During the second half of the XXth century, global change on forest ecosystems has had a direct impact on wildland fire incidence, and further impact in the goods and services they provide. Socio-economic drivers affect climate and land use /land cover inducing changes that modify fire risk and regime in the Mediterranean Basin; the other way round, wildfires might also have influence in the occurred changes at global and local levels.

During the past thirty years, many research activities dealing with wildland fires in the Mediterranean region have been carried out; it is time to capitalize existing knowledge, identify complementarities, overlaps, gaps and barriers for improving coordination and networking of the existing projects, networks and research infrastructures. Such information is crucial for developing new integrated management strategies, identifying needed changes in policies and future research needs. Due to the fact that Mediterranean Basin countries are impacted differently depending on their socioeconomic and political situation and demographic trends, this challenge requires a  pan  Mediterranean regional scale and a truly multidisciplinary approach.

MedWildFireLab consortium includes twelve countries from East-West and North-South Mediterranean Basin. It counts on Bio-Physical, Chemical, Biological, Social and Human sciences, and it gathers development activities: Wildland-Urban Interfaces management, Prescribed Burning Uses and Wildland Fire-Fighters Training.

Among the objectives of MedWildFireLab, the following ones can be highlighted:

• to develop an integrated Mediterranean forest information system as basis for fostering the cooperation and exchange of knowledge and know-how;
• to work towards common concepts and vocabulary adapted to Mediterranean context;
• to address the policy makers proposals and recommendations for up-dating wildland fire policies;
• to support the transnational access to existing research networks and infrastructures towards a new transnational joint research structure willing to ensure a long-lasting cooperation in this field, the “wall less” Mediterranean Wildland Fire Laboratory.