A new study published in Ecosystem Services offers fresh insights into how people across the EU value the benefits forests provide, from clean air and biodiversity to recreation, wood products and employment opportunities. The research, conducted within EUFORE, surveyed more than 11,000 people across all 27 EU Member States.
The authors explored the importance of forest ecosystems at three levels: their personal significance to individuals, and their perceived importance for society both today and in the future.The findings show that Europeans consistently rate regulating and cultural services, such as air quality regulation, forest beauty and contributions to human health, as the most important benefits provided by forests.
The researchers also found that people often distinguish between personal and societal priorities. Across most countries, provisioning services such as wood production, firewood and employment opportunities were considered more important for society than for individuals themselves. In addition, many respondents expected forest ecosystem services to become even more important for society in the future, reflecting growing awareness of long-term sustainability challenges.
The results highlight the importance of considering both personal and societal perspectives when developing forest policies and communication strategies. According to the authors, acknowledging these different viewpoints can help policymakers, forest owners and other stakeholders better understand public expectations and design measures that balance present and future needs.
Full reference: Andrew David Harold Stratton, Silvia Baralla, Alexandru Giurca, Dalila Frasson, Lasse Læbo Matthiesen, Silvija Krajter Ostoić, Rastislav Raši, Jan Schmidt, Dijana Vuletić, Gerhard Weiss, Ivana Zivojinovic, Niels Strange, Jette Bredahl Jacobsen. 2026. Exploring preferences of forest ecosystem services across the EU: Personal and societal perspectives, Ecosystem Services 81, 101883. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2026.101883
EUFORE returns to Brussels on 29–30 September 2026 with Forest Momentum: From Strategy to Action. This event brings together EUFORE, MoniFun, and the FOREST Partnership.
Forest Momentum marks the closing of EUFORE and is also our final European stakeholder event. But it is also more than a project closing – it is a launchpad for what comes next, giving the forest sector the momentum it needs.
Over two days, EUFORE joins forces with MoniFun and the upcoming European Partnership FOREST to connect researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and stakeholders across Europe’s forest sector.
Day 1: a joint workshop with MoniFun explores how research and innovation can advance forest monitoring in Europe, shaping a future architecture and setting priorities for the coming decade.
Day 2: the EUFORE final gathering highlights key insights and explores future directions, followed by a FOREST Partnering Meet & Connect to foster new collaborations ahead of the first joint call for proposals.
As in any other Horizon Europe project, our work is reported back to the European Commission in the form of project deliverables. While we also aim to share our work in various other formats, e.g., presentations and scientific articles, we want to ensure that the original deliverables are available as soon as they are approved by the European Commission.
Our new practice abstract is based on analysis on FAOSTAT, Eurostat, and Forest Europe data, complemented by expert surveys (146 respondents), stakeholder workshops, and a structured foresight process – together forming a robust evidence base for future-oriented decisions. Our team of experts address the future supply, demand, and knowledge gaps of EU forests.
Their main findings indicate that while forest growth has increased over past decades, but future supply may decline due to climate-related changes in growing conditions and disturbances, and protection. Research needs include adaptive forest management, better biodiversity metrics, and ways to balance timber harvesting with ecosystem health.
The practice abstract also includes recommendations, such as supporting innovation in wood products, and investing in research and policy coordination to improve resilience, integrate biodiversity goals, and strengthen circular bioeconomy practices.
Since November 2025, our SRIA has been widely available — and widely downloaded. We’re now pleased to share that the SRIA Roadmap has been finalised!
The Roadmap sets out common priorities, technology readiness levels (TRLs), suitable funding instruments, and clear implementation timelines. It is the result of extensive stakeholder engagement, including regional and European consultations, numerous thematic workshops, and an online survey involving 266 experts across the community.
A warm thank you to all stakeholders who contributed their time and expertise to this co-creation process.
Imagine how many printed pages 35,015 review articles would fill! A new publication from our EUFORE work was led by the University of Copenhagen, taking stock of Europe’s forestry and forest-based sector by screening an impressive 35,015 reviews.
Their analysis reveals that:
Research is heavily focused on management, biodiversity, and climate change.
South-Eastern Europe is least represented, showing uneven contributions.
Structural biases shape topics, geography, and methods, which means we may only see part of the picture.
The authors also suggest that to strengthen the science-policy interface in forests & food systems, we need more than systematic reviews. Future research should:
Embrace diverse methods, including qualitative & practice-based evidence
Support underrepresented topics & regions, integrating local & Indigenous knowledge
Use AI tools for inclusivity, but keep manual quality checks
Suggested citation: M. Moure, C.-E. Pless, M. Lovrić, A. Giurca, O. Brendel, I. Zivojinovic, J. García-Jaca, J. Chalard, S. Krajter Ostoić, A. Sergent, D. Vuletić, N. Strange, Mapping of a field: A systematic review of reviews on forestry and the forest-based sector in Europe, Forest Policy and Economics, Volume 183, 2026, 103693,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103693.
Our third EU-level stakeholder event took place on 15 October, bringing together over 80 participants to witness the launch of the much-awaited Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for the European forest-based sector and to discuss its future uses.
After a short welcoming words by our project coordinator Alex Giurca (EFI) and project officer Salvatore Martire (European Commission), Luis Vivas-Alegre from DG AGRI set the scene by emphasising the importance of forests, forestry, and the forest-based sector in EU policymaking. He identified research and innovation as essential drivers for achieving the goals of the EU Forest Strategy. He also stressed that European Partnerships must be impact-oriented, ideally implementing a wide range of research and innovation activities covering conception, demonstration and validation, market support, as well as regulatory and societal uptake.
