V4 BioWaste Solutions Network

Biowaste — kitchen, garden and food-processing residues — accounts for roughly one third of municipal solid waste in the V4 region. Yet separate collection and recovery remain underdeveloped. The EU Waste Framework Directive has obliged Member States to ensure separate biowaste collection since 2024, but the data show persistent gaps: composting and anaerobic-digestion capacities are unevenly distributed, household participation is low, and many municipalities — especially small and mid-sized ones — lack the operational know-how, the cost models and the technology partners needed to make collection and recovery work in practice.

At the same time, a vibrant innovation ecosystem has emerged across the V4. Start-ups and SMEs offer composting units, smart bins, biogas micro-plants, enzymatic treatment, route-optimisation software and circular-economy advisory services.

The problem is that these two worlds do not meet. Municipalities do not know what works elsewhere or which solution fits their scale. Innovators often do not know where the concrete demand is. Without a deliberate matching mechanism, scarce public funds are spent on suboptimal investments and proven Central European solutions remain stuck in their country of origin.

The project creates a simple, low-cost matching layer that translates real municipal demand into a usable map of Central European solutions. Specifically, we will:

1. Compile a comparable baseline of biowaste management across all four V4 countries — legislation, statistics, capacities, gaps and good practice.
2. Map the V4 innovation ecosystem and build a searchable database of providers and solutions.
3. Reach out to municipalities through a survey and in-depth interviews in Slovakia, Czechia and Poland to collect their concrete operational needs.
4. Match needs to solutions and develop 6–10 detailed use cases with realistic implementation pathways.
5. Validate the portfolio with practitioners during the final hybrid conference, with municipalities and innovators in the room.
6. Disseminate a practical toolkit for municipalities that want to move forward on biowaste.

The project is analytical and networking-oriented — it deliberately does not duplicate existing accelerators or fund pilot installations. Its added value lies in the regional, comparable matching of demand and supply across the differing institutional settings of the V4.

In Hungary, municipal waste management is consolidated under the national concession holder MOHU (MOL Hulladékgazdálkodási Zrt.), which substantially limits the decision-making autonomy of municipalities. Mapping municipal needs there would therefore not be meaningful, and we do not do it. Instead, our partner KRTK carries out a targeted institutional analysis of this model and participates fully in every other part of the project — innovation mapping (including food-processing and agricultural waste streams that fall outside the consolidated municipal system), matching, validation and dissemination. This difference is an asset for the project: it allows us to compare a centralised and a decentralised model and to draw lessons for the whole region.

1. Create the first shared, comparable knowledge base on biowaste at V4 scale.
2. Give municipalities an overview of the solutions that genuinely exist and work in the region.
3. Make Central European innovators visible to public buyers and open up cross-border demand for them.
4. Give small and mid-sized municipalities the decision support that today only large cities have.
5. Build a working partnership of V4 innovation centres, universities and research institutions that stays active beyond the project.

• Baseline Report: State of Biowaste Management in V4 Municipalities — comparative analysis (~55 pages) with an executive summary translated into all four national languages11/2026 – 02/2027
• V4 Innovation Database — searchable catalogue of around 60 solutions and their providers across the four countries12/2026 – 04/2027
• V4 Municipal Needs Map — survey and in-depth interviews in SK, CZ and PL (~80 municipalities), complemented by a contextual analysis for Hungary01/2027 – 05/2027
• V4 Solutions Portfolio — 6 to 10 detailed use cases matching a concrete need with a concrete solution06/2027 – 10/2027
• Practical Toolkit for Municipalities — digital guide (~30–40 pages) taking users step by step from assessing their situation to selecting a solution12/2027 – 02/2028
• Final hybrid conference in Lučenec — validation of outputs, policy panels and matchmaking between municipalities and innovators, around 85 participants from all V4 countries03/2028

All outputs will be published digitally and openly under a CC-BY licence on the project website.

Implementation period: 1 November 2026 – 30 April 2028 (18 months) Total approved budget: €32,670 Funding source: Visegrad Grant, International Visegrad Fund

Municipalities and their waste-management staff, innovators and companies offering biowaste solutions, policy-makers at national and regional level, the academic community, and the wider public interested in the circular economy and sustainable local services.

