FABLAB UDRUGA ZA PROMICANJE DIGITALNE FABRIKACIJE

Their core work

FabLab Zagreb is a Croatian non-profit that operates a community fabrication laboratory — a hands-on space equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, and CNC tools where citizens and entrepreneurs learn to design and manufacture physical objects. Their real-world contribution to EU projects is as a practitioner site: they bring direct experience running open-access maker spaces, building grassroots maker communities, and using digital fabrication as a tool for local innovation. In MAKE-IT they contributed firsthand knowledge of how maker communities interact with digital platforms; in CENTRINNO they participated as part of an effort to transform obsolete industrial areas into creative innovation hubs, with maker culture as the catalyst. They sit at the intersection of digital fabrication, community engagement, and urban economic transformation.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first EU project (MAKE-IT, 2016–2018) placed them firmly in the digital domain — studying the maker movement as a social and technological phenomenon, particularly how online platforms enable collective creativity and peer production. By 2020, their focus shifted toward urban and environmental dimensions with CENTRINNO, where maker spaces are positioned as drivers of regenerating post-industrial neighbourhoods and stimulating local economic transformation. The trajectory shows a maturation from studying maker culture as a research subject to actively deploying it as a practical tool for urban policy and physical space renewal.

FabLab Zagreb appears to be repositioning from digital community research toward urban transformation, making them a relevant partner for projects that combine physical space design, circular economy principles, and grassroots manufacturing in post-industrial cities.

How they like to work

FabLab Zagreb has participated exclusively as a consortium member — never as a project coordinator — which is consistent with their profile as a practitioner organisation that contributes hands-on, site-specific expertise rather than leading large research programmes. They have worked in consortia averaging around 21 partners per project, indicating comfort in large, multi-actor environments. Their 42 unique partners across just two projects suggests they are embedded in broad European thematic networks rather than returning to the same circle of collaborators.

Across two projects, FabLab Zagreb has connected with 42 unique partners spanning 12 countries, which is a wide reach for an organisation of this size and signals genuine integration into active European thematic networks around maker culture and urban innovation. No strong geographic concentration can be established from the available data, but the breadth points to a pan-European collaboration footprint.

What sets them apart

FabLab Zagreb is one of the very few Croatian civil-society organisations active in EU R&I projects at the intersection of digital fabrication, maker culture, and urban transformation — a combination that is rare in a region where most research actors are universities or public institutes. For consortium builders, they offer direct access to a functioning community maker space that can serve as a pilot site, local network hub, or citizen engagement platform in Southeast Europe. Their dual experience in both digital platform research and physical urban regeneration makes them a versatile partner for projects that need grounded, community-facing testbeds in Croatia.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CENTRINNO
  Largest project by EC contribution (EUR 231,925, 2020–2024) and the most ambitious in scope, applying maker-space thinking to the regeneration of post-industrial urban areas across multiple European cities.
• MAKE-IT
  Early participation in a dedicated research project on maker communities and collective digital platforms established FabLab Zagreb as an evidence-based actor in the maker movement, distinguishing them from organisations that merely run events.