A union of research and practice – how knowledge exchange has deepened understanding of woodland creation

Susannah Fleiss and Marc Metzger, University of Edinburgh
Vanessa Burton, Woodland Trust
Heather Gilbert, National Forest Company

The TreE PlaNat project was conceived from the outset to include a strong element of knowledge exchange, which has proved more fruitful than any of us had envisaged. Our staff team includes Vanessa Burton, Conservation adviser on woodland creation at the Woodland Trust, and Heather Gilbert, Research and Evidence Manager at the National Forest Company, as formal project partners. Together with Marc Metzger and Susannah Fleiss at the University of Edinburgh, we have coordinated a number of activities and learned from a broad range of woodland creation practitioners and policymakers, to ensure that our project findings can directly support woodland creation on the ground. In this blog post, we provide an overview of our knowledge exchange activities and outputs, and reflect on the successes and how collaboration between research, practice and policy could continue to help support land management.

Knowledge exchange and impact – our original plans

From the outset, plans for TreE PlaNat included a series of blogs and webinars, the launch of a new demonstration site in the National Forest, a training event on woodland creation methods for land managers and advisers (held in August 2024, but two more will be run in 2025), articles in practitioner magazines, a summary research briefing for policymakers, and production of infographics (all of which will be made available in spring 2025). Crucially, plans included the establishment of a ‘Knowledge User Board’ of practitioners, advisers and policymakers, who have met regularly throughout the project, to bring together working knowledge and provide feedback on our research and outputs. The Knowledge User Board was intended to ensure that findings and outputs generated from the project would reach land managers, professional advisers and governmental organisations in a useful form, and also that the research team could learn from operational experience and ensure that their questions were directly relevant to professionals’ experiences on the ground. In practice, discussions in the group led to a number of ideas for unforeseen outputs, and highlighted the wealth of existing knowledge on the topic, which we were able to bring together in a practitioners’ perspectives paper (in review).

The ‘Knowledge User Board’ brings together research, practice and policy

There were 17 active members of the Knowledge User Board, whose remit spanned Great Britain, and included individuals from government and public sector organisations, nationwide environmental NGOs, regional and local woodland expansion sites (environmental NGOs and community forests), utilities companies, foresters, consultants and land agents, and farmers and farmer networks. The group met every three months throughout the project, with the aims of:
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1. Establishing and strengthening a stakeholder-researcher network for knowledge exchange
2. Establishing and understanding knowledge needs
3. Supporting research interpretation
4. Supporting research impact

Knowledge User Board members themselves hoped to gain a clearer understanding of creating woodland through natural processes (both in terms of ecology and practical establishment and management), to share their knowledge and learn from others’ experiences, and obtain a better understanding of others’ viewpoints on the topic.

Ideas from the Knowledge User Board bear fruit

Discussions with the Knowledge User Board highlighted a number of key knowledge gaps and needs on the topic of creating woodland through natural processes. Where possible, we have addressed these, which has led us to a suite of project outputs that (we hope!) are of direct use to land managers, professional advisers and policymakers – and which we had not originally envisaged at the start of the project. This concerted effort to address stakeholder needs would not have been possible without staff dedicated to knowledge exchange and impact in the project team.

A key need highlighted early on was for sharing of case studies using natural colonisation, because of limited currently available information, and the high degree of variability of the process. To this end, we began to collate case studies as part of the project, and now have a set of 15 from across Britain (currently available as a preliminary version that includes five examples). Knowledge User Board members stressed the importance of sharing ‘unsuccessful’ examples, where natural colonisation has not (yet) resulted in a woodland, and we have included information on some of these where possible.

The group brought up many questions around understanding the ecological process of natural colonisation. We tapped into our networks to bring together 10 experts in a webinar on the topic, to report on their research findings and share further case studies. At this juncture, it became clear that our extended network held considerable knowledge and experience on creating woodlands through natural processes, which we decided to bring together in a short ‘Practitioners’ Perspective’ paper, currently in review at the Journal of Applied Ecology. This paper synthesises practical experiences from 15 case studies of natural colonisation with current academic knowledge, and will provide an important evidence base for land managers, policymakers and researchers alike.

