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.

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

Research projects: Innovative, novel, outside-of-the-box research that has a high potential to change forestry practice. The project should aim to address topics of broad interest and employ a participatory approach that includes stakeholders. It can also be interdisciplinary. Additionally, it is mandatory to allocate 10% of the budget for knowledge transfer.

Science-practice projects: Science-practice projects aim to facilitate collaboration between researchers and practitioners to improve accessibility and comprehensibility of specified forest management findings relevant to stakeholders. These projects should facilitate dialogue, knowledge exchange or co-production resulting in deliverables such as tools and resources or communication products. Applications must demonstrate the commitment of the collaborating parties and the continuity 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.

Next deadline: 22 September 2025 at 23:59 CEST, with a final decision on proposals in March 2026. To get more information, please visit the website from IUFRO https://www.iufro.org/other-announcements/velux-stiftung-funding-program-in-forestry.