The initiative of the ESF Executive Council to set up a research programme of European dimension on the Dynamics of Forest Ecosystems was taken over by the ESRC in 1982. The Assembly agreed in November 1982 that detailed proposals should be prepared and with a new approach to this topic and the concentration on the question "what properties of a forest ecosystem give the best information on state and change?".
In November 1985, number of proposals were examined and it was finally decided to conceive it in a form of a network: The Forest Ecosystems Research Network (FERN) with a duration of 5 years.
In 1988 some plans for an extension into a sixth year were presented.

The aim of the programme was to introduce some coherence in European forest ecology research.