We are looking to join an international research consortium under Topic 4 – Forest Value Chains, Markets and Governance. We offer expertise in business model innovation, commercialization, industrial ecosystems, and the scaling of sustainable solutions, with a particular interest in supporting the green and digital transformation of European forest-based industries.
The transformation of forest-based value chains requires more than technological innovation. Emerging solutions, including artificial intelligence, autonomous and electrified forestry equipment, digital services, and resource-efficient practices, offer significant opportunities to improve sustainability, productivity, and competitiveness. However, realizing this potential requires new technologies and solutions to become economically viable, commercially attractive, and scalable across firms, markets, and industrial ecosystems. This creates important challenges related to business models, investment incentives, organizational capabilities, and coordination among actors throughout forest-based value chains.
Depending on the focus of the consortium, we could contribute to research in several complementary areas:
Business model innovation and sustainable value creation: Developing economically viable business models that support the adoption and commercialization of sustainable forestry technologies, services, and practices, including new approaches to value creation and capture.
Commercialization and scaling of sustainable solutions: Understanding the barriers, strategies, and organizational capabilities involved in moving sustainable innovations from pilot projects to broader market adoption and international scaling.
Industrial ecosystems and value-chain collaboration: Investigating how forest owners, forestry contractors, equipment manufacturers, technology providers, and other stakeholders coordinate activities, investments, and resources to enable sustainable transformation.
Digitalization, AI, autonomy, and servitization: Exploring how AI, autonomous technologies, digital solutions, and data-driven services can transform forestry operations and business models, create new value propositions, and enable more efficient and sustainable forest-based value chains.
Competitiveness and sustainability transitions: Examining how forest-based firms, particularly SMEs and industrial suppliers, can reconcile economic viability and competitiveness with environmental sustainability and evolving market requirements.
We welcome collaboration with universities, research institutes, industrial companies, forestry organizations, and other stakeholders interested in sustainable forestry and forest-based value-chain transformation. We are particularly interested in contributing as a research partner or work-package leader, bringing complementary business, innovation, and commercialization perspectives to interdisciplinary consortia.

Luleå University of Technology (LTU) is Scandinavia's northernmost technical university, with strong connections to the forest, mining, manufacturing, energy, and process industries of northern Sweden.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation research group conducts internationally recognized research on business model innovation, digital servitization, industrial ecosystems, commercialization, and sustainable business transformation. Our research examines how industrial firms develop, implement, and scale innovative business models and solutions, often in collaboration with customers, suppliers, technology providers, and other ecosystem partners.
We have extensive experience conducting collaborative research with leading industrial companies and translating research insights into practical frameworks and strategies for business transformation. Our expertise spans qualitative and longitudinal case studies, collaborative research approaches, and the development of actionable insights for industrial innovation and sustainability transitions.
Importantly, we also bring an established network of contacts across the Swedish forestry and industrial sectors, including innovative SMEs, forestry equipment and technology suppliers such as Komatsu Forest and Scania, and major forestry companies such as SCA and Södra. These connections offer opportunities to engage relevant industrial stakeholders, develop empirical case studies, and facilitate industry–academia collaboration within European research consortia.
We are particularly interested in joining interdisciplinary consortia where our expertise in business models, innovation, and scaling, combined with our industrial networks, can complement forestry, environmental, and technological research capabilities.