Forestry

Nearly one third of the planet’s land surface is covered with forests, and these need to fulfil many purposes: They provide society with goods such as timber, food and medicine. Forests play a crucial role in mitigating climate change and can protect biodiversity, soil and water quality as well as serve as places where people can enjoy nature. Wood has a lower environmental impact than many alternative materials and the increasing use of forest products can reduce the carbon footprint.

With the funding program in forestry, the foundation wants to contribute to this challenge by supporting solution-oriented research based on an interaction between science and practitioners.

The forestry program at a glance

Incorporating practice into research and using research to inform practice is essential to change and progress. Therefore, support is available for

Research projects:

Innovative, novel, outside-of-the-box research that has a high potential to change forestry practice. Projects need to be participatory (including stakeholders) and can have an interdisciplinary approach. 10% of the budget needs to be spent for knowledge transfer and the proposed approach should be scalable to different contexts/regions.

Science-practice projects:

Specific science-practice projects facilitating collaboration: communication, dialogue and knowledge exchange to promote mutual understanding as well as coproduction between researchers and practitioners working together to develop research questions or design studies. Applications must demonstrate the commitment of the collaborating parties and the sustainability of the approach.

Program goals:

The overall objective of the funding program is to improve sustainable forest management that addresses the pressing problems of climate change and biodiversity loss as well as society’s need for forest products.

– The program shall contribute to a change of perspective in sustainable forest management and in the use and value of forests.

– The program shall contribute to the integration of evidence-based science into forestry practice.

– Financial innovation and improved framework conditions should provide leverage for the implementation of sustainable forest management, resulting in forests that can conserve biodiversity, act as a carbon sink and supply forest products.

Thematic focus:

– Innovative and integrative sustainable forest management to develop and provide solutions for adapting to or mitigating climate change, promoting biodiversity, providing resilient ecosystems services and supplying sustainable forest products.

– Incentives or tools for action and behavioural change towards sustainable forest management by transforming theoretical and abstract values of forest products and services.

Duration of program:

• 2022 – 2026
• One specific call for proposals every year

Next deadline:

• 23 September 2024, with a final decision on proposals in March 2025

The call for proposals:

• The details of the call 2024 can be viewed here.

Selection procedure:

All applications go through a formal screening by the foundation management. The selection of the applications that will be presented to the board is performed by a scientific committee according to our funding criteria. The foundation board of Velux Stiftung will take the final funding decision. More information is available on our page about the selection procedure.

The priority is set on research addressing neglected issues whose results have a high potential to contribute to change. You can find examples of previously approved projects below or on this list.

If you are unsure about the fit of your application to the scope of the call after reading the call for proposals, please send an abstract to info@veluxstiftung.ch and state the reasons why you think your project fits the call.