SmartForest 2027 Themes
SmartForest 2027 will take place on the Technical University of Munich’s campus in Freising, from 17 – 19 March 2027.
On this page, you’ll discover more about the conference’s thematic blocks.
To learn more about our previous conferences, please check out their respective pages:
Block 1: Challenges
The forestry sector is changing. Extreme weather events, pests, and pathogens are changing our forests. New compliance requirements, such as the EUDR and WVO, create additional complexity and beg the question how digital tools can reach the forest floor and where they’re still being hampered. To improve matters, solutions do not merely need to be invented, but also incentivised on an economical and political level, as well as provided with clear practical requirements and challenges to solve.
This block provides the space for honest assessments: What occupies your attention nowadays, what lies ahead of us in the future, and which subjects are in urgent need of better responses?
Focus Areas
- Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, Pathogens, Pests
- Forests as a Source of CO2: Causes, Extent/Consequences for Management & Climate Policy
- Processes and the Issues They Face
- New and changing business processes
- Implementation of forest conversion
- Generational change, staff shortages, and digital transformation
- Funding and compliance (e.g. EUDR, WVO)
- How do Digital Tools from Research Perform in Practice?
- What works, what has changed?
- What’s not working, where are the issues?
- How can researchers be enabled to test their digital tools in operational circumstances with forest practitioners?
Block 2: Which Infrastructure do We Need?
Digital solutions can only reach their full potential when the foundational infrastructure runs well: Common data standards, open interfaces and scalable data spaces that ensure both data sovereignty and interoperability. Digital twins, data spaces, and trustees are among the most promising developments in infrastructure for the forestry sector.
Here, we’ll discuss which technological and organisational demands need to be met, where decisions about standards and governance presently stand, and which approaches are already successful.
Focus Areas
- Standards & Data Interfaces
- How can open platforms that bring together companies, researchers, and practitioners be developed?
- Which formats are suitable to keep researchers and users connected?
- Infrastructure & Digital Twins
- Development of models and scenarios as a basis for management decisions
- Connections and knowledge sharing (e.g. concept graphs)
- Rethinking processes in light of new technology
- How can new things be implemented successfully?
Block 3: Solutions & Innovation
Digital innovation bolsters the entire process chain within forestry, from forest setup and inventory management to the timber harvest, logistics, and commercialisation. They connect sources of information, improve decisions, and support the practical work within the forest. The spectrum ranges from sensor technology and remote sensing, to digital support systems, and the connection of machines and robotics.
This block shows how digital tools can be integrated into business processes and which benefits they provide for economic efficiency, occupational safety, and sustainable forest management. We welcome both new developments and examples of practical experience.
Focus Areas
- Strategic Tools
- Forest planning and operational management
- Biodiversity, resilience, and environmental protection
- Water management, water retention, flooding
- Scientific prognosis models for forest development, climate risks, and damaging incidents
- Operational Tools
- Forest condition
- Operational planning in the forest
- Automated forest setup and inventory
- Operational management
- Tools for risk management for forest fires and other disasters (e.g. storm, bark beetles)
- Data Collection & Provisioning
- Use of forest inventory tools using short-range remote sensing
- Comprehensive, operational, and cost-free layers for damage & inventory
Block 4: Financing & New Markets
Forest management has thus far chiefly been financed through the proceeds of timber sales. Climate change, rising wage costs, shifting wood prices, and increasing societal demands are now challenging this model.
This block centres the discussion of how forest management can finance its transformation and how value creation can be expanded, even in uncertain times.
Focus Areas
- New Approaches to Forest Management
- Automation in timber harvesting (e.g. skid roads, tree selection)
- Data flows along the logistics chain
- Concepts and strategies for diversification – new business models
- Potential for inter-company collaborations
- Sales & Marketing
- Ecosystem services
- Financing of forest management
- The economical state of forestry operation and effects on financial decisions
- Climate change as an economic factor
- Tools for the control and management of non-wood services (e.g. Biotope tree inventory)
Block 5: What Does the Swift Development of AI Entail for the Forestry Sector?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing rapidly. Language models, generative AI, and autonomous systems do not merely change individual tools, but also pose questions regarding the foundational assumptions about what software can do and what the future collaboration between humans and machines will look like.
This block sheds light on the concrete impact of AI for forestry businesses, software providers, and researchers. How can a sector that depends on long-term thinking deal with a technology that seems to reinvent itself on a monthly basis?
Focus Areas
- Quality and Reliability of AI: Transparency & Traceability, Transferability, and Dealing with Uncertainty
- „Software is dead“ – How are new solutions being created and what’s happening to existing tools?
- Examples of Practical Usage of AI
- Which New Opportunities Can be Created?
- Where is Research and Development Required?
Block 6: Outdoor Sessions
Outdoor sessions provide the opportunity to not merely present technologies and methods, but also demonstrate their use in an actual forest. We are looking for practical contributions that show the application of digital tools, new machines, or innovative new methods for forest monitoring. Contributions can range from drone flights to mobile apps, to sensors, and decision support systems.
Interactive demonstrations that create space for the exchange of experiences and discussion are particularly welcome.
Please direct any and all questions regarding the local circumstances to the SmartForest team: smartforest@wetransform.to
