Advisory Board

The OptiForValue Advisory Board (AB) is appointed and steered by the EB, it assists and facilitates the decisions made by the EB. The Advisory Board provide external points of view as to how to conduct the project to maximise beneficial outcomes to society and to advise the consortium on how best to exploit the most promising results. In particular, the AB:

Advises the consortium on industrial and societal changes or concerns that may influence the projects objectives, priorities, methodologies, and expected impacts
Proposes changes to the direction of the project in line with stakeholder/user priorities for maximising the exploitation and benefits of the project for the industry sector
Supports and amplifies the dissemination of the project results
Works together with the EB, advising the consortium on where and how the most promising results, in terms of exploitation, should be transferred.

Advisory Board Members

Janne Uuttera

OptiForValue Advisory Board

Janne is a Research and Development Manager at UPM Forest, Finland. He has over 30 years of professional experience in the field of Forestry, expertise in particular in multi-targeted sustainable forest management and methods of forest inventory and monitoring. In his present position, he runs projects to develop UPM Forest´s processes and methods jointly with core process owners and UPM Forest Management Team. Janne is often also a representative of UPM Forest in external research and development projects. In OptiForValue Advisory Board, Janne communicates the practical needs of forest management in Nordic countries to support method development.

Prof. Eduardo Tolosana

OptiForValue Advisory Board

Eduardo is a full professor of Forest Operations at the Forest Engineering Faculty (Escuela de Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, U.P.M.), as well as Dean-President of the Spanish Association of Forest Engineers.

A specialist in forest management and operations, he brings a wealth of experience not only from work in forest pedagogics and environmental education, but also from research in Europe and development projects in Africa and Central America. His most relevant works, refer to the mechanisation of forest operations, with a focus on environmental impact, occupational health and safety, optimisation of work methods, productivity and costs. This also includes, forest biomass and its use, including aspects of life cycle analysis and sustainability, and mechanised forest fire prevention works.

With >100 hundred scientific and dissemination articles, and the 2020 Association of Forest Engineer’s Medal of Honor for his academic activities, Prof. Tolosana is well positioned to provide external points of view on maximising OptiForValue outcomes.

Gianni Picchi

OptiForValue Advisory Board

Gianni has over 20 years of experience of research at the National Council for Research of Italy. The main interest field are forest operations, agroforestry biomass production and deployment of sensors for quantity estimate of forest resources and biomass/timber quality. In the last decade his activity has increasingly focused on traceability of timber products and precision forestry. Since January 2025 he is also senior researcher at Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, Spain. He has been principal investigator of several EU projects and is currently coordinator of Horizon Europe project SINTETIC dedicated to the digitalisation of the European forest value chains.

Kasimir P. Nemestothy

OptiForValue Advisory Board

Kasimir P. Nemestothy is the Head of Unit for Energy Economics and Energy Policy at Landwirtschaftskammer Österreich (the Austrian Chamber of Agriculture). With extensive expertise in energy economics, Kasimir plays a pivotal role in shaping energy policies that promote sustainable forest management and agricultural practices for renewable energy solutions. His work focuses on integrating energy efficiency measures within the forestry and agricultural sector to enhance productivity and environmental sustainability.

Kasimir has been instrumental in driving initiatives that support the transition to green energy, advocating for policies that balance economic growth with ecological aspects. His leadership and innovative approach have earned him recognition within the entire value chain of biomass production, supply logistics and utilisation technologies, making him a key figure in Austria’s renewable energy policy landscape.