Most of today’s environmental policy problems such as deforestation and the existing inequities in rights and benefits from natural resources are deeply rooted in historical processes and patterns of global trade and investment within and beyond the forestry sector. Domestic and international agreements, policies and decisions affecting forests and people all over the world, and vice versa. In the recently established Chair of International Forest Policy we strive for a world in which forests are high on national and international agendas, and forest stewards’ rights are acknowledged. We believe that research can make a difference through the provision of sound evidence of what is and what can be without prescribing what should be.  Our aim is to provide critical analysis to better understand politics and power in highly contested domestic and international policy arenas, often beyond the forestry sector as such.  Our research agenda aims at : analyzing opportunities and obstacles for processes of transformational change, actors’ discourses and power relations within the wider institutional environment, and implications for the forestry sector (international and national, EU and Pan-EU); understanding new modes of forest governance and emerging actor coalitions across multiple levels of governance, including private sector activities and commitments (and the role of the State within these); and evaluating effectiveness, efficiency and equity outcomes of international forest policy instruments (public, private and hybrid instruments).