In 1998, a joint initiative between USSE, CRPF Aquitaine and INRA led to the creation and launch of Institut Européen des Forêts Cultivées (IEFC), thanks to the support of the European members of the EUROSILVASUR project.

The idea for this network originated back in 1987 when the pioneering spirit of foresters from Aquitaine, Galicia and the Spanish Basque Country led them to explore the forests of their neighbouring regions and countries in Atlantic Europe, while building friendships along the way; thus sowing the seeds for fruitful decades of collaboration and networking between multiple actors from the research and forest sectors.

From its Atlantic-centered beginnings, today the IEFC board, led by its president Susana Barreiro of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, together with its committed network of partners and donors, resolutely takes steps to expand its horizon across the entire European continent and position IEFC as the knowledge hub for sustainable planted forest management.