Mission statement

Rationale
The partners are research organizations and universities actively engaged in forest and landscape research located in the heart of Western Europe, where forests and associated ecosystems form an important component of the landscape in lowlands and mountains. The partners face common challenges: changes in management practices, increase of the forest areas and the growing stocks, climate change and other global changes, and the related need to understand, assess and record these ongoing changes and their impacts, to predict future evolution scenarios, to design new sustainable management options, and to assess the associated risks.

The partners share these common areas of interest and develop complementary skills in higher education and research related to forests and landscapes, ecology and management. This includes existing and emerging fields of research with special emphasis on interdisciplinary studies.

The parties are already engaged in close co-operation. With regard to the challenges to be faced at a European level, and the need to co-ordinate and intensify education and research efforts in these areas, the parties agree to create the “NFZ.Forestnet” (Nancy-Freiburg-Zürich Forest network); with the aim of increasing scientific excellence and visibility and to attract scientists and especially young researchers from all over Europe, thus contributing to the creation and structure of the European Research Area.


Mission statement
Given this framework of tight collaborations at local level, the main objectives of the “NFZ.Forestnet” shall be: joint scientific and education efforts and coordination of research and teaching activities, research through an active networking, encouraging and supporting scientific exchanges and research collaborations between the members of the network and other institutions in the EU and beyond, in order to gain more scientific excellence and to improve the visibility of the “NFZ.Forestnet”.


Intended collaborative activities
To this end, the parties have agreed to co-operate in order to undertake or to develop inter-alia the following actions:
-Training at Master and Doctoral level
-Summer Universities or Schools
-Conferences
-Staff and student exchange
-Common courses
-Joint research projects
-Joint proposals for the instruments foreseen in the framework research programs of the EU or other programs of the EU (eg. Interreg)
-Promotion of coordinated international research and teaching cooperation beyond the network.