"The proposal aims at strengthening research partnerships through staff exchanges and networking activities between 3 European research organisations from France, Portugal and United Kingdom, and 2 organisations from Australia and New Zealand. This proposal addresses scientific issues related to “forestry and climate change”. It is based on a 4 years coordinated joint programme of exchange of researchers for short periods (2 to 12 months), thus providing unique mobility possibilities to individual researchers and support to research organisations to establish and reinforce long-term research co-operation. The proposal has developed on the basis of active bilateral cooperation between individual countries and partners which has occurred in the past decade. The IRSES scheme provides a unique opportunity to integrate those past collaboration activities into a coherent programme addressing an issue of high priority on the political agenda of EU, New Zealand and Australia. The proposal is focused on forests, forestry and climate change interactions, including assessment of impacts of climate change on forest ecosystem functioning and development of adaptation and mitigation strategies for forest management. The range of common tree species of interest and of climatic conditions, as well as the strategic importance of planted forests in the 5 partner countries involved, will provide a coherent framework and socio-economic background for the different research activities that will be conducted. Five topics have been identified as most relevant for all partners involved in the joint programme: genomics and tree breeding strategies; forest models, environmental services, risk assessment and management, bioenergy."