Christian Hoffmann
Christian Hoffmann holds a PhD in Forest Economics from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna. Since 2006 he is employed as a senior researcher at the Eurac Research Institute for Regional Development, where he leads the "Rural Economy" research group. He is a member in the EUSALP AG6, where he coordinates the Task Force “Multifunctional Forestry and Sustainable Use of Timber”. In this function, he contributed to the ARPAF Project REDIAFOR that targets “Reinforcing Dialogue in Forestry” to overcome diverging interests. At the Institute of Regional Development, he copes with regional products in the ARPAF project "100% Local" and the survey on territorial brands. Besides, he deals in the Interreg IT/CH project “Living ICH” with sustaining the intangible cultural heritage of agro-alimentary food chains and aims in a CLLD Leader project to conserve ancient seed varieties in the Alps. For the Province of Bolzano, he works for establishing a "Sustainable Food System” and a “Circular Economy Strategy”. Additionally, he is a scientific committee member of Science for the Carpathians and a deputy of the IUFRO unit "Forest-Based Value Chains".
Mariana Melnykovych
Mariana Melnykovych is IUFRO Deputy Coordinator of the Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Unit, IUFRO Task Force member on Unlocking the Forest Bioeconomy & Non-Timber Forest Products, Scientific Committee member in Science for the Carpaticum network, Country Contact in the ESEE, and an expert in Mountain Research Initiative.
She holds a PhD in Economics of natural resource use and environmental protection completed at the National Forestry University in Ukraine in cooperation with The James Hutton Institute in Scotland, UK. Mariana led & co-authored many research publications focusing on challenges in forest multifunctionality, sustainable forest management & governance, stakeholders’ engagement in forestry decision making, and on social innovation to increase the well-being of forest-dependent communities.
Dr Melnykovych was a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship holder for her PostDoc project at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. She also worked on several international projects (e.g., EU Horizon 2020 SIMRA, ENPI-FLEG Program, EU COST Action SENSFOR, EU COST Action European NWFPs), holding research and consultancy positions at the European Forest Institute, IUCN and World Bank, ENGO ‘NEPCon’, and the National Forestry University in Ukraine.
Luděk Šišák
Currently, Professor at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, a member of the Department of Forestry and Wood Economics of the Faculty, and member of the Faculty Scientific Board. He focuses on the issues of multifunctional forest management, valuation of the socio-economic importance of both market and non-market forest services for the society in comparison with the importance of analogous services of non-forest parts (non-forest ecosystems) of the landscape. Member of the Forest Europe Expert Group on Valuation of and Payments for Forest Ecosystem Services. Member of the Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the Department of Forest Management. Chairman of the Expert Group for Forestry Economics and Policy of the Czech Forestry Society; Member of the editorial board of the Journal of Forest Science.
