Learn how to create Urban Forests and green your city!
Develop your passion for urban forestry, while deepening your knowledge of sustainability, urban green spaces and urban forestry management. Participate in the Uforest Programme and become an urban forestry professional!
Urban Forests represents one of the most efficient tools to better adapt to and mitigate the negative effects of climate change and urbanisation. For this reason, the demand for urban forestry professionals able to design and implement effective nature-based solutions is rapidly increasing. Still, today there is a lack of specific transdisciplinary training that can accurately respond to the needs of this sector.
The Uforest Programme aims to fill this gap and provide you with the right knowledge and skills to develop innovative urban forestry solutions and promote the green transition of cities!
Why apply?
4 Universities from all over Europe
A truly transdisciplinary approach
A direct connection between the academia and the professional world
The Uforest Programme is a unique learning path which will allow participants to gain specific knowledge in urban forestry, expand their network and develop real urban forestry solutions.
The Programme is led and designed by Uforest in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano, one of the project’s partner and a globally renowned university specialised in innovation and research.
The Uforest Programme is structured in 2 different components:
2 Online courses
This online course is free and accessible to anyone and will provide basic knowledge on urban forestry. Participants will learn how to effectively apply the principles of urban forestry, from urban design and forest ecology to forest management.
The course will start on the 21st of November 2022 and it will be delivered through streamed lessons, allowing participants to complete the course at their own pace. The total workload is 50 hours, spread across 6 weeks.
PROGRAMME
MODULE 1: History and main background on urban forestry
- The history and development of urban forestry across the world
- The concept and interdisciplinary character of urban forestry
- Green and resilient cities
MODULE 2: Urban forestry planning and design
- Urban design principles
- Ecosystem services provided by Urban Forests
- Urban Forest inventory/mapping-tools
MODULE 3: Urban Forest ecology
- Forest ecology
- Forest management
MODULE 4: Socioeconomics – Governance and community engagement
- Socioeconomics
- Governance and policy
MODULE 5: Entrepreneurship and innovation
- Building and growing entrepreneurial ventures
- Discovering technologies for urban forestry
- Funding a forest project
MODULE 6: Final assessment
The programme of this course is designed with a project-based approach: learners will be divided into teams to develop a project in one urban forestry thematic, namely urban and landscape planning, forest ecology, socioeconomics, and information and communication technologies. Each module will focus on one of these thematic and it will include webinars, collaborative activities, project development activities and exercises. Students will have to choose one module and develop a project on the thematic of the choosen module.
The course will start in February 2023 and it will be delivered through streamed lessons, allowing participants to complete the course at their own pace. The total workload is 100 hours.
At the end of the course, projects will be assessed, and some will be selected for the in-person Innovation Programme.
PROGRAMME
MODULE 1: Designing Urban Forests (provided by the Politecnico di Milano)
MODULE 2: Assessing Urban Forest Ecosystem Services (UFES) through Earth Observation and local data (provided by the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
MODULE 3: Mapping and monitoring the dynamics of the urban tree ecosystem (provided by the Transilvania University of Brasov)
MODULE 4: Strategic Leadership of the Nature-based Enterprise (provided by the Trinity College Dublin)
Upon completion of the 2 online courses, including the final exam, students will be granted 6 ECTS.
1 Intensive In-presence Training
The Specialization School is an intensive 14-days training delivered in person, with 1 week in Milan and 1 week in Barcelona. Through presentations, group work, workshops, seminars, and field visits, the aim of this course is to allow participants to develop their own project in urban forestry, while they gain specialised knowledge and skills in this sector.
All 20 selected students will receive a mobility grant to attend the course.
WHEN?
The Uforest Specialization School is a two-week intensive course in person.
12-17 September 2023 BARCELONA at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-Can Balasc Biological Station
18-24 September 2023 MILAN at the Politecnico di Milano – Piazza Leonardo da Vinci
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN?
Barcelona: The first week of the Specialization School will be delivered in the Can Balasc Biological Station, in the middle of the Collserola Natural Park (8000 ha), just outside of Barcelona.
To start, you will be welcomed with two lectures on urban forests and their relationship with cities You will visit the urban and peri-urban forests in Barcelona with local landscape planners and forest managers. In addition, you will have a guided visit the Uforest pilot planting site, in the areas affected by wildfires and alien plant invasions.
Check out the daily programme of the week in Barcelona!
Milan: During the second week of the Specialization School in Milan, you will be welcomed with a Lectio Magistralis by Prof. Cecil Konijnendijk (Nature-based Solutions Institute). Throught site visitis, you will discover the urban forestry projects of Forestami and WOWnature in Milan. You will see the different phases of the project implementation, from site selection to established urban forests. Finally, you will also visit nurseries and learn from agronomists, botanists, foresters, landscape architects and urban planners.
Check out the daily programme of the week in Milan!
WHO?
Participation is reserved to the students of the 4 partner universities who have completed the Uforest online courses and that will submit their application by 10.06.2023 -> new deadline 18.06.2023 -> through the application form that you find below in this page.
Application
All students who want to participate in this online course have to apply through the Polimi Open Knowledge (POK) platform of the Politecnico di Milano.
ENROLL HERE
This course will be accessible only to 150 learners, who will be selected through a call presented by the Uforest’s partner universities. To complete this online course, it is necessary to complete as well the “Nature in the City: Turning Knowledge into Urban Forestry Practice” course provided by Uforest.
Learn more and apply through your university:
Application links for UAB and Trinity College Dublin will be published soon.
Please note that only students from the Politecnico di Milano, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Transilvania University of Brasov and Trinity College Dublin will be able to apply through this call. For all other students interested in the course, please write to info@uforest.eu
Only the 20 best performing students of the e-learning courses will have the opportunity to participate in the Innovation Programme.
Submit your project proposal and fill in the information through the application form by 10.06.2023 -> new deadline -> by 18.06.2023.