Bioeconomy and Sustainable Materials Institute (BSMI) awarded Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISI) Stage II Funding
The Bioeconomy and Sustainable Materials Institute (BSMI) has been awarded five years of funding from the Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISI) Stage II Funding Program.
Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISI) at U of T are cross-divisional, interdisciplinary research networks that address grand challenges, and associated research questions, that lead to transformational societal impact.
BSMI will provide a pan-Canadian platform to advance research in the bioeconomy by building decision frameworks to realize the advantages of sustainable natural resources; studying policy options that can enhance Canadian competitiveness in the green economy; examining cross-industry business models that enable private enterprises to innovate and deliver new value to consumers and the community at large; and building change making scenarios that enable new, effective work processes and practices.
The BSMI Initiative Lead Rasoul Yousefpour is an associate professor of forestry at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and Director of the Mass Timber Institute (MTI). Professor Yousefpour studies forest decision processes to find the most desirable adaptation strategies. His work investigates the economics of ecosystem services as well as the risks and uncertainties associated with forecasting their future provision under global change and social demand dynamics. Yousefpour’s research program connects forest ecosystem processes and functions to management oriented and economy-based solutions in wood manufacturing and housing sectors. His research applies ecological economic approaches, which are data-driven and process-based, to optimize forest sector contribution to society.
