Florian Kraxner is deputy program director of IIASA's Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program, following a period as acting deputy leader of the former Forestry Program (FOR). He was appointed IIASA's official representative to the International Environmental Science Initiative SCOPE and IIASA coordinator of the UK Policy-Science Activity FORESIGHT in 2009. Mr. Kraxner has been coordinator of IIASA's EU Projects for Carbon Sequestration Potentials, GEO-BENE for Benefits through Global Earth Observation and CC-TAME for Climate Change & Terrestrial Adaptation & Mitigation in Europe. Since 2006 he has also been a visiting researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in Japan, where he is working on integrated biomass for bioenergy projects in various Japanese Eco-Model Cities. Mr. Kraxner joined IIASA in 2001 as participant of the YSSP program and re-joined in 2004 to work on modeling in land-use and land-use change and forestry. He graduated in forestry with a specialization in mountain risk engineering and watershed management from BOKU-University in Vienna, where he was employed from 2000 to 2004 as coordinator for the international master courses as well as being responsible for the development of higher education courses in the forestry and natural resources management sectors.
As a university lecturer at various international universities, Mr. Kraxner has gathered unique skills in teaching subjects linked to socio-economics in forestry, forest policy, bioenergy and forest fires. Since 2000 he has further been working in the fields of forest products certification and public opinion on the forest sector inter alia for the EFI Project Centre Innoforce, as well as for the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE/Forest Europe) and as a consultant for FAO and UNECE.