Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRANSFORMIT (Transforming forest management for multiple ecosystem services and nature conservation via the integrative approach)
Berichtszeitraum: 2024-01-01 bis 2025-06-30
Integrative forest management (IFM) aims at integrating biodiversity conservation and global change adaptation into forest management for the sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services. It is guided by natural and diverse forest structures, compositions, and dynamics to support ecosystem functioning and resilience. Its management practices consistently consider the tree, stand, and landscape scale and employ different silvicultural intensities, including intentionally unmanaged forests. IFM can be applied in any type of forest to achieve integrated environmental, economic, and social outcomes.
While IFM is a well-established concept, it lacks operational frameworks for verification, monitoring, and large-scale implementation. TRANSFORMIT aims to bridge this gap by demonstrating and improving IFM’s effectiveness, integrating scientific and practical knowledge, and fostering collaboration among key stakeholders across Europe and internationally.
TRANSFORMIT seeks to:
- Engage stakeholders by establishing a Stakeholder Engagement Platform to facilitate collaboration, knowledge exchange, and mutual understanding between different sectors.
- Demonstrate IFM in practice by setting up seven Living Labs as role models for IFM implementation, adapted to regional conditions and ownership structures.
- Develop practical guidelines and create evidence-based IFM recommendations that balance biodiversity conservation, forest resilience, and economic viability.
- Support EU policy goals by providing evidence that IFM contributes to the EU Green Deal, Biodiversity Strategy, and Forest Strategy 2030 by integrating multiple forest functions such as ecosystem restoration and climate mitigation.
- Enhance decision-making by demonstrating the use of Decision Support Tools, forest modeling, and innovative technologies, including digital twins, to evaluate forest management approaches.
- Disseminate knowledge globally by conducting various workshops, webinars, and stakeholder events to promote IFM beyond Europe, collaborating with partners in China and North America.
- Promote education and training through the development of educational materials to integrate IFM principles into university and forestry curricula.
TRANSFORMIT aims to embed IFM principles into European forest management policies and practices. By fostering international collaboration, the project strengthens Europe’s leadership in sustainable forest management. Through stakeholder engagement, real-world demonstrations, decision-support tools, and educational efforts, the project will contribute to a sustainable and resilient future for Europe’s forests, supporting the EU’s forest policy and sustainability goals.
While IFM is a well-established concept, it lacks operational frameworks for verification, monitoring, and large-scale implementation. TRANSFORMIT aims to bridge this gap by demonstrating and improving IFM’s effectiveness, integrating scientific and practical knowledge, and fostering collaboration among key stakeholders across Europe and internationally.
TRANSFORMIT seeks to:
- Engage stakeholders by establishing a Stakeholder Engagement Platform to facilitate collaboration, knowledge exchange, and mutual understanding between different sectors.
- Demonstrate IFM in practice by setting up seven Living Labs as role models for IFM implementation, adapted to regional conditions and ownership structures.
- Develop practical guidelines and create evidence-based IFM recommendations that balance biodiversity conservation, forest resilience, and economic viability.
- Support EU policy goals by providing evidence that IFM contributes to the EU Green Deal, Biodiversity Strategy, and Forest Strategy 2030 by integrating multiple forest functions such as ecosystem restoration and climate mitigation.
- Enhance decision-making by demonstrating the use of Decision Support Tools, forest modeling, and innovative technologies, including digital twins, to evaluate forest management approaches.
- Disseminate knowledge globally by conducting various workshops, webinars, and stakeholder events to promote IFM beyond Europe, collaborating with partners in China and North America.
- Promote education and training through the development of educational materials to integrate IFM principles into university and forestry curricula.
TRANSFORMIT aims to embed IFM principles into European forest management policies and practices. By fostering international collaboration, the project strengthens Europe’s leadership in sustainable forest management. Through stakeholder engagement, real-world demonstrations, decision-support tools, and educational efforts, the project will contribute to a sustainable and resilient future for Europe’s forests, supporting the EU’s forest policy and sustainability goals.
Several noteworthy results have been achieved during the first reporting period:
- The project has held it's kick-off meeting in 2024 (M1), bringing all project partners together and coordinating joint activities. Soon after a Data Management Plan and a Project Implementation Plan have been proposed and agreed upon by the consortium (M2/D1.1). The project corporate identity, including a webpage and communication channels have been set-up (M3).
- A noteworthy achievement was the delivery of a comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement strategy including communication and dissemination plan (D2.1) with paved the way for all future engagement activities. The strategy and communication plan were updated in June 2025 (D2.2).
- Important work has been done in collecting and synthesizing Integrated Forest Management (IFM) concepts (M6) and providing a working definition of IFM that guides related activities and communication with stakeholders and Living Lab representatives. A comprehensive report on contemporary IFM concepts in Europe was delivered in June 2025 (D3.1).
- A “Network of the networks” meeting was hosted in September in Bonn, bringing together various project stakeholders and representatives from the Living Labs. Among other discussions, ideas for the IFM lab and Knowledge were collected (M20). Following up on these activities, the IFM lab, together with a virtual communication workshop (M5) and the 3rd Indicator Workshop (M15) took place back-to-back with the Living Lab Workshop hosted in Zagreb, Croatia between April 1-3.
