The megatrends are clear: by 2050, 84% of the European population will live in urban areas, while air pollution and climate change will continue to harm the health of European citizens. Despite minor improvements, pollution levels, that regularly exceed the European Union (EU) limits, and heatwaves, endanger the lives of young and elderly people. Urban forests are effective Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) that help mitigate the effects of climate change while improving air quality, urban temperature and lifestyle of modern cities. Main global cities are setting challenging urban reforestation targets while struggling to face related costs and citizens engagement to meet current changing and future needs. On the other hand, urban planning and forestry sciences have failed to provide interdisciplinary training to engage with innovative public-private urban forestry (UF) initiatives and trends. The UFOREST Alliance aims at promoting Europe’s innovation capacity among universities, cities and businesses to deliver a new approach to UF. It will do so by:• facilitating the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge among universities, local authorities, and business coming from 4 key interdisciplinary approaches that often are not cooperating: urban landscape planning, forest ecology, socio-economics and, information and communication technologies;• promoting a new, innovative and multidisciplinary global blended training course on UF for both students and professionals;• stimulating entrepreneurial attitude of students, researchers and professionals to provide public and private sectors with innovative and cost-effective UF solutions. The project will focus on Italy, Spain, Romania, Ireland, Netherlands and Canada. Results will have a strong EU-global dimension and transferability potential, capitalizing on existing national and international networks and through the partnership with the European Forestry Institute, a leading European networking and research instituti
To foster the knowledge triangle in the field of UF by enhancing interdisciplinary connections among innovation, research and academia and facilitate the dissemination of best practices in Urban Forestry and NbS;To foster the innovation capacity and the entrepreneurial attitudes in UF sector among PhDs,MSc students, researchers, professors but also among practitioners;Increasing the capacity of different actors to support EU cities in mainstreaming and implementing successful UF solutions;
12 Partner with different geographical origin and backgrounds: businesses, universities, public organizations, research centres, worked together approaching every task from different point of view. This collaboration facilitates knowledge sharing, innovative ideas, and cross-sectoral solutions, fostering a rich environment for learning and growth. Moreover, the European dimension of the project gave greater officiality, scope and relevance to the results achieved.
<< Background >> 12 Partner with different geographical origin and backgrounds: businesses, universities, public organizations, research centres, worked together approaching every task from different point of view. This collaboration facilitates knowledge sharing, innovative ideas, and cross-sectoral solutions, fostering a rich environment for learning and growth. Moreover, the European dimension of the project gave greater officiality, scope and relevance to the results achieved. << Objectives >> To foster the knowledge triangle in the field of UF by enhancing interdisciplinary connections among innovation, research and academia and facilitate the dissemination of best practices in Urban Forestry and NbS;To foster the innovation capacity and the entrepreneurial attitudes in UF sector among PhDs,MSc students, researchers, professors but also among practitioners;Increasing the capacity of different actors to support EU cities in mainstreaming and implementing successful UF solutions; << Implementation >> The consortium managed to create a strong alliance. Work plan and roles were respected, all partners which lead a WP or a single task worked hard contributing to the achievement of objectives and results. Partners who were not leaders of any WP proactively contributed to the achievement of the common objectives by providing knowledge and content for the news to be published on the project web pages, supporting the universities involved in the on-line courses, and contributed in the dissemination << Results >> All scheduled deliveries were achieved with great satisfaction from all the partners. Among the most important and more concrete results:- 3 reports - 20 facsheets- the creation of a high quality e-learning course - 4 technical workshps for practitioners- the implementation of the specialization school - the planting campaign which took lot of our efforts, has been another real big challenge for the entire consortium