• BioPark Slovakia

  Applicant and coordinator · Slovakia

  BioPark Slovakia is a Slovak organisation dedicated to advancing the bioeconomy and supporting the innovation ecosystem at the interface between research, business and the public sector. It connects research institutions, SMEs and municipalities, organises knowledge-exchange events, provides analytical and advisory support, and builds thematic networks around bio-based value chains. The team has direct experience in coordinating multi-partner cooperation across Central Europe, in implementing externally funded projects with strict reporting requirements, and in producing analytical outputs for decision-makers.

  In this project, BioPark coordinates the consortium, leads the municipal needs mapping, is responsible for the Slovak contribution to every output, sets up and manages the project website, and hosts the final hybrid conference in Lučenec. After the project ends, it will maintain the Innovation Database and the Solutions Portfolio as part of its standing activity.

• Innovation Centre of the Olomouc Region (ICOK)

  Partner · Czechia

  The Innovation Centre of the Olomouc Region is a public innovation agency established by the Olomouc Region and Palacký University Olomouc. It connects companies, start-ups, academia and the public sector through acceleration, technology-transfer and innovation-voucher programmes, and runs a dedicated sustainability and ESG programme (ICOK ENVI). Its networks of Czech start-ups, technology providers and research institutions, together with its membership of EU innovation networks (Ynovate, EBN, ERRIN), give the project direct access to relevant solution providers in Czechia. ICOK brings experience from international and environmental projects, including CircInWater and the LIFE project Energy Living Lab, as well as a Horizon Europe proposal prepared jointly with BioPark Slovakia.

  In this project, ICOK leads the innovation-ecosystem mapping and the database methodology, runs the Czech data collection and the fieldwork with Czech municipalities, contributes the Czech chapter and legislative review to the Baseline Report, leads a share of the use cases, and authors the toolkit chapter on innovation-side practicalities.

• University of Life Sciences in Lublin

  Partner · Poland

  The University of Life Sciences in Lublin is among Poland's leading universities in agriculture, environmental engineering and the bioeconomy, with strong expertise in waste valorisation, composting, biogas production and circular agricultural practices. The project works with its Department of Environmental Microbiology at the Faculty of Agrobioengineering, whose researchers bring rigorous analytical capacity to the consortium.

  In this project, the university leads the Baseline Report — designing the comparative methodology and template, leading the desk research, writing the Polish and synthesis chapters, and performing scientific quality control. It also runs the Polish innovation mapping and the fieldwork with Polish municipalities, leads use cases anchored in agricultural and food-processing waste streams, and authors the toolkit chapter on the scientific underpinning. The Lublin partner ensures the outputs are credible and citable for policy-makers.

• ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (ELTE CERS)

  Partner · Hungary

  ELTE Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (ELTE CERS) is a leading Hungarian public research institution in economics and regional studies, part of the HUN-REN network. The project works with its Institute for Regional Studies, which has long-standing expertise in territorial development, regional innovation systems and municipal public-service delivery, including environmental services.

  Because Hungarian municipal biowaste collection is consolidated under the national concession holder MOHU, KRTK does not run municipal-needs mapping in Hungary. Instead it produces a targeted institutional analysis of that model and its implications for the matching exercise. In every other part of the project it participates fully: it co-leads the innovation-ecosystem mapping with ICOK, including food-processing and agricultural waste streams outside the consolidated system, coordinates the Solutions Portfolio, writes the Hungarian chapter of the Baseline Report and the toolkit chapter on institutional context, and chairs the policy panel at the final conference.

BioPark Slovakia

Project coordinator

The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

The International Visegrad Fund is an international donor organization established by the governments of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). Its aim is to support closer understanding and cooperation among people in the V4 region, as well as between the V4 region and other countries and regions, particularly in the non-EU neighborhood of the Eastern Partnership countries and in the Western Balkans. The fund fosters the development of civil society by financing joint grant projects and by awarding university scholarships and artist residencies. The fund’s annual budget of €10 million consists of equal contributions by the V4 governments.