Giving Europe a unified forest R&I voice
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.
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.
Turning the SRIA into action
Next, we looked more into the future of turning the SRIA into action as Tony Quinn (Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, DAFM) and Mika Kallio (Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, MMM) connected the SRIA with the upcoming Forest Partnership. They also pointed out that the SRIA has an effect beyond the Partnership as it embeds foresight and stakeholder voices, builds coherence across fragmented efforts and gives Europe a unified forest R&I voice.
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.