FORESTERRA's strategic aim
FORESTERRA is an ERA-NET Project within the EU's 7th Framework Programme, with a duration of four years and a budget of almost two million Euros. FORESTERRA's objective is to improve the coordination and cooperation in Mediterranean forest research among different entities from Europe and North Africa and to open possibilities for greater scientific cooperation with other Mediterranean Climate Areas.
What is an ERA-NET?
An ERA-NET is a coordination activity funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme. National and regional ministries and funding organizations can participate in ERA-NET projects. The main objective of an ERA-NET is to provide a framework to network and mutually open national or regional research programmes, leading to concrete cooperative undertakings such as the development and implementation of joint transnational calls.
The ERA-NET activity complements the EU research programmes. The EU Commission funds the networking activities and the management of the joint calls. However, the funding of the research activities resulting from the ERA-NET calls comes from the budgets of the regional and national partners involved in the ERA-NET.
Mediterranean forests provide important goods and services to those who live in and around them. However, the health of these ecosystems is under threat by many factors such as rapidly changing climate and land use. FORESTERRA aims to address the fragmentation and isolation that impede Mediterranean forest research to enable the research community to provide the best scientific input to the solutions that will be necessary to the challenges that these forests and their users face.
FORESTERRA’s implementation will be organized into four main steps, plus an “upscaling” to address Mediterranean-type forest issues on a global scale:
- Mapping and information exchange to improve mutual knowledge of existing programmes and capacities
- Defining common strategic activities to reduce the fragmentation of the research community, avoiding overlaps and promoting synergies
- Implementation of joint activities to consolidate partnerships and develop common schemes for programme evaluation, as well as for mutual opening of facilities
- Calls for joint research projects to maximise the network’s research impact
Upscaling: Exchanging information on existing programmes with other Mediterranean Climate Areas, such as California, Chile, South Africa and Australia, in order to identify common strategic activities and scientific priorities of mutual interest.
Participants
The FORESTERRA project is coordinated by Spain’s Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and has participants from twelve countries (France, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Croatia, Greece, Algeria, Portugal, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Italy and Spain) as well as two international institutions, EFI and CIHEAM.
More information:
www.foresterra.eu
