The SuFoRUn network vision is to address research and innovation areas (RIAs) 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: a) to contribute to excellent science by bringing together multidisciplinary research (ranging from environmental science, forest inventory and modeling, management, socio-economic analysis, social sciences, climate science, operations research up to softwareengineering); b) to help build the interdisciplinary synthesis needed to develop ICT tools that may promote industrial leadership and c) to help provide the knowledge framework needed to address key societal challenges.
The main objective of this project is to develop new models, methods and decision systems that may effectively integrate currently fragmented multidisciplinary knowledge to support forest management and policy development in a context of global change. 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). For this purpose, research on forest modelling, forest management methods, social science, policy making and risk and uncertainty and decision support systems suggests will be performed.
This project will further 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 will build 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.
Specifically, the project will contribute to a consistent worldwide quality reference for the development of tools that may 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.