Vivas-Alegre highlighted that the Forest Partnership is set to further mobilise €233 million from Member States, Associated Countries, and the EU for coordinated research and innovation. Vivas-Alegre concluded that the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda is instrumental for the ambition of the Partnership.
EUFORE co-ordinator Alex Giurca, our keynote speaker Luis Vivas-Alegre from DG AGRI and our EC project officer Salvatore Martire.
Alex Giurca (EFI) and Jan Schmidt (FNR) presented the process of building the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for the European forest-based sector, highlighting the inclusive, multistakeholder co-creation process, the ongoing work on roadmap development, and establishing the forest sector’s open innovation ecosystem. While the SRIA cannot cover every possible topic, it highlights those areas where research and innovation are most needed to create a more sustainable forest-based sector. The SRIA reflects a shared understanding of the most urgent research needs, knowledge gaps, and system-level priorities for Europe’s forests.
Lessons learned and future relevance of SRIA
The co-creation process of the SRIA was also taken up during the panel discussion, moderated by Rach Colling (EFI). Our panellists offered their views on the challenges as well as lessons learned, their thoughts on its implementation and uptake as well as future relevance.
Oliver Brendel (INRAE), a leading member of the SRIA writing group, highlighted that the co-creation process was exceptional in both its breadth and depth of engagement. However, the extensive and diverse data collected also presented challenges. He emphasised that when working across disciplines and stakeholder groups, it is essential to clarify the meaning of key terms, such as “resilience”, which can carry different interpretations. To address this, workshops involving active stakeholders were organized. These workshops helped ensure that, in synthesising the data into broader SRIA themes, both inclusiveness and comprehensiveness were maintained.
Vanesa Baño (Innovawood) said that from an industry and innovation viewpoint, the main challenge in creating the SRIA was in finding balance and connecting priorities between the future research and innovation themes. In the complexity of the value chains, prioritising any one forest resource would also have an impact on the markets at the industry level.
David Butler Manning (Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity, BMLEH) brought in policymakers’ perspective, hoping that the SRIA would encourage more synergies with existing initiatives and networks, resulting in research that anticipates future developments. He also highlighted the need for continuous communication, so the SRIA becomes a tool in active use.
Alina Lehikoinen (Confederation of European Forest Owners, CEPF) confirmed that from a civil society perspective, it is important to consider how to include the voices of forest owners in future implementation. She also echoed Butler Manning’s view on making use of existing structures and networks, highlighting the importance of thinking locally, regionally and nationally.
We also asked our audience for their biggest expectations for the SRIA and the resulting word cloud highlighted cooperation and collaboration, funding, flexibility and communication.
Our panelists with Rach Colling (on the left): Vanesa Baño, Oliver Brendel, David Butler Manning and Alina Lehikoinen.
Tony Quinn and Mika Kallio connected the SRIA with the upcoming Forest Partnership.
Last on our agenda was an interactive session, Forest Fusion. Led by Carina Lemke (FNR), the session was designed to spark new connections and collaborative ideas among participants clustered around SRIA topics with a view toward the Forest Partnership’s future calls.
The much-awaited SRIA is now available. We launched in our third European level stakeholder event in Brussels on 15 October 2025. Compiling this document would not have been possible without the support of our dedicated stakeholders, who helped the co-creation process to be one of a kind in breadth and depth of engagement.
As 0ne of the main outputs of EUFORE is the Strategic Research andInnovation Agenda (SRIA) for the forest-based sector, developed through an inclusive, multistakeholder co-creation process. This SRIA provides a strategic compass for national and European research agendas. In particular, it will inform and be further developed by the forthcoming European Research and Innovation Partnership on Forests and Forestry for a Sustainable Future.
The SRIA outlines priority areas where scientific excellence and innovation can support evidence-based policymaking, enhance cross-sectoral collaboration, and enable Europe’s forest-based sector to deliver longterm ecological, economic, and social value.
The first part of the SRIA presents a new vision for European forest research and innovation, along with EUFORE’s co-creative approach to developing the SRIA. The second part outlines the four interconnected, cross-cutting research themes. The annex describes the methodology used by the EUFORE project for developing the SRIA.
During the World Conference on Timber Engineering – WCTE conference in June 2025, our project partners from InnovaWood presented two research papers developed within the EUFORE and WoodStock projects showing the trends in wood production and development of innovative wood products in the European timber construction sector.
📄 Vanesa Baño, Peter Romih, Jan-Willem Van De Kuilen, & Uwe Kies (2025). Trends in the development of innovative timber products on the construction market in Europe. 14th World Conference on Timber Engineering “Advancing Timber for the Future Built Environment” (WCTE 2025), Brisbane, Australia. https://zenodo.org/records/15804518
📄 Uwe Kies, Vanesa Baño, & Mireia Pecurul-Botines (2025, junio 24). European policies influencing wood supply and demand in scenarios until 2040. 14th World Conference on Timber Engineering “Advancing Timber for the Future Built Environment” (WCTE 2025), Brisbane, Australia. https://zenodo.org/records/15805939
During the European Forest Institute (EFI) Annual Conference 2025 in Prague, our coordinator Alex Giurca presented the upcoming Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) — and the unique co-creation journey behind it.
This process was a first of its kind in both breadth and depth of engagement: 🔹 Stakeholder survey 🔹 6 regional workshops 🔹 4 Thematic Working Groups 🔹 Online consultations (160+ stakeholders) 🔹 European-level workshops 🔹 Writing Group & alignment with SCAR/EC 🔹2000+ ideas 🔹160+ commenters 🔹All resulting in 30 pages of insights
