Professor Salo has worked extensively on the development of decision analytic methods and their uses in resource allocation, innovation management, risk management, technology foresight, and efficiency analysis. He has published widely in leading international journals (including Management Science and Operations Research) and received awards for his research from the Decision Analysis Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). He serves on the Editorial Boards of several refereed journals.

Professor Salo has directed a broad range of basic and applied research projects funded by leading industrial firms, industrial federations, and funding agencies. He has been visiting professor at the London Business School, Université Paris-Dauphine and the University of Vienna. He has been the President of the Finnish Operations Research Society (FORS) for two biennial terms. In 2010-11, he served as the European and Middle East representative of the International Activities Committee of INFORMS. In 2010-16, he was jury member of the EDDA Doctoral Dissertation Award of the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO), and chaired this jury in 2016. In 1999-2019, he was on the Board of the Association of Parliament Members and Researchers (Tutkas). In spring 2020, he was member of the Science Panel, appointed by the Prime Minister's Office for obtaining scientific support for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020-2023, he is Member of the Government Foresight Group, appointed by the Prime Minister’s Office of Finland.