There is a need to raise the level of competence in the forestry and wood industry in Sweden for increased growth, innovation, and competitiveness. Most of the companies in this industry are SMEs and they are often located outside larger cities. They have no or little experience in collaboration with universities, but often have a close relationship with intermediary organisations. On the other side, the academic collaborations with the forest and wood industry focus mainly on larger companies.

To increase collaboration between SMEs and academia, the project KVIST was jointly initiated by Träcentrum (intermediary organisation), Linnaeus University and Jönköping University to increase the competence- and knowledge exchanges between SMEs in the forest and wood industry and the two universities in the region of Småland in Sweden. KVIST in Swedish means ’TWIG’ in English, the Swedish abbreviation of “Competence Shift In the Forest and Wood industry”. The objective of KVIST is to develop and establish a long-lasting structure for collaboration between academia and these SMEs using an intermediary organisation. The project started in 2020 and will continue until 2023.

We presented the initial ideas of the project KVIST at a poster session at UIIN 2020. This good practice case study is a continuation of the former presentation and describes the first results of the KVIST-project and how we work to establish a structure for collaboration between two universities and SMEs in forest and wood industry in Sweden using an intermediary organisation.