get away from laptop, somebody would call it “stone age”, however it worked for me very well: pencil and blank list of A4 paper. Then I started to draw a mind map with attempts to recall all the steps and most important of the work I have done. Of course nowadays you will find a lot of software to prepare mind maps and I am sure some of you prefer that, however I was convinced to use paper version of that.

My applied period in CBU

Hello everybody. I came back with the set of blogs after the break for a little while. I would like to share with you my experience in CBU programme related to my internship period in research institution in Joensuu. As you might know already the applied period is an entire part of CBU FEE Master’s curriculum. Summer season in my case was the best time to have an applied period; I had a chance to find a working place in METLA premises. For those who are not aware of METLA, it is a Finnish Forest Research Institute with one of the main campuses located in Joensuu. I had my applied period there over the summer for 3 months period. My work in METLA was related to the project lead by Professor Timo Karjalainen and his research team. The project title “Wood harvesting and logistics in Russia – Focus on research and business opportunities”. The supervisor of my internship was Vadim Goltsev, who had participated previously is various projects lead both METLA and EFI (European Forestry Institute), and he was actual coordinator of that project. My task in the research team was part of mention above project and it had main emphasis on the examining the efficiency of forest chips transportation from Russian Karelia to Finland in order to demonstrate the basic information on cross-border transportation efficiency and on the quality characteristics of forest chips delivered from Russian Karelia. As you may already notice from the description the field I was working with was rather multi-dimensional, so I had to do some pre-studying before I started in METLA due to the fact that I did not have much research experience related to bioenergy, in particular forest supply chain, sampling and quality analysis of forest chips. Luckily I easily found the relevant material in my research field and additional material was adviced by my supervisors. During the internship a lot of help was given from the experts there, so please consider it as a potential source of information when you face the wall of difficulties and do not hesitate to ask the question from the expert around you, because it surely one of the easiest way to get the “ready answers” or at least to receive the direct link to the primary source of information. I have to say honestly that I learnt a lot during the applied period, especially it relates to the practical realization of my part of the project and its planning. Careful planning was essential in the work and I started with dividing my work into modules, so I could easy make a sum up of my activities on each step of the working process. As a result of the applied period I submitted the written report to the coordinator of CBU FEE programme and received a mark and credits after the evaluation process.

The social side of the work was also important and informal discussion in METLA during the coffee breaks has always been inspiring and fruitful. It gave me a change to get to know many experts with different backgrounds in there. After accomplishment of the internship I felt more confident in the field bioenergy and forest logistics and I am sure that the obtained knowledge, experience in METLA institution will help in my future professional career.

Below I attached couple of photos related to sampling of forest chips in Russian Karelia

1. A pile of forest chips for sampling

2. Packed forest chips in bags for lab analysis

CBU is discovering the opportunities

This summer I was lucky enough to explore a bit of India as a CBU student there. The course was held by Centre for Ecological Economics and Natural Resources (CEENR) of the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore, India in collaboration with the Nordic Centre - Sweden in India (NCI). The course is equivalent to 7.5 ECTS and open for graduate students from the Nordic countries. This multi-disciplinary course introduces students to recent theories and methods in the study of contemporary environmental issues in India. The group of 10 students were representing 5 different countries by origin: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Poland, however by place of studies student were representing 3 Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden and Denmark. My personal expectations before the course were mainly regarding gaining practical knowledge about current environmental issues in India (including forestry) and its relation to social aspects, in terms of public's reflection towards the problems they are facing.

We were warmly welcomed by the director of the institute, coordinators and honoured professors.

The schedule of the course was divided into blocks on week basis. First week of the course was aimed on overview of the ecological history of India, and the Indian environment from different perspectives and sectors such as environment policy, forests, land and water resources, urbanization, culture, religion and environment etcThe second week of the course was emphasized on introduction participants to theories, methods and applications in environmental/ecological economics. Case studies with Indian examples of biodiversity, wetlands, watersheds, farm forestry, groundwater, common property resources, urban solid waste management, health etc.

The third week of the course was aimed to present a few more case studies on the Indian environment as well introduce the participants to political ecology, environmental politics and environmental management as well present case studies on participatory forest and irrigation/water management with Indian case studies.

Fourth and final week of the course was devoted to field trip report, article review, seminar presentations and written final report by the course participants on assigned or selected topics in the broad area of Indian environment.

Besides that according to the programme we had three field visits.

1) Visit to E-Parisaraa Pvt. Ltd. This company is working on the market of electronic waste management.

2) Visit to Biome company. On the picture is roof of so called "green building" aimed for harvesting of rain water with supplementary installed solar panels.

3) Tree planting event in rural forestry school

I really enjoyed the Indian course and thanks CBU for partial financial support.