Work Packages

TRANSFORMIT (Transforming Forest Management for multiple ecosystem services and nature conservation via the Integrative approach) is a €6.9 million project funded by the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme.

WP1 – Project Management

Lead: European Forest Institute

The main objective of WP1 is to lead an effective and coordinated development of the work programme with smooth cooperation between partners to secure and maximize impact. More specifically, WP1 will:

implement and maintain efficient management structures and procedures for successful steering of the project at the strategic and operational levels.
monitor progress and control the quality of the project along the work plan and its milestones and deliverables, manage risks, correcting course, anticipating and resolving problems, and ensuring timely and precise reporting.
enable effective communication and proper decision-making within the consortium.

WP2 – Stakeholder Engagement, Dissemination and Communications

Lead: European Forest Institute

This WP aims to develop efficient and sustainable stakeholder engagement and tailormade communication and dissemination approaches, responding to the needs of stakeholders and targeted audiences. Our objectives are:

to build a comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement Strategy, aiming at facilitating knowledge exchange and mutual learning across professions, disciplines, countries and forest management types.
to initiate a “Stakeholder Engagement Platform” through innovative events encouraging stakeholder participation and use of attractive communication channels targeted at stakeholders’ needs.

WP3 – Integrative Forest Management in Europe

Leads: University of Freiburg & Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

This WP will analyse the current situation of IFM in Europe and develop approaches to facilitate its future development, performance and impact to achieve of the desired forest management outcomes and (EU/national) policy goals regarding ecosystem restoration and conservation of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and support of the bioeconomy. This entails:

a review and comparative analysis of IFM concepts applied in practice, complemented by a review of IFM performance in relation to environmental and socio-economic goals based on repeated inventories of IFM-practicing enterprises. This will provide the basis for a silvicultural information platform integrated into the IFM Knowledge Hub.
the creation of a supportive policy framework based on an analysis of key policy targets to identify cross- sectoral and cross-vertical policy (in)coherences between IFM and (and the current operationalization) existing policy/management approaches, incl. the identification of trade-offs and synergies. To support future development of IFM, we will also identify supportive and hindering governance factors.
the work will be carried out for Europe’s main forest ecosystems and IFM management regimes selected along biogeographical regions and according to specific challenges faced by IFM (with reference to WP4). Beyond Europe, WP3 will provide input to the synthesis (WP7) and serve as a basis and reality check for indicators and decision support tools developed in WP5 & WP6 and will complement the LLs (WP4).

WP4 – Living Labs

Leads: Croatian Forest Research Institute & Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research

This WP focusses on establishing TRANSFORMIT’s Network of Living Labs (LLs) as a central element of the project to both connect existing networks implementing IFM approaches and enable its upscaling and expanding to a larger scale. LLs are supplemented by Satellite Demonstration Areas (SDAs). The latter are selected from existing networks such as the Integrate Network, Pro Silva, or the Network for Sustainable Management and Resilience of Planted Forests. They will be mirroring and/or supplementary cases to LLs. This WP has the following objectives:

establish a network of seven LLs.
complement the Network of LLs with a network of Satellite Demonstration Areas (SDAs).
identify enabling and hindering factors for integrative forest management approaches in LLs.
ensure a streamlined data/information flow between all LLs, SDAs and WPs.

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences

WP5 – Synergies between IFM Indicators, Living Lab Inventory and Monitoring

Leads: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna & Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

To capture the current condition of IFM and evaluate its success/impact, this WP identifies potential indicators for IFM assessment, selects the key ones and will use them in the decision support tool (DST). WP5 objectives are:

collate suitable indicators to capture the current condition of IFM and to evaluate its success/impact with regards to biodiversity and ecosystem services while taking into account the different nature of the LLs, forest ecosystems, local stakeholders, communities and institutional conditions.
identify and select best suitable, feasible and easily comprehensible key indicators to assess the success of IFM.
develop data procedures for the identified IFM indicators and develop a feasible monitoring approach that serves the requirements of IFM implementation and forest management at the local scale and the reporting at national and EU-level scales to inform both policy makers and stakeholders.
collect and analyse the capabilities of the existing decision support tools (link to WP6) to serve the needs of forest owners and managers considering transition to IFM.

Luonnonvarakeskus (Natural Resources Institute Finland)

WP6 – Decision Support Tools for IFM

Leads: Luonnonvarakeskus (Natural Resources Institute Finland) & University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

This WP considers the potential of decision support tools (DSTs) for predicting the effects of IFM using models, methods and guidelines for screening, evaluating, and prioritizing management options. The selected DSTs implementing IFM models should be capable of supporting decision making and would be primarily computer-based. The WP6 work will be grounded on the information on forest related DSTs gathered in WP5, but the inclusion of new characteristics to them will be based on the needs emerging from IFM. The objectives of WP 6 are:

update existing carefully selected DSTs that allow decision makers to make informed decisions whether to implement IFM as their forest management strategy.
train practitioners in LLs to use the DSTs and the results they provide and prepare information material that allows for a continuous training for the use of DSTs even after project duration.
identify the effect of implementing IFM in different biogeographical regions of Europe using the input from the LLs and the Integrate Network conceptualized in WP3 for a European scenario (https://integratenetwork.org/).

WP7 – International Collaboration, Synthesis and Learning

Leads: Wageningen University & European Forest Institute

WP7 will bring together the project outcomes and insights on IFM, synthesise the work across the different WPs and make all relevant results accessible in the new “IFM Knowledge Hub” – an online platform gathering all relevant lessons learnt on IFM both from former projects and TRANSFORMIT. In all tasks, we will pay a special attention to stakeholders’ learning and support. Specifically, WP7 will:

establish a platform for learning and international exchange between Europe and other world regions on the development, application and potential uses of IFM.
identify key messages, drivers, synergies, trade-offs and risks related to IFM across Europe and deliver them in a synthesised way.
develop an IFM Educational module and material to be integrated into courses at universities, forestry colleges and into tertiary education.
derive policy recommendations based on the overall project synthesis.

WP8 – Participatory Learning, Dissemination and Exploitation

Leads: European Forest Institute & Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research

This WP aims to strongly engage in knowledge exchange and networking with a broad range of stakeholders and interest groups to maximise stakeholder support also on the operational level. WP8 aims at

providing and disseminating project outputs in an audience-centric way and via targeted events.
coordinating collaborative learning in LLs and facilitating targeted knowledge exchange in the Stakeholder Engagement Hub.