Abstract:

The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), as the largest and oldest forest science community in the world, provides opportunities to acquire relevant knowledge of the focused hotspots and their trajectory in global forestry science research through its highest-level and world-class academic events, which will serve as valuable reference for forest scientists and relevant scientific communities to formulate proactive forest science programs and to facilitate international cooperation. The 26^th IUFRO World Congress (IWC 2024) titled "Forests and Society towards 2050" provided 437 scientific sessions, 1 607 oral presentations and 1 783 poster presentations focusing on five topics, including strengthening forest resilience and adaptation to stresses, towards a responsible forest bioeconomy, forest biodiversity and its ecosystem services, forests for sustainable societies, and forests for the future. Five hot frontiers of ongoing global forestry science research and their future trajectory were scrutinized and explored based on the scholarly communication and information sharing on IWC2024, covering the maintenance mechanism of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services/functions, responses and adaptation of forest ecosystems to global change, smart management of forest ecosystems, bioproduct-based forest bioeconomy, and multi-dimensional coupled forest governance. It is estimated that future global forest science research will focus on emerging key areas of, among others, forest molecular breeding, prestoration (restoration combined with adaptation), forest ecosystem services and smart forestry, and the modern forestry science research system will own increasing quality in cross-cutting of multiple disciplines, application of newly emergent technology, coordinated advancement of diverse areas, and integration of multiple dimensions. Altogether these are expected to provide knowledge, data and information to well inform decision-making along the chain from fundamental research to policy development and serve as the science basis underpinning sustainable and multi-functional forestry management, human well-being enhancement and well-coordinated forestry governance towards 2050 and farther future.

Key words: forest science, global change, forest resilience, forest conservation and restoration, smart forestry, well-coordinated forestry governance, sustainable development