The seven Summer Schools, listed below, are offered by the partner research institutions of the tri-national forest research network, NFZ.forestnet, the local hosts of this Congress. They will take place in Switzerland, France and Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Some are scheduled before, and some after the congress. All summer schools are offered in the English language.
Summer School 2 - European Dendroecological Fieldweek
| Date: | 10.09.2017 – 17.09.2017 | |
| Organizers: | Kerstin Treydte, Research Group Dendrosciences, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland; Hans-Peter Kahle, Chair of Forest Growth and Dendroecology, Institute of Forest Sciences, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany; and Cyrille Rathgeber, Laboratoire d’Étude des Ressources Forêt-Bois, National Institute of Agricultural Research INRA, Nancy, France | |
| Instructors: | Kerstin Treydte, Hans-Peter Kahle, Cyrille Rathgeber, Willy Tegel, Alan Crivellaro, Ryszard Kaczka | |
| Contact: | Kerstin Treydte (treydte@wsl.ch) | |
| Location: | Chalet-Refuge Les Trois Fours, Vosges Mountains, France | |
| Target Group: | This course is developed for beginners, Master and PhD students as well as for more advanced scientists interested in tree-ring research. Participants should be willing to work in the field, the lab and at the computer. | |
| Participants: | limited to 16 | |
| Credit points: | Successful participants will be accredited with 2.5 ECTS points. | |
| Fee: | 450.00 € Fees cover costs of the field week material, accommodation and meals. |
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| Content: |  This summer school covers the full spectrum of dendrochronological issues, including dendroclimatology, dendroecology, dendrogeomorphology, dendroarcheology and wood anatomy, and fosters cross-disciplinary links. Each topic includes keynote lectures, fieldwork and data production/analysis in small groups, supervised by an advanced scientist. Participants will learn methods of field sampling, sample preparation, visual and statistical cross-dating, data production of tree-ring widths, blue reflectance, stable isotopes, cell size parameters, image analysis, statistical data analysis, and presentation of results. Participants and leading scientists will spend the whole week together, and there will be ample opportunity to learn, discuss and make new friends from all around the world. |
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| Program: | Day 1 (So): | Arrival, welcome, introduction |
| Day 2 (Mo): | Fieldwork | |
| Day 3 – 6 (Di – Fr): | Lectures, sample preparation and data production/analysis in groups, participants’ presentations | |
| Day 7 (Sa): | Final presentations of the results of each field week group, closing event | |
| Day 8 (So): | Departure | |
| Participants should bring with them: | Hiking boots, laptops and outdoor clothes for all weather conditions. Please note, there is no internet access at the venue. | |
Summer School 3 - Stable Isotopes in Forest Ecosystem Research
| Date: | 11.09.2017 – 15.09.2017 | |
| Organizer: | UMR EEF Inra-Université de Lorraine | |
| Instructors: | Daniel Epron, Nicolas Angeli | |
| Contact: | Daniel Epron (daniel.epron@inra.fr) | |
| Location: | Inra, Champenoux (near Nancy), France | |
| Target Group: | The course is open to all PhD students and early career scientists working on stable isotopes in all areas, not exclusively on trees or forests. | |
| Participants: | limited to 20 | |
| Fee: | No registration fees apply Food, accommodation and travel to Nancy must be covered by the participant. |
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| Content: | The Université de Lorraine and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (Inra), supported by the Laboratory of Excellence, Advanced Research on the Biology of Tree and Forest Ecosystems (ARBRE) are organizing this international course. The main goal is to offer a broad introduction in the use of stable isotopes in forest ecosystems research. Many ecological processes occurring in forest ecosystems produce a distinct isotopic footprint that can be used to trace the origin and transfer of the major elements into ecological processes, decipher the effects of environmental changes on several metabolic pathways, which enables an understanding of complex interactions among ecosystem compartments and ecological processes in trees and forests. Stable isotopes provide relevant information in forest ecosystem research, and they are thus powerful tools that still undergo very fast technological developments. | |
Summer School 4 - Soil Functions along a Gradient of Human Impact
| Date: | 11.09.2017 – 15.09.2017 |
| Organizers: | UR BEF Inra, UMR LSE Université de Lorraine, Inra |
| Instructors: | Laurent Saint-André, Christophe Schwartz |
| Contact: | Laurent Saint-André (laurent.saint-andre@inra.fr) |
| Location: | Inra, Champenoux (near Nancy), France |
| Target Group: | The summer school is open to PhD. students and researchers. |
| Participants: | limited to 40 |
| Fee: | No registration fees apply Food, accommodation and travel to Nancy must be covered by the participant. |
| Content: | Every year NFZ.forestnet organizes a summer school devoted to different topics related to forests and wood. In 2017 it will be organized by Inra and the Université de Lorraine at Nancy, France, in close collaboration with the Guangdong Provincial Key Lab Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology (LEPCRT) from the Sun Yat Sen University (Guangzhou, China). Lectures and a one-day field trip to experimental sites in forest, urban and industrial areas are planned. The objectives are to demonstrate the similarities and differences in the biological, physical and chemical processes in soils functioning and evolution. These aspects are presented along a gradient of human impacts from forests through to soils of urban industrial and mining areas. |
| Program: | After a general introduction to soils in ecosystems, the three-day training will address the physical, chemical and biological processes in succession. Each day will be consist of (i) a summary introduction showing what is common along the gradient, and what is specific to the relevant ecosystems and (ii) targeted presentations on the latest research advances in each area. The program combines local and external partners and stakeholders (including researchers from Freiburg and Zurich, participants of the IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress and Chinese researchers from the International Laboratory Ecolab). The last two days will be devoted to a visit of experimental sites including former industrial sites, and work focused on modeling approaches to serve a better understanding of how soil functions (eg Virtual Sol) respectively. The summer school will conclude with participants offering a synthesis of what they learned in workshops prepared in small groups, which will be presented in a plenary session. |
Summer School 5 - International Forestry and Global Issues
| Date: | 25.09.2017 – 29.09.2017 |
| Organizers: | Pablo Andres-Domenech, PhD (UMR LEF, Inra – AgroParisTech, Nancy, France); Dr. Carol Grossmann (Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Freiburg, Germany) |
| Instructors: | Professors and senior scientists from AgroParisTech, INRA; University of Freiburg, University of Helsinki, the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA) in cooperation with the European Forest Institute (EFI). |
| Contact: | Pablo Andres-Domenech (pablo.andres-domenech@agroparistech.fr); Dr. Carol Grossmann (carol.grossmann@forst.bwl.de) |
| Location: | AgroParisTech, Nancy, France |
| Target Group: | This course is specifically developed for, and targeted at PhD researchers and young researchers working on forest and tree-related topics with different backgrounds (social sciences, biology, ecology, economics, forest sciences, and others). Highly motivated Master students are welcome to apply, too. |
| Participants: | limited to 30 |
| Fee: | No registration fees apply Food, accommodation and travel to Nancy must be covered by the participant. |
| Content: | There are many important global challenges and international political developments influencing the future of forests and forest management. Important examples are the political will to enhance Bio-Economy in Europe, the Convention on Biological Diversity, international initiatives to reduce deforestation, Risks of Climate Change and related negotiations around carbon emissions and sinks, and many other international and national regulations and programs. The training course will address these challenges with the objective to provide an up to date overview and background information about their impact on forests, forestry and forest policy. The course will include lectures, a field day, interactive discussions, and group work. |
Summer School 6 - Terrestrial Lidar in Forest Plots
| Date: | 25.09.2017 – 27.09.2017 |
| Organizers: | UMR LERFoB Inra, AgroParisTech |
| Instructors: | Thiery Constant and others |
| Contact: | Thiery Constant (thiery.constant@inra.fr) |
| Location: | AgroParisTech, Nancy, France |
| Target Group: | Ph.D. students and researchers |
| Participants: | limited to 20 |
| Fee: | No registration fees apply Food, accommodation and travel to Nancy must be covered by the participant. |
| Content: | In this three-day workshop, the aim is to deliver knowledge and discuss the use of this technology in forestry. All organizers have much expertise in the application and development of this technology, and are involved in the development of the Computree platform. After a brief introduction to the fundamentals and objectives for each purpose/planned topic, the second part of the summer school will be dedicated to train participants in the processing of such data. Participants will have the opportunity to use their own data, and will be encouraged to compare Computree with other tools which they bring themselves. |
| Program: | The first day will be dedicated to an introduction to the technology, and how to obtain relevant data in a forest environment. The following days will be dedicated to the extraction of different forest characteristics at different scales (plot, canopy, tree, trunk levels), taking advantage of the functionalities of the open-source platform Computree for different purposes (forest inventory, biomass, LAI, tree architecture, tree quality). |
Summer School 7 - Forest and Environmental Policy Research: From Theory to Method and Back
| Date: | 12.09 – 15.09.2017 | |
| Important dates: | Application with motivation letter: Deadline April 16th, 2017 Acceptance: May 8th, 2017 Registration: May 19th, 2017 Submitting Draft Paper: July 15th, 2017 |
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| Organizers: | Prof. Dr. Daniela Kleinschmit, Dr. Sylvia Kruse, Dr. Metodi Sotirov | |
| Instructors: | Main lecturer: Prof. Dr. Margaret Shannon Further lecturers: Prof. Dr. Daniela Kleinschmit, Dr. Sylvia Kruse, Dr. Sina Leipold, Dr. Sabine Reinecke, Dr. Tobias Schulz (WSL), Dr. Andy Selter, Dr. Metodi Sotirov, Dr. Roderich von Detten and others |
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| Contact: | Dr. Sylvia Kruse (sylvia.kruse@ifp.uni-freiburg.de) | |
| Location: | Freiburg, Germany | |
| Target Group: | This course is specifically developed for and targeted at PhD researchers pursuing studies on forest or environmental policy and governance. The summer school’s contents are suitable for PhD researchers in various phases of their scientific work and academic studies. Exceptionally highly motivated Master students from the research field of forest and/or environmental policy and governance are welcome to apply as well. | |
| Participants: | limited to 20 | |
| Fee: | 280.00 € Fees cover costs of accommodation (in shared bedrooms), meals and transport from Freiburg to Schauinsland in the Black Forest |
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| Content: | Academic research on forest and environmental policy and governance sometimes seeks to test or explore a theoretical perspective and sometimes an empirical puzzle motivates the research. Typically, research on policy and governance takes a pragmatic approach, meaning that researchers are interested in a specific problem and useful results. Regardless, the first step is always to develop a research design that is consistent in terms of the theory, methodology, methods, and desired results.
Developing an appropriate research plan requires understanding the range of theories available for studying policy and governance in forest and environmental policy. The first goal of this summer school is to explore the broader classifications of theory. The second goal is to link appropriate methodologies and methods to different research designs and theories. Whether the research goal is to test or generate theory, the researcher must understand how different relevant theories can explain and understand the research question. This calls for a systematic way of connecting theory to methodology and methodology to theory. This summer school aims to provide a platform for examining the inter-linkages between theory and methodology in the research process. By combining lectures from experienced researchers with presentations of the participating PhD and graduate students along with work in small groups, discussions, and direct interaction with mentors, we hope to enhance the quality of your research on forest and environmental policy and governance. |
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| The course has the following learning aims: | The major aims of the summer school are to enable participants: (1) to better align their theoretical and methodological approaches in within their research design; (2) to clearly justify their distinct research steps, data collection and data analysis; and (3) to learn to better situate their own research in the wider research landscape within and across disciplines and thus to clearly show their contribution to the body of scientific knowledge. | |
| Course structure: | A four-day course in Freiburg is preceded by the preparation of a mandatory short reflection paper about the theoretical and methodological approach of each participant’s research. This draft reflection paper will be circulated before the course. During the course, this reflection paper will be the basis for applying the ideas learned during the course. On the final day, all participants will give a presentation of their final product. This final discussion will allow all participants to share and improve their work.
This summer school will start with key insights from philosophy of science and the four general approaches to research design, among others experimental; quasi-experimental; correlation-regression, and case study. Next we will explore the five broad schools of thought related to policy and governance research: (i) institutionalism; (ii) rational choice; (ii) interpretative (discourse) theory; (iv) mixed approaches (e.g. discursive institutionalism); and (v) grounded theory. All participants will be asked to identify their basic research design and to locate the theories used in their own research into one of these schools of thought in their draft reflection paper. During the course, we will have small mentoring groups of students and faculty focused on these different schools of thought to allow in-depth discussions. The next step in the course focuses on the transformation from theory to research methodology within a specific research design. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies can be applied in most research designs. This course will present and discuss the main differences between these methodological approaches and how to select proper methods for a specific research design and theoretical approach. With this background, the summer school will focus on identifying suitable methods (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods) related to the schools of thought and research designs. Finally, on the last day the participants will present their improved reflection paper. |
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| Program: | Day 1 (Di): | Arrival at lunch time, welcome, introduction, philosophy of science, dinner followed by a movie. |
| Day 2 (Mi): | Focus Theory:
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| Day 3 (Do): | Focus Methodology:
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| Day 4 (Fr): | Presentation of Reflection Papers:
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