The group also repeatedly highlighted gaps in understanding how best to initiate and manage natural colonisation for different woodland creation goals. We decided to produce a set of FAQs on natural colonisation that would address these questions with the best information available, and designed the questions in collaboration with the Knowledge User Board. At a workshop in the National Forest held in May 2024, we brought together the group’s working knowledge to provide answers to these questions. To support these FAQs, we will also produce guidance for simple monitoring of natural colonisation sites, in order to provide support for land managers to make decisions on when and how to intervene with the process, and deepen their understanding of how their sites develop. The set of FAQs and the monitoring guidance will be made available this spring, as part of our full set of project outputs.

Site visit to Swannymote in the National Forest - an opportunity for Knowledge User Board and Project Advisory Group members to share knowledge in the field

Beneficial on all sides

It’s clear that facilitating the Knowledge User Board has proved highly beneficial for the project – we have been able to produce a number of outputs suggested by land managers, advisers and policymakers, embedding their knowledge with the latest research findings. We have been able to ensure that our research findings and interpretation are directly useful for those working in woodland creation, and will reach their target audiences through the strong network that we have built up through the duration of the project.

What did the Knowledge User Board members have to say about participation? We are very happy to report that 10 out of 10 who attended our final meeting said that they had enjoyed it (naturally, they might not have attended the final meeting if this hadn’t been the case…). They highlighted the value of learning directly from both the project’s findings and one another for furthering their own knowledge, and of the opportunity to broaden their networks and understand others’ perspectives on woodland creation through natural processes.

Here are some reflections from our wrap-up webinar:

Jenny Knight, General Manager, Stump up for Trees –

“I don't think the benefits of having a Knowledge User Board like this in a big research project can be underestimated from a practitioner perspective. The networks and the access to ongoing research gives us a lot more information about what's happening, but also access to research. In a lot of cases, the research might still sit behind a paywall, or be very difficult to access […]. We really enjoyed being part of it.”

Matt North, Programme Manager, South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership –

“I've explored my own experience by discussing [it] with other members of the KUB and workshops, and my own prejudices. What my assumptions are, are they real, and are they borne out? And that's been really useful, certainly with the development of the research.
 
We're not a national NGO, we're a regional one, and actually linking up and seeing how other people are approaching things is quite an eye opener. I've now got data to back up arguments with funders and land owners.”

Clare Pinches, Scientific Analyst, Natural England 

“One of the things I've learned from this project is both confirmation of some existing evidence that [natural colonisation] does provide a more structurally diverse woodland or tree cover, with some of the variation in micro habitats that it provides, which is really excellent. The other thing which I've really learnt from this project is the untapped appetite for use of this technique and also hybrid approaches.
 
It's been fantastic also to see the really helpful case studies, and hear about the demonstration site at the National Forest, which will be a brilliant way of encouraging people to explore how [natural colonisation] might be used on their land.”

And some reflections from our project partners:

Heather Gilbert, Research and Evidence Manager at the National Forest Company –

“Being fully integrated into the research team has been pivotal in maximising the benefits of working together. Having a full understanding of the research from conception through development means that we were able to provide feedback and insight in a much more meaningful way. It also means we could start incorporating the findings and testing approaches while the project was still ongoing. This has led to the establishment of a natural colonisation demonstrate site that we can use to communicate the benefits of natural processes with local land managers and agents. Through highlighting the benefits of hybrid approaches, this project has also helped us move towards including natural processes more specifically in our forest creation grants. Knowing that this decision has been based on solid evidence from the ecological, social and knowledge exchange elements of the project gives us confidence in making this change moving forward.”

Vanessa Burton, Conservation adviser on woodland creation at the Woodland Trust - 

“It’s really important to highlight that having both ourselves and the National Forest involved in the project from the very start is very unusual but really beneficial. Having funded time to be part of all aspects of the project has meant that we could have a great understanding of the ins and outs, and also influence the way research was shared and communicated.

“From a WT point of view, we’ve done natural colonisation for a long time and many of our advisers and site managers have a wealth of experience in it. This knowledge was built into our suite of Woodland Creation Guidance which has been published over the last few years. A key principle within this is that we have been arguing for more natural processes and hybrid methods alongside planting, but the scientific evidence behind this has been lacking until now. This project has allowed us to delve into this in an evidence-based way, and it’s great to find that there are real beneficial ecological outcomes to hybrid approaches. We’ll be using the findings to inform our advice, guidance and practice in the future.”

All in all, we hope that the knowledge exchange element of this project can inspire similar approaches in future academic work. There is no doubt that further collaboration among researchers, land managers and policymakers will be essential for improving our knowledge and practice of woodland creation in Britain in the years to come.