We are present across the entire country. During 2025, the faculty surpassed the one-billion-SEK mark in turnover and increased by 19 full-time equivalents. With these additional 19 FTEs, we have strengthened our research, environmental analysis, education, and all the technical and administrative staff who support these activities and help make everyday work easier for all of us. These are significant steps forward in both competence and capacity. One particularly important internal step is our new employee policy and our new organizational structure aimed at creating a more inclusive work environment.
Amid all of this, communication about our activities continues to reach further than ever. Our podcast Skogen & människan (“The Forest & Humanity”) reached number 8 on Apple Podcasts’ science chart. The new external newsletter already has 1,500 subscribers, and S-faculty staff appear in the media more than ever before—thanks in large part to our skilled communicators, both at the faculty level and out at the departments.
At the same time, environmental analysis and environmental monitoring continue to grow rapidly in importance for Sweden and Europe. Technological development and new data sources mean that the possibilities are now greater than ever. Our environmental monitoring and assessment programs—the National Forest Inventory and NILS—have, among other things, delivered input to the Article 17 reporting, and the National Forest Inventory continues, as usual, to underpin both official statistics and climate reporting.
This is just a small selection from a year that has contained more than we almost dared to hope for.
And 2026 will hardly be any slower. It is an election year. We are launching our green natural science foundation year (basår). We face a KON evaluation. Our strategic research areas, such as TC4F and Trees For Me, remain highly important. We continue work on competence supply plans, further develop the new platform Framtidens bioekonomi (The Bioeconomy of the Future), and move ahead with establishing the computing center within WIFORCE. The new network will reach Umeå at the beginning of the year and will soon be in place at our other locations as well. We will be able to contribute powerfully to the Nature Restoration Regulation through both research and environmental analysis. Preparedness and forests are more relevant than they have been in a long time, and the need to jointly develop the decision-support systems of the future—the continuation of Heureka—is greater than ever.
Before we head into the holidays, we would also like to remind you of a few dates to keep an extra eye on at the beginning of the year:
- WIFORCE Annual Meeting: 21–23 January
- Forest Damage Centre Annual Meeting: 22–23 January
- Forest Day: 29 January
But now, before all of this begins, we want to wish you exactly what you truly deserve:
A calm, restful, and well-earned Christmas break.
See you next year—ready for the next chapter of our growth journey. More resources and more colleagues give us the opportunity to contribute education, knowledge, and environmental analysis to societal development throughout 2026.
Göran Ericsson, Dean and Pernilla Christensen, Deputy Dean
