Although community managed forests constitute a significant proportion of the worlds' forests, there is little information about their condition or how they are managed. The International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) network is a research programme established in 1992 to collect interdisciplinary information about forest sustainability and governance. IFRI is unique in terms of the large number of small-scale sites monitored (more than 350 communities and 9000 forest plots) for more than a decade, under the guidance of strong central leadership, a well defined research framework, relative autonomy of network members, and a strong inward focus. These features have enabled IFRI to have particular impacts on new knowledge, policy and local communities, and capacity building. Lessons about how to further strengthen, extend and sustain these impacts include developing more robust agreement about measures of forest sustainability, building network members' capacities to conduct comparative analysis, ensuring the database meets the needs of multiple users and expanding the membership and outreach of the network.