Aiko Nakano Hylander is passionate about collaboration as well as sustainability and environmental issues. She was born in Japan, where she also got her PhD in Agricultural Science, after which she worked as a postdoc in Canada and Sweden on studies of microorganisms that contribute to carbon sequestration in the soil. Moreover, Aiko has also worked with scientific communication since she enhanced her competence in information while her children were small.

Consequently, Aiko’s passion for issues on the environment makes her interested in working with energy, due to its importance when it comes to sustainable development.

A partner of the Clean Energy Transiton

Not only do Aiko’s interests cover collaboration and sustainability – she has also been interested in the platform that Nordic Energy Research is.

“I have been interested in Nordic Energy Research as a platform for co-operative research and policy development in the energy area. During the last two years, I have been working in the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETPartnership), and I was encouraged by the CETPartnership partners to join and strengthen the work at Nordic Energy Research,” says Aiko.

At Nordic Energy Research, Aiko’s main responsibilities naturally include work with call management in the CETPartnership. However, her skills in collaboration, energy, research funding, and information makes her inclined like to contribute to more tasks too.

“No country is alone”

In practice, Aiko structures the work with the CETPartnership at Nordic Energy Research with colleagues who are new in the partnership and research funding. This is no straghtforward task, as the CETPartnership involves a great amount of funding partners and other stakeholders. To coordinate the activities within such a broad partnership as the CETPartnership is one of the most challenging aspects of the work, according to Aiko.

At the same time, the large-scale coordination and collaboration is of great importance.

“Through my previous work at the Swedish Energy Agency, I have understood that collaboration within energy and climate issues is inevitable, because no country is alone in this matter. We can create synergy and reach further by gathering fundings and mobilizing competencies. I am pleased to engage in this work and contribute to more people understanding the importance of Nordic Energy Research.

  • Name: Aiko Nakano Hylander
  • Education: PhD and MSc in Agricultural Science (Soil Biology and Chemistry) and MSc in Art (Library and Information Science)
  • Leisure: Vegetable gardening (nearly self-sufficient for my family, including my husband and three young boys who tend to live on the minimum amount of vegetables). Seeing animals and solar panels on my small family farm behind the Royal Mounds in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden