Scaling up forest-based innovations in Europe: overcoming the valley of death

Rodrigo Mendes on December 1, 2025

The forest bioeconomy holds significant potential to drive the green transition, enhance industrial competitiveness, strengthen strategic autonomy, and promote well-being.

Forest management can enhance terrestrial carbon sinks, address the biodiversity crisis, and produce wood and other bio-based materials necessary to transform Europe’s main economic sectors (construction, manufacturing, mobility, chemicals, textiles, packaging) through circular economy principles.

Fulfilling this potential requires innovation. However, despite having a world-class research ecosystem, Europe still faces significant challenges in developing and bringing new bio-based products and services to the market. Bioeconomy innovation requires substantial investments in physical infrastructures and involves high technological and market risks. As a result, a large share of bioeconomy innovations fails to traverse the so-called valley of death, a critical phase between earlier-stage R&D and commercial viability, where limited public funding and high private investment risk hinder scale-up and commercialisation.

Therefore, the question remains: How can Europe overcome the most critical barriers hindering the scale-up of the European bioeconomy? This report tries to answer this question through actionable recommendations for different stakeholder groups.

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Recommendations for action

The following recommendations stem from the expert exchanges and stakeholder discussions held during the workshop Scaling up Forest-based Innovations in Europe – Overcoming the Valley of Death, held in Brussels on 15 May 2025 – which brought together quadruple helix actors committed to advancing the forest bioeconomy. The event was organised by the European Investment Bank and the European Forest Institute’s Bioregions Facility, in collaboration with the ShapingBio project and the Pilots4U initiative, with the view to contributing to the revised EU Bioeconomy Strategy.

The recommendations reflect shared insights on how to overcome key barriers to scaling up forest-based innovations. Structured around five key themes, these recommendations aim to guide stakeholder action in driving the green transition of Europe’s main economic sectors.

Create a supportive financial framework for scale-up
Maximise the impact of open-access scaling facilities
Build strategic partnerships to catalyse scaling up
Ensure coherent regulation to enable market development
Invest in capacity building and training to create cross-sectoral profiles

Content: Scaling up forest-based innovation in Europe: overcoming the valley of death

First report: Overcoming investment barriers in the forest sector: lessons learned from nine cases in Europe

Authors: Siebe Briers¹, Inazio Martinez de Arano¹, Sylvain Caurla², Adrian Enache²

Publishers: ¹ European Forest Institute – Bioregions Facility, ² European Investment Bank

Year: 2025

Learn more

The Forestry Hub of Catalonia is an initiative supporting innovation in forestry value chains. Its facilities for research, development, transfer, facilitation and training.

The Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEPP) is a leading open-access facility supporting the scale-up of bio-based innovations from lab to industrial scale.

CMPC Ventures’ Venture Client supports start-ups through partnerships, pilots, and direct investment. Launched in 2024, the CMPC has completed 15 pilots, including two forestry-focused projects.

The Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) is a key promoter of sustainable growth and competitiveness in Europe.

ECBF is the first private venture capital fund exclusively dedicated to investing in growth-stage companies within the European bioeconomy.

Biocastanea upcycles chestnut burr waste into certified eco‐cosmeceuticals via green extraction of antioxidants. Biocastanea promotes zero‐waste valorisation and scalable bioeconomy.

Strong by Form develops Woodflow, a biomimetic, digitally-designed timber composite replacing steel, concrete, plastics via strategic partnerships, phased financing, deep-tech planning.