Visions, Missions and Strategies of selected International Forest Research Organizations

Abstract

This paper provides a comparison of current visions, missions and strategies of three international forest research organizations: European Forest Institute (EFI), Center for International Forest Research (CIFOR) and International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). Against the background of theoretical conceptions of visions, missions and strategies, a qualitative tabular content analysis is applied. A special focus lies on the thematic work areas of the organizations and their connection to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Visions and missions provide an important guidance for employees and other people in the organization, but also for communication to outsiders. Within strategies, Non-Profit Organizations can define their mission and vision as well as strategic goals. Recent missions and visions of EFI, CIFOR and IUFRO are analyzed with a textual analysis, while for their strategies a summarizing content analysis is used. The comparison discloses differences between the three organizations with regard to their orientation towards societal impact and/or advancement of science. However, all of them strive for improving living conditions for people. CIFOR clearly focuses on the SDGs and covers all of them, while IUFRO and EFI do this only partially. Except for doublings, EFI and IUFRO together address 12 SDGs out of 17 SDGs. This finding is especially important in the light of the current cooperation between EFI and IUFRO. Both organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2019, where they claim to account for achieving the SDGs by strengthening the role of forest conservation and sustainable forest management.

Keywords

• research networks
• international organizations
• strategic planning
• epistemic communities