Velux Stiftung | Forestry research program

Velux Stiftung was founded in 1980 by Villum Kann Rasmussen, a Danish engineer. He developed a novel window construction that could be installed in sloping roofs, which he named “VELUX” (“Ve” for ventilation, and “Lux” for light).

In 2022, the Velux Stiftung launches its new Forestry program on climate change, biodiversity and forest products. A yearly budget of CHF 2 million will be dedicated to the program. One call for proposals will be published every year from 2022 to 2026.

Thematic focus:

• Trade-offs and synergies of sustainable forest management to develop and provide solutions for mitigating climate change, promoting biodiversity, providing resilient ecosystems services while supplying sustainable timber.
• Transformation of theoretical and abstract values of forest products and services into incentives for action and behavioural change.
• Projects dealing with all types of forests: boreal, temperate, tropical and subtropical forests.
• Proposals with the main focus on implementation or community development are excluded from the call and will not be considered.

• Research projects: Innovative, interdisciplinary, implementation or transfer-oriented research projects with a high potential to foster change in practice.
• Science-practice networks: Existing or novel interdisciplinary science-practice networks to develop or implement the mentioned thematic focus.

• Knowledge transfer
• Stakeholder involvement
• Interdisciplinarity
• Local context

• Both individual researchers and research groups can apply.
• At least one applicant (e.g. professor, group leader) must be a permanent employee of a university or other permanent research entity anywhere in the world.
• Other partners can be forest owners, practitioners, consulting or governmental agencies, etc.

• Research staff costs (personnel costs, doctoral students, teaching replacement).
• Associated research costs (e.g. consumables, conference, travel, publication).
• Equipment costs may be included if duly justified.
• Knowledge transfer (at least 10% of the funding)
• Does NOT cover overheads nor social insurances.

• Submission: 19 September 2022
• Decision: March 2023

• Submit the research proposal, the detailed budget the Data Protection Policy consent of each co-PI and CVs through the online submission portal (link will be available by August 2022 here). Please check the application factsheet for more details. Additional documents from the Velux Stiftung can be found here.
• If you are unsure about the fit of your project idea to the scope of the call, please send an abstract at [email protected].