WASHINGTON, DC—Forest Service Research and Development is pleased to announce the rollout of its new public-facing national website: www.fs.usda.gov/research. Led by R&D’s national web coordinator, Witne Neil, the web modernization team, which included members from Chief Information Office, Office of Communication and Research and Development, developed the new site. Working with partners across program areas provided the team different perspectives as it created a cohesive, modern and visitor-focused framework that will provide a foundation for updating all existing Forest Service R&D websites. This release replaces the decade-old website with exciting new features and major improvements including:

• A fresh design in line with the U.S. Web Design System, Forest Service Design Standards and the USDA Digital Strategy Playbook.
• New people profiles that you can easily sort and search. These profiles also connect to a person’s research activities and stories about them posted elsewhere on the website.
• A full redesign and import of Research Highlights that you can sort, filter and search by keyword.
• A calendar-based webinar showcase to help you find upcoming and past recorded webinars, such as SCIENCEx and Urban Forest Connections.

Constructive, thoughtful feedback makes any project better. With this new (and first!) release, we want to hear from you. Please answer a five-question survey to provide us with your thoughts and feedback. This feedback will help to improve future releases as we modernize the rest of R&D.

• Web Feedback Form

We look forward to receiving feedback for improvement and working on web modernization of other parts of R&D, including our research stations, the Forest Products Lab and the International Institute of Tropical Forestry.