CENTAR KOMPETENCIJA DOO ZA ISTRAZIVANJE I RAZVOJ

Their core work

Centar Kompetencija is a Croatian research and development centre based in Vinkovci, Slavonia — one of Central Europe's most significant oak and hardwood forest regions. Their core work focuses on sustainable wood mobilisation: building the regional networks, business frameworks, and knowledge infrastructure needed to unlock underutilised forest resources for commercial and ecological benefit. In both H2020 projects they contributed regional expertise to pan-European efforts connecting forest owners, processors, municipalities, and buyers along sustainable wood supply chains. In their most recent project, they extended this into the digitalisation of wood mobilisation workflows, suggesting an applied technology angle alongside their network-building work.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their entire H2020 record falls within the ROSEWOOD project family, so evolution is narrow but visible. The first project (2018–2020) carried rich language around network-building, business creation, and translating innovative concepts into practical wood mobilisation approaches. By the follow-on project (2020–2022), the keyword set collapsed to a single term — 'wood mobilisation' — which likely reflects a maturing focus where the network already existed and the work shifted to deepening and digitising it rather than establishing it. The trajectory is from network creation to digital operationalisation of an established regional infrastructure.

This organisation appears to be moving from convening and connecting regional forestry actors toward embedding digital tools into those established networks — a useful partner for projects at the intersection of forestry, rural bio-economy, and applied digitalisation.

How they like to work

Centar Kompetencija has participated as a partner in both projects and has never led as coordinator, which is typical for a newer or regionally-focused centre building credibility within larger European networks. Both projects were Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) — not research grants — meaning their value to consortia lies in regional access, stakeholder engagement, and practical implementation rather than laboratory output. With 27 unique partners across 18 countries from just 2 projects, they operate within broad, multi-actor European networks rather than tight bilateral partnerships.

Through two projects they have connected with 27 unique consortium partners spanning 18 countries — an unusually wide geographic footprint for such a small portfolio, reflecting the pan-European ambition of the ROSEWOOD network. Their geographic anchor is the Slavonia region of Croatia, giving them credibility as a regional node within Central and South-Eastern European forestry networks.

What sets them apart

Vinkovci sits in Slavonia, a region with some of the densest and most commercially significant oak forests in continental Europe — Centar Kompetencija's location gives them grounded, on-the-ground credibility that urban research centres cannot replicate. Their focus on the business and network side of wood mobilisation (rather than pure silviculture or wood science) means they can serve as a regional bridge between forest owners and the broader bio-economy. For consortia needing a credible South-Eastern European forestry partner with both network reach and applied business orientation, they offer a rare combination.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ROSEWOOD4.0
  The larger of their two projects (EUR 121,875) and the more ambitious one — extending the original ROSEWOOD network into digitalisation, signalling a strategic pivot from network creation to technology-enabled scale-up.
• ROSEWOOD
  Their entry into H2020 and into the pan-European sustainable forestry network, establishing relationships across 18 countries and providing the foundation for the follow-on ROSEWOOD4.0 project.