UFIL - Urban Forest Innovation Lab

URBAN FOREST INNOVATION LAB (UFIL) aims at fostering local economic development, through the promotion of innovative means of forest exploitation that include a rural-urban perspective. Those means are:
•    An innovative training model aiming at design-based business creation in the field of forest bioeconomy. This training is divided into 3 main pillars: 21st century skills, forest bioeconomy and business and environmental innovation in forestry. The training is complemented with practical work on challenges presented by sponsors. Multidisciplinary groups of participants from different backgrounds (industrial, agroforest, business administration and IT) will work throughout the training, in order to identify possible solution to the sponsors’ challenges.
•    Incubation and acceleration: During the trainings, participants will incubate and accelerate their business projects with the necessary equipment for testing and prototyping. Cuenca’s forest will be the test ground for solutions incubated, regularly monitored by experienced professionals.
•    Knowledge development: UFIL will conduct a deep research on forest opportunities in Cuenca and main areas for business development and innovation.
•    Consolidation of forest bioeconomy: An action plan for Cuenca’s forestry sector will be developed  in collaboration with different levels of administration (National, Regional, Province).