Forest policy and decision makers are challenged by the need to balance the increasing demand for forest-based services (e.g. recreation, protection, conservation) and wood-based products (e.g. timber, fuelwood) while addressing the impacts of natural disturbances (e.g. wildfires, droughts) on potential supply. Classical forestry production approaches to silviculture and regulation are inadequate to address the complexity of current forest management planning and policy-making processes. New models, methods and decision systems are needed that may effectively integrate currently fragmented multidisciplinary knowledge.
The European and the American experiences with the development/application of models and tools to support forest management and develop innovative forest policies provide a solid base for continuous improvement of its efficiency and effectiveness in a context of global change (e.g. changes in forest policies, changes in forest owner structures, changes in climatic conditions). Nevertheless, the fragmentation of research in areas such as forest modelling, forest management methods, social science, policy making and risk and uncertainty and decision support systems suggests networking and research needs to realize their interdisciplinary integration potential.
The SuFoRun consortium was built to strengthen research collaboration through active networking and staff exchange between 6 European organizations from Portugal, Germany, Finland, Spain and Sweden, and 7 American organizations from Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil and USA that are leaders in these fields. This project builds from the multidisciplinary expertise (ranging from environmental science, forest inventory and modeling, management, socio-economic analysis, operations research up to software engineering) in these organizations to develop innovative interdisciplinary approaches to address research and innovation areas that have been identified as key to unlocking the potential of the forest-based sector and ensuring its future competitiveness by the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2020 of the Forest-based sector Technology Platform.
During four years, a total of 97 researchers have participated in the program with a total of 118 secondments and 381 man-months, including experienced and early stage researchers. 255 of them corresponded to secondments from EU institutions to America, while 127 PMs corresponded to secondments in the inverse direction. The project has contributed to a consistent worldwide quality reference for the development of tools that can be used by public administrators, forest owners and industry for enhanced integration of adaptive strategies in forest management planning as well as in policy analysis in a context of global change.
