What Topics Does the European Forest Institute Focus On?

Updated

The European Forest Institute (EFI) concentrates on six connected topic areas: resilient forests, sustainable economy, inclusive governance, co-created solutions, forests and people, and cities. These are the themes EFI presents as its "topics in focus," and they frame how it connects science, policy, practice, and society around forests. The topics are useful as a map of where EFI's research, events, and publications sit — not as a list of separate departments.

The six topics in focus

Topic What EFI says it covers
Resilient forests Strengthening the adaptability and long-term resilience of forest landscapes
Sustainable economy Smart and circular forest-based solutions that support prosperity while safeguarding ecosystems
Inclusive governance Fair, transparent, and adaptive forest governance across sectors, regions, and levels
Co-created solutions Building trust and solutions through dialogue, mutual learning, and collaboration between science, policy, and society
Forests and people The role of forests in culture, livelihoods, health, wellbeing, and community development
Cities Urban and peri-urban forests and trees for healthier, greener, and more resilient cities

How the topics relate to each other

The six areas overlap rather than compete. A single piece of work can sit under more than one heading — for example, a study on how tree species respond to repeated hot and dry summers is filed under resilient forests, while a wood material-flow tool is filed under sustainable economy. The "co-created solutions" topic is less a subject than a method: it describes EFI's stated approach of working across science, policy, and society rather than studying forests in isolation.

What sits under each topic: examples from EFI's recent output

EFI's "Recently published" section shows how the topics translate into actual work:

  • Resilient forests — a journal article on how wood type and related functional traits influence tree responses to recurring stem dehydration across European forests; a journal article drawing interdisciplinary lessons from 30 years of rewilding on climate resilience and biodiversity.
  • Sustainable economy — aiphoria, described as an open-source Python package for dynamic material flow analysis (DMFA) of wood and carbon stock analysis.
  • Forests and people — a blog post in which journalists, scientists, and forest experts explore how different perspectives shape decisions on forests.
  • Cross-cutting — EFI's Annual Report 2025, covering its achievements, impact, partnerships, and milestones.

News items follow the same pattern: a technical workshop on making geospatial data more reliable and transparent for EUDR due diligence, and CircHive's biodiversity footprinting guidance and decision tree, both fall under the sustainable economy and governance-adjacent work.

Using the topics to find what you need

If you arrive at efi.int with a specific interest, the topic labels are the fastest filter:

  1. Start from your subject, not the organisation. If your question is about how forests adapt to drought and disturbance, go to resilient forests. If it is about wood-based products, circularity, or measuring environmental impact, go to sustainable economy.
  2. Check governance if your question is about rules and decisions. Inclusive governance covers fairness, transparency, and adaptiveness across sectors and levels — the right entry point for policy-process questions rather than ecological ones.
  3. Use forests and people or cities for social and urban questions. These cover culture, livelihoods, health, wellbeing, and community development, and urban/peri-urban trees respectively.
  4. Read the publication type. EFI labels items as journal articles, reports, news stories, or blog posts. A journal article is peer-reviewed research; a report is typically an organisational or project output; news and blog posts are shorter and often describe events or perspectives.

Common sticking points

  • The topics are broad by design. "Sustainable economy" spans everything from a Python package for wood flow analysis to biodiversity footprinting guidance. Expect to browse rather than find one tidy page per subject.
  • Some work is project-branded. Names such as CircHive appear in EFI's news without a separate topic label, so searching by project name can be more effective than browsing by topic.
  • Not everything is a research paper. If you need citable science, filter for journal articles; if you need context or practical guidance, reports and blog posts may be more directly useful.

What this means in practice

EFI's focus is best understood as a set of lenses on one question — how forests, people, and policy interact — rather than six separate programmes. For a reader deciding where to start, the practical rule is: pick the topic closest to your question, then check whether the item you find is research, a report, or a news piece, since that determines how much detail and how much verification it offers.