SUOMEN METSAKESKUS-FINLANDS SKOGSCENTRAL

Their core work

The Finnish Forest Centre is Finland's national public authority responsible for promoting sustainable forestry, advising private forest owners, and managing the country's forest resource data. They bring deep operational knowledge of forest management, biomass supply chains, and land-use planning to EU projects. In H2020, they contributed real-world forestry datasets, forest owner engagement expertise, and practical knowledge of forest ecosystem services — bridging the gap between policy, landowners, and innovation.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

All three H2020 projects were launched within a tight 2017-2018 window, making it difficult to identify a clear evolution over time. Early keywords point to broad bioeconomy interests spanning agriculture, fishery, and forestry (via DataBio), while the later projects (InnoForESt, SINCERE) narrowed toward forest-specific ecosystem services and innovative financing models. This suggests a trajectory from general data-driven bioeconomy work toward a sharper focus on the economic valuation and sustainable management of forest ecosystems specifically.

Moving toward innovative financing and governance models for forest ecosystem services — relevant for anyone working on nature-based solutions or payments for ecosystem services in Europe.

How they like to work

The Finnish Forest Centre exclusively participates as a partner, never leading consortia — consistent with their role as a national public body contributing domain expertise rather than driving research agendas. All three projects were large-scale Innovation Actions with extensive consortia (92 unique partners across 26 countries), indicating comfort operating in complex, multi-country collaborations. They are a reliable domain partner who brings real-world forestry authority and data access rather than academic research capacity.

Connected to 92 unique partners across 26 countries through just three projects, reflecting participation in large pan-European consortia. Their network spans the Nordic-Central European forestry and bioeconomy research community.

What sets them apart

As Finland's official national forest authority, they offer something most research partners cannot: direct access to comprehensive national forest inventory data, regulatory knowledge, and established relationships with tens of thousands of private forest owners. This makes them an ideal demonstration and validation partner for anyone developing forestry tools, ecosystem service models, or bioeconomy solutions that need real-world testing ground. Few organizations combine public mandate, operational forest data, and willingness to engage in EU innovation projects.

Highlights from their portfolio

• DataBio
  Largest funded project (EUR 275K) applying big data to bioeconomy across forestry, agriculture, and fishery — a significant EU-wide data integration effort.
• SINCERE
  Longest-running project (2018-2022) focused on spurring innovation in forest ecosystem services across Europe, indicating sustained commitment to this emerging field.
• InnoForESt
  Directly addressed governance and business model innovation for sustainable forest supply chains and ecosystem service payments — highly policy-relevant work.