SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School

Last changed: 07 March 2025
Boots on forest ground. Photo.

The research school at the SLU Forest Damage Centre is an important component both for knowledge development in the field and for the supply of competence within universities, research institutes, authorities and forest companies. At present, there is a significant need to increase competence linked to forest damage in society at large and within all these categories of organisations.

 

The SLU Forest Damage Centre's research school will train researchers to get a broad expertise in forest damage. The graduate school is open to all PhD students at SLU who are interested, regardless of whether one's education is financed by the SLU Forest Damage Centre or not.

The research school is an industry-/authority research school, where organisations outside SLU are invited to participate. Networks established within the research school are also expected to facilitate future collaborations.

Graduate school activities

The SLU Forest Damage Centre Research School arranges annual excursions where various affected areas are visited and forest damage is discussed in the field. Previous visits have been to SCA's forests in Jämtland where pine forest affected by Scot’s pine blister rust and storm damage areas were visited. Öster Malma in Södermanland has also been visited. Game grazing and the ravages of the spruce bark beetle as well as root rot on pine were discussed there.

Research school's annual meeting

The annual meeting is for all PhD students, supervisors and contact persons at companies and other organisations that collaborate with the research school. At the meeting, interesting lectures are offered and plans for the research school's work will be discussed.

Postgraduate Courses

The research school also offers three postgraduate courses in the field of forest damage:

  1. Forest damage - incidence and causation
  2. Forest damage - inventory and monitoring
  3. Forest damage consequences and management.

The courses are open to all PhD students.

Register for the research school via the button at the top of the page. You can register at any time. 

PhD projects

  • The importance of forest heterogeneity for natural regulation of insect herbivores, Project manager: Maartje Klapwijk

  • Landscape Breeding: A new paradigm in forest tree management, Project manager: Rosario Garcia Gil

  • Plants for planting, Project manager: Åke Olson

  • Infection biology and management of emerging diseases in tree seedling production, Project manager: Audrius Menkis

  • Spruce Quantitative Disease Resistance traits against Heterobasidion, Project manager: Malin Elfstrand

  • Identification of risk factors behind the current outbreaks of Cronartium, Projektansvarig: Åke Olson

  • Can we find new methods of forest health assessment applied to breeding? Project manager: Malin Elfstrand

  • Predicting abiotic and biotic damage and bud flush from high-resolution drone images, Project manager: Eva Lindberg

  • Advanced Phenotyping Tools for Genetic Gain in Tree Breeding: Ash dieback in focus, Project manager: Michelle Cleary

  • Foodscapes Links between ungulate density, their forage and browsing damage in production fores, Project manager: Annika Felton

  • Optimization of forest management to reduce the fire risk in Swedish forests, Projektansvarig: Igor Drobyshev
  • Current and future risks to the productivity and quality of fast-growing broadleaves, Project manager: Michelle Cleary

  • The biodiversity implications of fast-growing broadleaves Adam Felton
    Landscape Utilization in large and long-lived herbivores in a multi-functional forestland, Project manager: Wiebke Neumann

  • Continuous cover forestry and the risks of insect and ungulate damage, Project manager: Anne-Maarit Hekkala

  • Future Yields- impacts of browsing on stand structure, forest growth and revenue in forestry, Project manager: Fredrik Widemo

  • Developing remote sensing techniques for monitoring forest damage and disturbance in a changing climate, Project manager: Eva Lindberg/Langning Huo

  • Remote sensing for the early detection of the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) outbreaks, Project manager: Henrik Persson

  • Save the Ash tree, Project manager: Michelle Cleary

  • Optimised stump treatment against Heterobasidion for sustainable future forests, Project manager: Jonas Rönnberg

  • Sampling strategies for forest damages Anton Grafström
    Early detection of forest damages using digital tools, Project manager: Johanna Witzell

Related pages:

Contact

Åke Olson, researcher
Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology
Section for forest pathology
Ake.Olson@slu.se, 018-671876