ForestValue2 is a European network of public funding organisations supporting and increasing coordination and alignment of national and regional funding programmes on research and innovation related to forest-based bioeconomy to strengthen the European Research Area and to support the European Green Deal.

ForestValue2 (Horizon Europe GA no. 101094340) runs from January 2023 until December 2027 and brings together 14 owners and managers of national and regional RDI programmes in 11 Member States of the European Union – FI, IE, DE, ES, SI, LV, PL, SK, IT, EE, RO – and in one Associated Country (NO) with an aim to coordinate national and regional R&I programmes by pooling national resources and contributing to the alignment of national research and innovation policies. One of the main objectives is implementation of a joint call(s), resulting in the funding of transnational collaborative R&I projects.

Six of the partners come from the widening countries, whilst at the same time representing the BIOEAST Initiative. ForestValue2 will address “improving access to excellence” through a portfolio of actions that aim at building up R&I capacities especially in EU13 and Ukraine and Republic of Moldova, to enable them to advance to the competitive edge at European and international level.

The preceding project, H2020 ERA-NET Cofund Action ForestValue (Horizon 2020 GA no. 773324) run from October 2017 to March 2023. For more information, please see Cordis.

Background

ForestValue builds on the success of three forest-based ERA-NETs: WoodWisdom-Net (Networking and Integration of National Programmes in the Area of Wood Material Science and Engineering; running in three different phases 2004-2017: WoodWisdom-Net, WoodWisdom-Net 2, WoodWisdom-Net+), SUMFOREST  (Tackling the challenges in sustainable and multifunctional forestry through enhanced research coordination for policy decisions, 2014-2017) and FORESTERRA (Enhancing forest research in the Mediterranean through improved coordination and integration, 2012-2015).

In total, these three ERA-NETs behind ForestValue have had national investments of around 67 MEUR to a variety of trans-national co-funded RDI projects (64 funded projects), the total volume of these projects being around 86 MEUR. After two more joint calls launched under the ForestValue ERA-NET Cofund, the total volume of national investments has grown with another 36 MEUR, meaning that since the first ERA-NET in 2004 the total national investments into the research of forest-based bioeconomy through these networks of national funders are more than 100 MEUR.

The Monograph publication ‘From wood wisdom to wood values and beyond’ collects information on the impacts achieved in the framework of the above ERA-Net projects that have taken place over the past two decades under the EU Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation funding.