SOKTAS TEKSTIL SANAYI VE TICARET ANONIM SIRKETI

Their core work

Şoktaş is a large Turkish integrated textile manufacturer based in Söke, producing high-quality cotton and cotton-blend woven fabrics primarily for the European fashion and apparel industry. Their H2020 participation positions them as an industry end-user and validation partner, bringing real-world manufacturing scale and quality standards to research consortia exploring sustainable and bio-based textile materials. In both projects they contributed practical knowledge of fibre processing, fabric performance requirements, and industrial production constraints — the kind of grounded industry perspective that academic research consortia need to move from lab to market. They are not a research body; they are a production company that tests whether new materials and processes actually work at scale.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects started within a year of each other (2015 and 2016) and ran in parallel through 2019, so there is no meaningful sequential evolution to trace — this was a concentrated period of exploratory EU engagement rather than a multi-phase journey. The two projects together suggest an organisation probing two complementary routes to sustainable textiles simultaneously: one through waste recovery (Trash-2-Cash) and one through bio-based input substitution (NeoCel). No H2020 activity appears after 2019, so whether this exploration led to deeper commitment or was quietly shelved cannot be determined from this data alone.

Their dual-track engagement with both waste-fibre upcycling and bio-based cellulose in the same period signals a company testing the waters of the circular textile economy — a potential collaborator for any consortium that needs a credible industrial off-taker or end-user validator in the apparel supply chain.

How they like to work

Şoktaş has never led an H2020 project — both participations were as a consortium partner, consistent with a large manufacturer joining research-driven consortia to access emerging materials rather than to drive the science itself. Their total EC funding of EUR 25,275 across two projects is very low, suggesting a peripheral or industry-observer role rather than a work-package leader. With 31 unique partners across 11 countries from just two projects, they are embedded in relatively large, multi-country consortia where their value is the industry voice, not the research output.

Despite only two projects, Şoktaş touched 31 unique partners spread across 11 countries, reflecting the large international consortia typical of BBI-JU and Innovation Action calls. Their network is European in breadth but industry-sparse — they are likely the sole large Turkish textile producer in both consortia.

What sets them apart

Şoktaş is one of very few large-scale Turkish fabric manufacturers to have participated in Horizon 2020, giving them a rare bridging position between EU research networks and Turkish production capacity. For any consortium developing next-generation sustainable fibres or textile recycling processes, they offer something most EU partners cannot: access to high-volume industrial testing and validation inside a real production environment outside the EU, with existing relationships in European fashion supply chains. If the research goal is to reach industrial scale in textiles, Şoktaş is the kind of end-user partner that makes a proposal credible to evaluators.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Trash-2-Cash
  An Innovation Action targeting the commercial gap between textile waste streams and high-value designed products — Şoktaş's participation as a major fabric producer gave the project direct access to an industrial waste generator and potential adopter of the outputs.
• NeoCel
  Funded under the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking, this project explored novel cellulose-based fibre processes at a time when the BBI-JU was a major EU funding vehicle — participation signals early positioning in the bio-textile transition.