Understorey
Understorey is our new publication featuring the work of forestry students from across Scotland and the North of England, kindly sponsored by EGGER UK and F&W Forestry. It aims to showcase the quality and diversity of work from students studying across different levels – National Certificates, Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, degrees and postgraduate degrees. Understorey is published annually in the autumn.
Latest edition
Our 2026 issue will feature contributions from students at UHI, SRUC, University of Cumbria and University of Edinburgh. The closing date for submissions has now passed, and Understorey will be published in the Autumn. Applications for the 2027 edition will open in September.
Buy a single copy
If you are not a member and would like to purchase single copies of the journal, you can do so in our shop.
Submit An Article
You can submit and article here.
Information for students
Understorey is open for student submissions with a deadline of 1 May. Find out how to take part and get your work published.
The Royal Scottish Forestry Society is delighted to announce the creation of a new publication designed to showcase the work of forestry students. We are now open for submissions!
Understorey will be published in the autumn of 2026 and circulated to all of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society’s members. It will allow the best student work to reach a wide audience, and inform the thinking of our forestry community.
Who is eligible to submit work? Any student who studies forestry or a related discipline at any level at UHI, SRUC, University of Edinburgh or University of Cumbria
What sort of submissions will be accepted? We are open to a wide range of submission types including but not limited to a report, poster, book review, opinion piece, article, reflective writing, artwork, poem or infographic. You can submit up to three separate pieces of work.
Are there any specific themes for the work? Work can be on any topic, but broadly you might wish to consider work that can relate to woodland health, forest monitoring, technology in forestry, forest threats, the role of forester, and the future of forestry.
How long should my submission be? Space in the publication is limited, so we are looking for relatively short and concise submissions. If you have an extended report, you might wish to submit a condensed summary. Posters, book reviews and articles should be able to fit on a single A4 page.
The John Paterson Award for best submission: The student who submits the adjudged best submission will be awarded the John Paterson trophy and £500 provided by our sponsors EGGER UK.
Apply by 8 May 2026 via this online form.
Any questions: Email: director@rsfs.org.uk
Technical details for submission:
- Submit via: this online form
- Photos must be 300dpi at the size they are likely to be printed at. As a rule of thumb, if a photo is around 2MB in size or larger, it is usually suitable for print.
- Authors should retain their original, editable files for any charts, graphs, etc, as these may need to be modified in order to meet the standards required for the publication.
- Written manuscripts must be in Word, with absolutely minimal formatting (bold, italics, bullet points etc are fine, but no coloured text, boxes, headers or footers or other presentational formatting).
- No footnotes or endnotes.
- Citations and references must be in the ICL version of Harvard referencing, and should follow those formatting rules in fine detail - we can provide an ICL Harvard guide.
- Smaller files can be submitted as attachments to an email. Larger files or multiple files should be sent by swisstransfer.com (NOT by WeTransfer.com).
- Photographs sent by email must be sent as attachments to the email, NOT pasted into the body of the email.
- All submitted photographs must be accompanied by explanatory / descriptive captions, and must credit the photographer (or copyright holder if that is different). Photos copy-pasted from the internet or other sources are not permitted, and all copyright holders must have given their consent for the use of their work. Any Creative Commons licences used must be cited properly.
- Please adhere to our AI policy, as laid out in page 4 of our style guide, found here.
About our sponsors
Understorey is kindly supported by generous support from EGGER UK and F&W Forestry.
EGGER UK, part of the family owned EGGER Group, is a manufacturer of wood based panels with production plants in Auchinleck East Ayrshire and Hexham Northumberland. We believe in making ‘more from wood’ and annually convert over 1.1m tonnes of fresh and recycled wood fibre into high quality sustainable panel products. We have a multi-disciplinary team in the UK, engineers, logistics experts, sales professionals, administrators and not least our Forestry team and so we’re delighted to support this educational initiative by the Royal Scottish Forestry Society. The UK’s forests don’t manage themselves and our colleges and universities are at the heart of the next generation of Foresters who will plan and manage sustainable woodlands for generations to come. This project showcases some of their excellent work and we look forward to watching their careers develop.
F&W Forestry is one of the UK’s leading independent forest management companies managing woodland and forests across the country—from the northern landscapes of Caithness to the woodlands of Cornwall. With a heritage dating back to 1957, the company has built a long‑standing reputation for excellence in sustainable woodland management. As part of the global F&W Forestry Services Inc, students joining the organisation benefit from a much wider international network. The group manages approximately 900,000 hectares of forests and woodlands worldwide, including North America, South America, the UK, and France, giving young professionals exposure to global best practice and innovative forestry techniques.