RFAs: Climate Change, Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Forest Products Program

Goals

• The program shall contribute to a change of perspective in sustainable forest management and in the use and value of forests.
• The envisaged change of perspective shall be solution-oriented and based on an interaction between scientists and practitioners.
• The program shall contribute to the integration of evidence based science into forestry practice.
• Financial innovation and improved framework conditions should provide leverage for the implementation of sustainable forest management, resulting in forests that can conserve biodiversity, act as a carbon sink and supply forest products.
• The program contributes towards “maintaining and fostering the stability of ecosystems” worldwide, as the statutes of Velux Stiftung claim.

Thematic Areas

• Innovative and integrative sustainable forest management to develop and provide solutions for adapting to or mitigating climate change, promoting biodiversity, providing resilient ecosystems services and supplying sustainable forest products.
• Incentives or tools for action and behavioural change towards sustainable forest management by transforming theoretical and abstract values of forest products and services.

Funding Information

• Scale of funding: Up to max. CHF 100000 per year.
• Duration of the projects: 1 to max. 4 years.

Uses of the Fund

• Salaries
• Consumables
• Equipment
• Travel
• Knowledge transfer (workshop organisation, communication to stakeholders, conference participation, etc.)
• Stakeholder engagement (coordination of stakeholder engagement, stakeholder engagement activities, remuneration of stakeholders where applicable and justified)

Eligible Projects

• Research projects: Innovative, novel, outside-of-the-box research which can show a high potential for change in forestry practice. Projects need to be participatory (= including stakeholders) and can have an interdisciplinary approach to define the research questions or to conduct the research. 10% of the budget needs to spend for knowledge transfer and the proposed approach should be of general interest. Local scale projects have a lower priority.
• Science-practice projects: Science-practice projects aim to facilitate collaboration between researchers and practitioners to improve accessibility and comprehensibility of specified forest management findings relevant to stakeholders. Dialogue, knowledge exchange and co-production should lead to deliverables such as tools and resources or communication products. Applications must demonstrate the commitment of the collaborating parties and the continuity of the approach.

Ineligible Projects

• Projects Excluded from the Call:
  • Research projects with a main focus on implementation or community development without a clear science component are excluded from the call.
  • Further, small case studies with limited generality and projects addressing urban forestry will not be considered.

Eligibility Criteria

• General eligibility:
  • The general eligibility and exclusion criteria for funding by Velux Stiftung apply.
  • Research projects with a main focus on implementation or community development without a clear science component are excluded from the call. Further, small case studies with limited generality and projects addressing urban forestry will not be considered.
  • An organisation or institution (e.g., a university) can only submit a maximum of two applications per call (in the role as institution of the PI or co-PI), otherwise all applications will be excluded. PIs should contact their institution’s Grants Office well in advance of submission so that the Grants Office can coordinate submissions from the same institution.
  • The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for ensuring compliance with any internal approval processes required by their institution for submitting research funding proposals. This includes confirming that the institution agrees to the general funding terms of the foundation.
  • Note that applications which do not meet all the requirements can be rejected without further explanation.
• Partnerships:
  • An application requires at least two project partners (PI and co-PI) who need to be from different institutions. One partner needs to be from an academic research institution. Other partners or collaborators can be non-academic stakeholders, e.g., forest owners or practitioner associations, (non-)governmental organizations, or consulting agencies.
  • While they support research worldwide, they welcome transboundary partnership applications with one partner from an OECD country.
• Roles in Project Management:
  • The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for directing the project. The PI needs to be a permanent employee and act in a legally binding way on behalf of his/her/their organisational unit, which has to be a legal accountable entity.
  • The PI’s institution must agree to manage the grant and needs to be tax-exempted as well as eligible to receive funding from a Swiss foundation.
  • At least the PI or one co-PI has to be an established (R3) or leading (R4) researcher in a field relevant to the project goals (according to the European research profiles descriptors).
  • The co-PI(s) is/are key personnel who is/are essential to the project and will be involved in project management. The number of co-PIs is limited to three persons. Co-PIs and their organisations can request part of the budget. However, the approved amount will only be paid out to the PI’s organisation.
  • Collaborators are persons you are consulting with, who deliver input or who are significantly involved in the planned knowledge transfer or exchange activities. The number of collabo- rators is not limited.

For more information, visit Velux Stiftung.