FORESTT-HUB

Forests are at the heart of historical challenges (wood production, renewal of forest heritage, etc.) that are now intertwined with environmental, economic, and social issues in the context of climate change and ecological transition. In this setting, the main objective of the FORESTT-HUB / Think & Do Tank is to integrate and facilitate dialogue between knowledge from various disciplines and stakeholders while providing scientific analysis to inform debates and policies related to forests. Its specific objectives are as follows :

• Establish a dialogue between science and practice to develop prospective scenarios;
• Employ interdisciplinary approaches to examine the scientific, technical, and social dimensions of forest-related issues;
• Provide a scientific foundation to address questions raised by stakeholders in the forestry sector, thereby accelerating the transfer of knowledge from research to forestry operations;
• Develop a new generation of high-level professionals, managers, technicians, engineers, researchers, and educators equipped to meet societal expectations for responsible forest management.

The Hub addresses the four scientific challenges of the PEPR FORESTT in a transversal manner. It serves as an integrative hub linking the outcomes and knowledge produced in other PEPR projects while conducting original research on cross-cutting issues.

• To identify and characterise ongoing changes and propose scenarios for future developments, the Hub will carry out foresight studies (WP1). These foresight activities will cover various topics and operate at different scales, including the local scale of territories. They will also draw upon retrospective analyses.
• A "Living Labs" approach will be implemented to support and stimulate forest innovation (WP2). Building on several pilot Living Labs, an analytical framework will be developed, and a network of Living Labs will be established. Tailored support will be provided to these Living Labs.
• Socio-ecological change will be studied from theoretical, conceptual, and practical perspectives (WP3). Thus, the central concept of the socio-ecological system will be made available to all PEPR projects.
• Finally, the Hub will support the transformation of educational spaces and the creation of interdisciplinary training programmes (WP4). A network for sharing pedagogical experiences and interdisciplinary training practices will be established.

These four work packages will be interconnected to share common activities, such as training sessions, foresight studies within Living Labs, fostering an understanding of foresight, and reflective analyses of research practices. Additionally, a platform for stakeholder dialogue will be created to facilitate networking and integrate stakeholder contributions into the Hub.

FORESTT-HUB is supported by a consortium of laboratories and researchers with extensive experience in interdisciplinary research on forest socio-ecosystems. The consortium brings together strong expertise in social sciences and forest management sciences (UFR G-ENV, MRM - Montpellier Management Research, and UMR SILVA affiliated with AgroParisTech), education sciences (UMR EFTS), sociology, anthropology, and history (UMR CEMS), society-environment interactions (UMR GEODE), diachronic archaeology and history (UMR TRACES), history, geography, and ecology (UMR EDYSAN), ecology and evolution interfacing with social sciences (UMR CESCO), systems engineering (ERPI), environmental geography (MFO), and science-policy interfaces (GIP Ecofor).