The Centre was jointly funded by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems - VINNOVA, the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU), Umeå University (UmU) and seven industrial partners belonging to Swedish forest industry. It was part of the VINNOVA Competence Centre program. About 35 research groups (belonging to the two academic partners) and seven industrial partners were considered to be part of the Competence Centre.
The Competence Centre was located at the Umeå Plant Science Centre, at the University Campus in Umeå.
Organisation of the Centre
Executive group
The management of the centre was based on several different entities. The research director, Prof. Ove Nilsson, formed an executive group together with the two assistant research directors, Prof. Stefan Jansson and Prof. Catherine Bellini, a scientific secretary, Dr. Maria Israelsson Nordström. The executive group met regularly.
Centre board
The Centre board consisted of representatives of all the Centre partners (Universities and industrial partners). Typically, the board met four times per year.
International scientific advisory board
Both the director and the centre board got guidance in questions of strategic importance concerning research by the scientific advisory board.
Task forces
All research groups that wre working within the compentence centre were subdivided into three units, the so-called task forces. Each task force was led by a pair of task force leaders. The task force leaders were responsible for the scientific progress of their respective task force, the organization of different projects within the task force (basic projects and applied projects involving industrial partners), the organization of task force meetings, etc. The centre director held regular meetings with the task force leaders.