How the European Forest Institute redesigned its website to make research easier to find and use

For many research organisations, the challenge isn’t producing research. It’s making that research usable for the people it’s intended to inform.

Scale is often part of the issue. Content builds over time — across teams, programmes and platforms — and what begins as a focused set of outputs gradually becomes harder to navigate. As that happens, people struggle to find what they need and the connection between research and its application starts to weaken.

That was the position the European Forest Institute (EFI) found itself in.

Founded in 1993, EFI has grown into one of the most established research organisations in its field — an international network spanning 30 member countries, around 130 organisations, and offices from Joensuu to Kuala Lumpur. It plays a central role in Europe’s forest research ecosystem, working across science, policy and practice.

But its website told a smaller story than the organisation behind it.

Content was spread across multiple sites, organised around internal structures, and difficult for different audiences to move through. For policymakers, practitioners and researchers, finding relevant material — and understanding how it related to their work — wasn’t straightforward.

Structuring around use, not organisation

The starting point for the redesign was to look at the site from the outside in.

We always run a discovery process at the start of a website project, to learn as much as possible about existing structures, processes, visitors and usage. Through this, we mapped how current audiences were approaching EFI’s content: what they were looking for, how they framed questions and where the existing structure was getting in the way. 

That led to a shift in how the site was organised.

The new structure is built around widely understood topics – instead of internal departments – including resilient forests, sustainable economy, inclusive governance and cities. The focus is on the issues users are trying to engage with, rather than how the organisation happens to be arranged.

Alongside this, the site introduces two clear modes: Knowledge and Action. These help  users move between understanding the research and applying it in practice.

Working with complexity

EFI’s work is inherently complex. It spans disciplines, geographies and audiences, and much of its value lies in that breadth. The task wasn’t to reduce that complexity, but to make it navigable.

That meant translating scientific categories into terms people recognise and use, and building navigation and filtering that reflect how content is accessed in practice. Different audiences need different entry points, but they are often looking for related answers.

Take a policymaker arriving with a question about global change adaptation. On the old site, they would have needed to know which internal programme “owned” the material before they could find it. On the new site, the topic itself becomes the entry point — surfacing publications, explainers, the people working on the issue and the projects where the research is being applied.

The same body of work can then be reached from multiple directions. Someone focused on illegal logging, forest restoration, or a specific region can approach it from their own frame of reference and arrive at relevant evidence.

Changing how the organisation is seen

Improving the structure of the site has a wider effect. It becomes easier to see how different strands of work connect, and to understand the role EFI plays within the broader policy landscape. The organisation is presented less as a collection of outputs, and more as an active participant in ongoing conversations about forests and climate.

Membership and partnerships are also more clearly articulated, strengthening how EFI positions itself externally.

The site is built on a refreshed brand and a more flexible CMS, giving EFI’s team the tools to maintain that clarity over time rather than allowing sprawl to return. It also creates a foundation for further development — bringing related sites into a more coherent whole, and extending access where it adds most value.

This is a pattern we see often. Research organisations invest heavily in producing work, but less in how that work is organised and presented once it’s published. Over time, that limits how easily it can be found, understood and used — and ultimately, the value it can deliver.

If that sounds familiar, it’s worth taking a closer look at how your site is structured.

We work with research and policy organisations to review how their websites perform against audience needs, and to identify the changes that will have the most impact.

Get in touch if you’d like to discuss your site or request a review!