The concept and scope of Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (UFUG) comprises all vegetated and potentially vegetated areas in and around urban settings.
At a strategic level UFUG includes attention for the form and function of urban forest and urban green resources, as well as policies, planning and design policies related to these. UFUG involves a range of techniques and approaches in terms of the selection and breeding of the right trees for urban environments and growing conditions, as well as tree establishment. Strategic and more operational aspects are brought together at the level of urban forest management.
Due to the complex nature of UFUG, communication is seen as a central aspect of problem solving. Communication is in this sense understood primarily in terms of the process of knowledge exchange, including also teaching aspects, policymaking, setting goals and learning user demands.

Communication theory in relation to the proposed Ph.D.-course
Several communication situations can be identified when looking at the UFUG field as a whole:. Developing overall knowledge and methods involves communication between research and praxis
1. Knowledge exchange within praxis, e.g. a public system such as a municipality); policy process, settling for and agreeing on means and ends.
2. Researchers or practitioners gaining knowledge from users and other stakeholders to be used in planning and management, or research.

Objective
This course deals with communication aspects within the UFUG field, discussing both a philosophical approach as well as a planning / management (praxis related) and a research related approach.

The objectives of the course are:

• to highlight important issues of knowledge transfer between research and practise, including and the development of methods
• to explore the communication processes and knowledge transfer between actors within the political, planning and management system. That is actors on the political, strategic, administrative and management level. In practise this may be e.g. municipalities or forest agencies.
• to explore ways of gaining knowledge from and assuring the opinions of users and other stakeholders in e.g. a planning situation
• to give Ph.D.- students dealing with aspects of UFUG a specific chance to discuss and develop an academic framework based on their own project

Professor Thomas B. Randrup, KVL
Professor Bengt Persson, SLU