- Previous to these activities, an important step was made towards identifying a pool of potentially relevant indicators for IFM at national level and for lower levels (D5.1). Soon after, the protocol for describing tools supporting IFM was delivered (M16)and two indicator (M13-14) workshops were held online, refining the pool of relevant criteria and indicators, and discussing their usability for the Living Labs.Finally a participatory agreed set of key indicators for monitoring and reporting IFM (D5.2) together with the dataset of selected IFM indicators derived from remote sensing (D5.3) were provided in June 2025. Based on a draft feedback on adapting decision support tools (DST) to meet the demands of IFM (M17), a catalogue of DSTs supporting IFM was also provided in June 2025 (D5.2).
- The seven Living Labs (LL) were at the core of all these activities since the inception of the project. Several virtual and in-person meetings were held with LL representatives to discuss data/information needs (M9), agree upon a data collection protocol (M10), and compile a comprehensive synthesis report describing the LLs (M11). Discussions with consortium partners and LLs representatives were held to identify and select suitable Satellite Demonstration Areas which were presented in a report introducing selected SDAs (M12). Finally, a comprehensive report on the supporting and hindering factors for the IFM approaches in LLs was provided in June 2025 (D4.1). This report serves as an important input to IFM Knowledge Hub.
LL representatives were engaged throughout various project activities, weather in the project kickoff meeting (Jan 2024), the Network of Networks Meeting (Sept 2024), in the Annual Meeting in Barcelona, Spain (Jan 2025) or in the Living Lab Meeting in Zagreb, Croatia (April 2025), adding valuable perspectives to our work, and allowing researchers and practivioners to discuss challenges and co-produce knowledge for IFM implementation.
- Since TRANSFORMIT is a project transcending the boarders of the EU boarders, a "Global Scoping Workshop" was held in Spring 2025.
- Exchanges with China consortia have been initiated with relevant WPs to define how the collaboration will follow according to the current and future outcomes from the projects.
- The project has held it's kick-off meeting in 2024 (M1), bringing all project partners together and coordinating joint activities. Soon after a Data Management Plan and a Project Implementation Plan have been proposed and agreed upon by the consortium (M2/D1.1). The project corporate identity, including a webpage and communication channels have been set-up (M3).
- A noteworthy achievement was the delivery of a comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement strategy including communication and dissemination plan (D2.1) with paved the way for all future engagement activities. The strategy and communication plan were updated in June 2025 (D2.2).
- Important work has been done in collecting and synthesizing Integrated Forest Management (IFM) concepts (M6) and providing a working definition of IFM that guides related activities and communication with stakeholders and Living Lab representatives. A comprehensive report on contemporary IFM concepts in Europe was delivered in June 2025 (D3.1).
- A “Network of the networks” meeting was hosted in September in Bonn, bringing together various project stakeholders and representatives from the Living Labs. Among other discussions, ideas for the IFM lab and Knowledge were collected (M20). Following up on these activities, the IFM lab, together with a virtual communication workshop (M5) and the 3rd Indicator Workshop (M15) took place back-to-back with the Living Lab Workshop hosted in Zagreb, Croatia between April 1-3.
- Previous to these activities, an important step was made towards identifying a pool of potentially relevant indicators for IFM at national level and for lower levels (D5.1). Soon after, the protocol for describing tools supporting IFM was delivered (M16)and two indicator (M13-14) workshops were held online, refining the pool of relevant criteria and indicators, and discussing their usability for the Living Labs.Finally a participatory agreed set of key indicators for monitoring and reporting IFM (D5.2) together with the dataset of selected IFM indicators derived from remote sensing (D5.3) were provided in June 2025. Based on a draft feedback on adapting decision support tools (DST) to meet the demands of IFM (M17), a catalogue of DSTs supporting IFM was also provided in June 2025 (D5.2).
- The seven Living Labs (LL) were at the core of all these activities since the inception of the project. Several virtual and in-person meetings were held with LL representatives to discuss data/information needs (M9), agree upon a data collection protocol (M10), and compile a comprehensive synthesis report describing the LLs (M11). Discussions with consortium partners and LLs representatives were held to identify and select suitable Satellite Demonstration Areas which were presented in a report introducing selected SDAs (M12). Finally, a comprehensive report on the supporting and hindering factors for the IFM approaches in LLs was provided in June 2025 (D4.1). This report serves as an important input to IFM Knowledge Hub.
LL representatives were engaged throughout various project activities, weather in the project kickoff meeting (Jan 2024), the Network of Networks Meeting (Sept 2024), in the Annual Meeting in Barcelona, Spain (Jan 2025) or in the Living Lab Meeting in Zagreb, Croatia (April 2025), adding valuable perspectives to our work, and allowing researchers and practivioners to discuss challenges and co-produce knowledge for IFM implementation.
- Since TRANSFORMIT is a project transcending the boarders of the EU boarders, a "Global Scoping Workshop" was held in Spring 2025.
- Exchanges with China consortia have been initiated with relevant WPs to define how the collaboration will follow according to the current and future outcomes from the projects.