When preparing forest-related policies, the multilevel and multi-stakeholder governance make it challenging to foresee their economic, social and environmental impacts. To coordinate and streamline the development and implementation of forest-related policy targets and measures at different levels and sectors, new means for policy analyses should be developed. Based on the recent advances in sociology, policy science, economics, and quantitative modelling this Action aims: i) to analyse how different forest-related targets have been and could be implemented at supranational, national and sub-national level; ii) to enhance the use of models for integrated policy analysis; and iii) to develop new methodologies and related good practices for the orchestration of policy modelling and analyses. COST will facilitate multinational, transdisciplinary collaboration between sociologists, policy scientists, economists and modellers as well as active interaction with various stakeholders. Especially in the context of Europe 2020, post-2013 Rural Development Policy and other relevant policies, the Action will support the coherence of policy targets and efficiency of policy measures. The generated new knowledge can be used by European policy and decision makers to adjust forest-related policies and their implementation to the requirements of multilevel and multi-stakeholder governance.
forest-related policies - multilevel and multi-stakeholder governance - policy support - policy modelling - integrated policy analysis
