The Gund Institute is a research center dedicated to understanding and tackling the world's most critical environmental challenges, where over 250 faculty, global affiliates, postdocs, and graduate students collaborate widely to understand interactions among ecological, social, and economic systems. The Institute seeks PhD students working on the Gund Institute's five research themes, and especially the connections among them. Student's primary advisor must be a Gund Fellow. Students will receive four years of support, typically three years of this assistantship ($35,000 stipend per year) plus a fourth year of teaching assistantships or other support from the home department (department stipends may vary). Also covered with this assistantship are tuition and UVM's student health insurance. Funded students also have access to professional development trainings and funds for conference participation and research costs. Preference will be given to applicants who have not previously studied at UVM and who already have a Master's degree, but all qualified candidates will be considered. These assistantships are for individuals who have not yet started their PhDs.

FORWARDS will launch around five grant calls with a total value of EUR 6 million to fund 50 projects to set up the ForestWard Observatory. In the first round of grant calls to be launched in July, five projects will be funded for establishing new Climate-Smart forestry and forest restoration trials. Each project will be granted with up to EUR 150,000. Successful applications will result in projects that are expected to commence around the beginning of 2024, with a duration of maximum 18 months. Subsequently during the year and until the project end, FORWARDS will launch many more calls to fund projects across different themes.

In case if you are an organisation working in Climate-Smart Forestry, watch out for the launch at the end of July. The call will be published on EFI’s grants webpage.