Proposals will:

• Contribute to a better understanding of favourable management practices for both soil and vegetation, within-species genetic diversity upon, species selection and rotations to enhance and climate-proof forest carbon stocks and sinks, while considering the broad range of other forest values and ecosystem services.
• Consider the dynamics of the carbon stored in the different pools (above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, deadwood, litter, soil organic carbon fractions, harvested wood products) under different forest management regimes and at different scales to identify possible adaptations to current European models of sustainable forest management, so that the forest-based sector can optimise climate action, and to facilitate the monitoring and reporting of GHG emissions.
• Improve the integration of European forests, including forest practices, in global and regional climate modelling.
• Contribute to progress in the certification and authenticity verification of carbon removals that are nature-based or through the forest biomass used for longer-lived and higher-substitution products.
• Design and monitor the efficacy of forest-based mitigation plans, combining the growing potential of satellite-based remote sensing with surface monitoring.
• Analyse socio-economic aspects of forest-based mitigation strategies, including forest managers’ and users’ perception and factors influencing their decision making such as consumer choices, sectorial integration and international/domestic competition.
• Improve knowledge on the environmental integrity, the social acceptability and the economic feasibility of forest-based mitigation actions such as afforestation, reforestation, forest restoration, forest protection, sustainable forest management and enhanced wood harvest and use, especially for long-lived products.