Information note - No. 63 

The Forestry Research Co-ordination Committee met on 16 November 2004 at Cromwell House, London.

Expenditure on forestry and tree-related research

Total expenditure on forestry and tree-related research in the UK, collated by FRCC, amounted to c. £27.8 Million in the year ending March 2004 (Table 1).  This represents a small increase on the 02/03 expenditure, and an amount which is very similar in real terms to the 2001/02 expenditure (£27.2 Million in £s 03/04).  The number of organisations who contribute to the database has remained similar in recent years and, at 515 in 03/04, so has the total number of projects included.  The data show year to year variation for a number of reasons including differences in the year to year spend of the various funding organisations (Table 2) reflecting changes in research priorities, and a trend in recent years for greater integration of forestry with rural affairs, social and environmental issues.  This trend has resulted in a broader definition of projects being entered onto the database and this is the main reason for the small increase of expenditure during 03/04 relative to 02/03.

The broadly similar total expenditure in the last four years results from the switch of funding from traditionally defined forestry work (silviculture, etc) to those more integrated studies which include forestry and woodland as a component of social and landscape scale work.  The broader definition of forestry research has also led to a change in the subject areas into which FRCC projects are classified (Table 3).  However, changes in the priorities of forestry research are better reflected in the keyword analysis of the database (Table 4).  

Over recent years, more work has been done on biodiversity and conservation.  This trend has continued during 03/04 but with more projects showing Habitats, Socio-economics and Landscape ecology as keywords.  Dissemination has come in as one of the top-ten keywords and projects concerning Climate change and Timber properties are still well represented.  For the first time those who submitted data were asked to indicate the main geographical relevance of projects.  This showed that of the 515 projects entered onto the database 203 were identified as having global relevance, 53 were European and the rest were principally of country interest (England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland).

Table 1
Total expenditure on forestry research by FRCC organisation over the last 10 years.
Annual costs are shown as actual expenditure in the year and also adjusted to £s 03/04.
The numbers of organisations who submitted data in each year are also shown.

Table 2
Estimated expenditure on forestry research by FRCC member organisations in the last four years
(£K, actual expenditure in the year).

AGRICS:	Includes – Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food (MAFF), Scottish Office Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department (SOAEFD), Welsh Office Agriculture Department (WOAD), and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Northern Ireland (DARDNI).
Defra:	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
DETR & EA:	Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and the Environment Agency.
DFID:	Department for International Development.
DTI:	Department of Trade and Industry.
FC:	Forestry Commission.
CON:	Nature conservation bodies: Countryside Agency, English Nature & Scottish Natural Heritage.
NERC:	Natural Environment Research Council.
BBSRC:	Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
SEERAD:	Scottish Executive Environment & Rural Affairs Department.
SFIC:	Scottish Forestry Industries Cluster.
SFT:	Scottish Forestry Trust.
EU:	European Union.
OTHERS:	Many other sponsoring organisations inc. other universities, ETSU, ESRC, Commercial, etc.

Table 3
Estimates of costs by subject area for 00/01, 01/02, 02/03 and 03/04
(£000s in £s 00/01, 01/02, 02/03 and 03/04).

	Year
Subject Area	2001	2002	2003	2004
Tropical	4674	5360	2400	6562
Tree Biology	834	1174	723	1053
Tree Improvement & Genomics	2294	2143	1608	1692
Expansion (New Planting)	108	660	604	295
Protection	4161	3326	3217	3229
Forest Resources & Silviculture	6625	5619	5846	5873
Arboricultural	123	97	60	158
Wood Utilisation and Processing	2060	1602	2784	1518
Environmental Interactions	4604	3289	3614	4145
Recreation & Community Participation	258	388	457	384
Conservation & Biodiversity	1369	1213	2108	5208

Table 4
Costs by main keyword (£000s in £s 00/01, 01/02, 02/03 and 03/04).
Note projects have a number of keywords so that project costs may be shown more than once.

EU/ESF COST Technical Committee on Forests and Forest Products

COST – the European Co-operation in the field of Science and Technical Research – is the oldest and most widespread system for research networking in Europe.  Thirty four Member States participate and Actions are organised within 13 domains.

The mission of COST is to strengthen Europe in scientific and technical research through the support of European co-operation and interaction between European researchers.  The funds provided by COST support the co-ordination costs of the research networks (Actions) with the research funding for the network participants being a national responsibility.  A committee of senior officials is provided by the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU. 

There are 13 technical committees of which the Technical Committee on Forests and Forest Products is one, which carry out the peer review of new proposals and the quality control of established COST actions.  The Forests and Forest Products Technical Committee is chaired by Yves Birot of France (ex. INRA Forestry Director).  UK representatives are Tony Bravery (Director, BRE), Graham Moore (pulping/processing) and Peter Freer-Smith (Forest Research).

Each COST Action has a Senior Officer appointed to it from the COST secretariat (in Brussels).  Actions usually last 4-5 years and have budgets of c. €80,000 per year to support the networking activities.  Each requires a minimum of 5 Member States to participate and participating countries provide 1 to 3 members of a Management Committee.

All COST Actions (closed and active) are listed with details on the CORDIS website (cost.cordis.lu).  FRCC discussed COST, expressed support for the approach and the 21 current Forests and Forest Products Actions.

Review of the FC Science and Innovation Strategy

FC Research Strategy Management Board has been established under the chairmanship of Dr P Henton.  This Board will take account of the research requirements of the three countries and of Northern Ireland and will produce a Science and Innovation Strategy for Britain.  Following approval by the FC Executive Board and Board of Commissioners, the new Strategy will be presented to Forestry Ministers in early 2005.  The results of the stakeholder consultations which have been undertaken suggest that the new Strategy will place greater emphasis on social research, knowledge transfer and the formation of research and research/industry partnerships.

The next meeting of the FRCC will be in November 2005.  Further details of FRCC’s work are available on this website.

April 2005