The Nordic office of India's leading Energy and Resources Institute, TERI, began activities at the Joensuu Campus of the University of Eastern Finland on 3 December 2012. The opening ceremony was hosted by Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri, Director General of TERI and Chairman of the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.
In addition to being Director General of TERI, Dr Pachauri is also Chancellor of TERI University, and he has been Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, since 2002. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of the White Rose of Finland by the President of Finland and, in 2012, the University of Eastern Finland nominated Dr Pachauri the university's first ever Honorary Professor.
"The University of Eastern Finland is a significant institution with broad-based expertise and innovative approaches to bio raw materials and biomass-based solutions," Dr Pachauri says, in explanation for the reasons for selecting Joensuu as the location for TERI's Nordic office. "Furthermore, the presence of other organisations also carrying out scientific research in the field in Joensuu is important to TERI."
TERI produces information on climate change and on the related critical issues on global scale. TERI Nordic focuses on the challenges of the boreal and arctic areas in particular, and it takes a global approach to, e.g., sustainable forestry, bioeconomy, and renewable energy. The launch of TERI's Nordic office offers excellent opportunities for cooperation between various organisations and companies. The TERI Nordic office in Joensuu, Finland, is the latest addition to TERI's international centres and offices located in Japan, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Washington DC, and Europe.