A survey conducted by the Finnish Forest Industries Federation for its member companies revealed that 41% of the companies employed PhDs. The jobs of doctors in companies are varied.
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Every year, the Finnish Forest Industries Federation conducts a survey of its member companies to determine the availability of skilled labour. This year, for the first time, respondents were also asked whether their establishment employed PhD graduates.
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- Of the respondents, 41% have doctors working in their establishment. What is particularly interesting about the job descriptions of PhDs is that in addition to the most typical tasks, i.e., research and development, PhDs were also reported to work in areas such as responsibility and business development, says Venla Kaplas, Competence and Training Specialist at the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.
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One of the PhDs working in the forest industry is Katariina Kemppainen. She works as Group Research and Development Director at Metsä Group and graduated from Aalto University in 2015 with a PhD degree in bioprocess engineering.
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- PhD degree has given me the keys to understand scientific research. It also taught me the perseverance needed to complete a challenging project and deepened my knowledge of the subject matter, which has been useful in my work in the corporate world, says Kemppainen.
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- The scientific work required for a doctoral thesis provides a basis for more than just a career in academia; industry needs doctors too, she says.
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There will be plenty more PhDs in Finland in the coming years in a variety of fields. As part of the government's overall research and development funding, 1000 new PhDs will be trained through the recently launched fixed-term doctoral pilots. Of particular interest to the forest industry is the Circular Materials Bioeconomy Network (CIMANET), a doctoral training network coordinated by Aalto University, where new doctoral researchers have now started.
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- We have a vibrant and growth-orientated forest sector in this country. Finnish forest industry companies are already world leaders in developing innovations based on renewable material technologies, for example. Highly qualified top experts are needed in a wide range of areas, both in business operations, production, and research and development tasks in the future, says Maarit Lindström, Director of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.