On Saturday 7th June, Professor Alan McKinnon received the title of Honorary Doctor from Tampere University. This is the highest recognition that a university can award. In Alan’s case, this remarkable achievement was “In recognition of the development of research and education of sustainable logistics and supply chain management” as is mentioned in this news.
Researchers at Verne have had the opportunity to work with Alan in different occasions. During his early years as a researcher, Heikki Liimatainen, current professor and leader of Verne, did a research visit to Alan’s research group in Heriot-Watt University. This visit contributed to the way how not only freight but also passenger transport decarbonization is analysed and to the tools used in Heikki’s and Verne’s research. The cooperation has also included project collaboration, Alan visiting Finland and joint publications related to energy efficiency and decarbonization of road freight.
On Monday 9th June Alan held a lecture on climate logistics and had meeting with staff from the Faculty on Built Environment and Transport Research Centre Verne. The topic of climate logistics has been introduced by Alan e.g., in this recent article. During the meeting, many interesting characteristics of the transport system in Finland were discussed, such as the heavy (up to 76 tonnes) and long (up to 34.5 m) vehicle combinations which bring about challenges for decarbonization.
Transport Research Centre Verne would like to congratulate Alan for the honorary doctorate and thank for the visit and collaboration!