The Heureka Research Programme - Mistra

Research ProgrammeIntroductionThe vision of the Heureka research programme was to significantly contributeto the sustainable multi-purpose management of Swedish forestlandscapes and forest resources by providing up-to-date decision supporttools for different stakeholders, ranging from governmental organisations toprivate forest owners. Within the research programme a suite of software hasbeen developed for different users and problem areas. In the 1990’s goalsand practices within Swedish forestry shifted from single objective timberorientedmanagement towards a multi-purpose management. Nature conservation,environmental protection and social aspects were included in bothforest policies and stated objectives for forest companies and individual forestowners. Available systems, such as the Forest Management Planning Package(Indelningspaketet in Swedish) and the Hugin system were originally developedfor analysis and planning of timber production. With their roots in the1970’s these systems were also quite old, hence their software architecture andprogramming language had become outdated. At the end of the last centurythere were rapid advances in knowledge and methodology in closely relateddisciplines such as landscape ecology and conservation biology, accompaniedby advances in other relevant field, including operation research and remotesensing. Altogether the need for a new generation of forest analyses and planningsystems was obvious and after a feasibility study (Dahlin et. al, 1997) theHeureka research programme was established in a small scale at the Facultyof Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), in theyear 2000. The research programme was expanded in 2002 through a researchgrant from Mistra, and its first main phase ran from October 2002 to September2005, funded by SLU and Mistra. In 2005 the research programmewas further expanded since funding was obtained from two additional financersfor a period of four years. The second phase – which is the main focusof this report – of the research programme ran from October 2005 to September2009 with funding from SLU, Mistra, the Swedish Forest IndustriesFederations and Kempe Foundations. The Faculty of Forest Sciences, SLU,has hosted the research programme but departments at the Faculty of NaturalResources and Agricultural Sciences and the Forestry Research Instituteof Sweden (Skogforsk) have also participated. In the second phase the totalfunding has amounted to 10.5 MSEK per year (3 MSEK per year from Mistraand 2.5 MSEK from each of the other three financers).This report starts with a short summary and overview of the whole programme,followed by a report on each application (software) of the Heurekasystem and reports from the individual thematic research projects. Thereafterprogramme management, funding and expenditure are reported and finally acompilation of publications is presented. The project reports have been writtenby the responsible researchers, so some 20 authors have contributed tothis report.5