On 1 December 2023, Dr. Susanne Koch presented the In-Forest project at the first Sociological Forest Symposium hosted by the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena in Germany. The event was organised by scholars affiliated with different universities in Germany (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena; Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt Baden-Württemberg; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) aiming to provide a space of exchange and networking for researchers who use sociological approaches to investigate forest-related topics. 

Starting off the first round of pitches under the broad theme “Forest and Forestry in Science, Society and Politics”, Susanne presented the objectives and conceptual framework of the In-Forest project in a 3-minute talk entitled “How to sociologically investigate inequalities in forest research? A multi-method approach using a praxeological perspective” (German original title: „Wie lassen sich Ungleichheiten in der Waldforschung soziologisch untersuchen? Ein multi-methodischer Ansatz mit praxeologischer Perspektive”). 

The pitches were followed by a parallel session of talks, a joint lunch, another round of pitches under the heading “Forest in transformation: actors, crises, conflicts”, a mapping activity to sketch researchers, institutions, and topics of sociological forest research in Germany as well as a collective brainstorming how to establish the network emerging from the event. 

The day was closed with a keynote talk by Dr. habil. Stephanie Bethmann (FVA Freiburg), who, building on her extensive expertise and experience as a sociologist in an institutional leadership position, provided a sketch of a forest sociology building on practice theory. The organisers have published a report on the event in the Blog of the German Open Access journal "SuN - Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit".

For the first virtual network meeting planned for February 2024, Susanne was invited to share and discuss In-Forest insights in an extended talk.