Successful proposals will contribute to the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas, Biodiversity Strategy and Forest Strategy by promoting new business models for a successful green transition in primary production and rural areas in line with the European Green Deal objectives. Project results should contribute to the following expected outcomes:

• Improved overall environmental impact of the forest management practice, due to higher understanding and appreciation of natural forest biodiversity, knowledge on climate change impacts, and improved non-invasive quality control.
• Optimized application of the cascading use of biomass in regional industrial ecosystems, based on the principles of circularity, residue up- and recycling and industrial symbiosis.
• Increased engagement and innovation capacity of regional and local actors, including bio-based industry, and in particular SMEs, as well as social impact in rural areas.
• Increased consideration of the sustainability objectives, for the multifunctional forestry value chains, contributing to speeding up deployment and maximising the opportunities in new rural industrial ecosystems.
• Strengthened application of the hierarchy of materials use, trade-offs, synergies, business models, participatory approaches, with positive environmental, social and economic impacts in regional and rural development.

European forests are important providers of multiple feedstocks and services including biomass used for a wide variety of uses, where the assurance of sustainability plays a key role. Moreover, they host a wealth of biodiversity and act as highly effective carbon sinks, in addition to other multiple functions in bioeconomy (e.g. recreation, ‘reconnection with nature’), and ecosystem services (e.g. water retention, soil quality/prevention of erosion etc). However, they are presently facing increasing pressure from climate change and other environmental pressures. Extreme weather conditions and fluctuations, changing pathogen niches, water stress and infestations from insects, rot and fungi, resulting from or worsened by climate change, are having an increasingly stronger negative impact on trees and forest ecosystems. Availability and quality of data and information about the growing forest is a key for success together with digital tools of handling the data in specific purposes of interest. The speed of development in both data handling, machine learning and data collection bring new opportunities to this research field. Forest operators need to adapt to these fast-changing conditions to ensure the continued role of forests in providing biomass, enhancing biodiversity and absorbing atmospheric carbon. Sensing, data acquisition and predictive technologies can prove a key enabler for data-driven decision making in forest-based operations. These range from maintaining forest health through monitoring and corrective actions, to quality control of wood and non-wood biomass, to support decision making on the best application of each biomass (wood and non-wood, when applicable) component.

Proposals under this topic should:

• Develop or upgrade non-invasive solutions for forest health monitoring and wood quality control (including remote and automated operations), taking into account the European and regional variety of forests. The developed solutions should support sustainable forest management via better understanding of forest ecosystem characteristics (including multi-species' interactions in forest ecosystems^[1]), and of the relation between growth conditions of the trees/forest ecosystems (presence of parasites or pests, biodiversity, climate change stress) and the resulting woody biomass quality.
• Apply data gathering and monitoring across the whole value chain from forest operations to transport, storage and processing of wood. Use this knowledge for decision support and prediction throughout forest-based operations to optimise the value chain in scope. Decision support is needed for instance to identify the best moment for harvesting/conservation/treatment options. Data gathering and monitoring of tree growth will assist in anticipating and projecting resulting wood quality and forest ecosystem health.
• Identify early intervention actions to restore and enhance forest health, (e.g. new or better adapted varieties with higher resistance to pathogens, pests, water scarcity adaptation etc) in particular to mitigate and adapt to effects of climate change and to enhance the natural biodiversity potential and forest resilience (‘learning from nature’ approaches). A feedback loop should be created with the forest management and the ecosystem research sectors to reach this goal.
• Identify the most suitable application(s) for different grades of woody feedstock (which may include wood rot, insect damaged and storm damaged wood, but also local varieties and wood whose characteristics are affected by climate change stress) and apply innovative solutions for their valorisation. When applicable, the activity can include additional sources of primary biomass such as bark, stumps, leaves, nuts etc. aiming at full valorisation of forest biomass. Higher quality of wood means it is increasingly used for high value and durable applications (e.g. construction sector), increasing its carbon storage potential.
• Optionally, proposals can include downstream processing of the selected feedstock for the identified applications, to assess the impact of the innovations introduced by the project in relation to the benchmark.
• In a dedicated task on Life Cycle Environmental Assessment conducted to understand the environmental impact of the proposed solutions, consider in particular the biodiversity enhancement and resource efficiency potentials. Conduct the social impact assessment to understand the impact on rural actors. Identify the economically viable opportunities and new business cases, for the forest economy stakeholders, developing the recommendations and suggestions, in particular for any uptake or deployment actions ^[2] .

Proposals should build on past or ongoing research projects^[3] and collaborate with relevant initiatives, including the Forest Information System for Europe (FISE).

Proposals must implement the multi-actor approach and ensure adequate involvement of all key actors in the rural value chains relevant for this topic including researchers, feedstock producers and suppliers (including forest managers), regional actors, and civil society.

Proposals should also describe their contribution to the Specific CBE JU requirements, presented in section 2.2.3.1, and the Cross-cutting elements, highlighted in section 2.2.3.2 of the CBE JU Annual Work Programme 2023^[4].

[1] such as the symbiotic/parasitic eco-system relations (important for e.g. growth support, defence mechanisms etc) including any climate-change-related aspect, e.g. between trees, fungi, lichens, mosses, insects etc.

[2] such as under the parallel topic HORIZON-CBE-2023.F2. Optimised and integrated forest-based value chains

[3] e.g. under topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-CircBio-01-14: Monitoring the multi-functionality of European forests or topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-CircBio-01-12: Optimising the sustainable production of wood and non-wood products in small forest properties and development of new forest-based value chains. Links to the activities under the Soil Mission and LIFE programme could be foreseen.

[4] CBE JU Annual Work Programme 2023 (https://www.cbe.europa.eu/reference-documents)