Nov 20, 2012. /Lesprom Network/. Dr. Marc Palahi has been appointed as Deputy Director of the European Forest Institute (EFI). Dr. Palahi will start his new 5-year position as of 1 January 2013 and will be stationed in the EFI Headquarters (HQ) in Joensuu, Finland, as the EFI said in a press release received by Lesprom Network. He will be responsible for the overall coordination and integration of EFI’s strategic activities related to research and policy support. This consists of strengthening the R&D capacity at the EFI Headquarters and the overall coordination role of EFI HQ regarding research and policy support activities within EFI. He will also continue to work on strengthening the role of EFI in enhancing the science-policy dialogue across all the stages of the policy processes and coordinating the presence of EFI in existing European political structures and initiatives. Dr. Palahi has a PhD in forestry and economics and a M.Sc. in forestry engineering. For the past 1,5 years, he has been leading the EFI policy support activities of the Institute. During this time he has been instrumental in launching ThinkForest, a European high-level forum on the future of forests. He has also worked as a Head of EFI Mediterranean Regional Office, EFIMED, where he has been coordinating research, capacity building and networking activities among a network of 40 research and education institutions from 18 Mediterranean countries. He also led EFI Project Centre MEDFOREX (2000-2007) under the CTFC (Forest Technological Centre of Catalonia), and has been a researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Joensuu. The European Forest Institute (EFI) is an international organisation established by European States. By the spring of 2011, a total of 23 European States had ratified the Convention on EFI, namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom.