24 new research projects

The program will run for 10 years from 2026. The core of the Living Rainforest Restoration Lab will be 24 projects for PhD-students or Postdocs. In addition to several theses, the program will produce up to  and 200 papers that will push the knowledge forward in the field of rainforest management and restoration in an extraordinary way.

Four research themes

Assessing restoration outcomes and ecosystem recovery

This theme focuses on (1) understanding whether, how, and under what conditions restoration efforts lead to recovery of ecological functions and social benefits across spatial and temporal scales, (2) improvements and innovations on how to effectively measure these outcomes.

Optimizing restoration strategies and adaptive native forest management

This theme focuses on how restoration and forest management interventions can be designed, tested, and adapted to accelerate recovery and enhance ecological and social resilience under current and future environmental conditions. 

Landscape-scale processes, connectivity, and long-term resilience

This theme focuses on how landscape context, spatial configuration, and large-scale environmental drivers influence restoration outcomes and the long-term resilience of tropical forest systems. 

Governance, people, and enabling conditions for restoration

This theme focuses on the social, cultural, economic, and institutional contexts that enable or constrain effective, just, and enduring forest restoration and sustainable forest management.

Grants to promote upscaling

About six percent of the budget will be used for calls, which are used to increase the likelihood of getting funding from other sources. This includes travel funds to conduct pilot/feasibility studies and co-funding with other donors.

The program will target both promising early-career researchers to encourage them to build a career around the Living Rainforest Restoration lab infrastructure as well as attract established senior researchers. The end goal of this investment would be to promote the upscaling of research activities as well as the implementation of knowledge-based restoration via funding from other sources.