Jan 26, 2007. /Lesprom Network/. Dr. Anne Toppinen has been appointed programme manager for forest products markets and socio-economics at the European Forest Institute. Dr. Toppinen will start her term at EFI in the beginning of April 2007. Dr. Toppinen has received her doctoral degree from the University of Helsinki in 1998. Her expertise lies in forest economics, forest industry and roundwood markets as well as in short-term forecasts of forest sector. She has worked in research projects on the development of forest sector in Northwest Russia, on business cycles in the forest sector, and on competition and public expenditure in support of the forest sector in different European countries. Dr. Toppinen moves to her new post from the Finnish Forest Research Institute where she has been a senior researcher since 1999. She has earlier also held a post of visiting assistant professor at the College of Forestry of the Oregon State University, USA. Among her scientific positions of trust, she is a docent on the University of Helsinki and University of Joensuu, Finland, a member of scientific evaluation board at the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS) in Sweden, a board member of the Finnish Society of Forest Science and a former chairperson of the Forest Economists Forum in Finland. The European Forest Institute is an international organisation conducting forest research and forest research networking at the pan-European level. The Institute has four research programmes and Dr. Toppinen will lead the research programme of forest products markets and socio-economics.