Zavod IRCUO

Zavod IRCUO – Industrial development center for leather and footwear industry

IRCUO was found in 1999 as a response of Slovenian leather and footwear industry to increasing quality and innovation demands on leather and footwear market. Additionally, companies needed a technological center, where they could test input materials and final products, before market introduction.

With knowledge and technological equipment IRCUO will also be able to help other organizations, which need testing of input materials or finished footwear, domestic or abroad. By pre-testing better business decisions will be made and risk of mistakes will be reduced.

IRCUO will add value and increase competitiveness of its members, by managing the following activities:

• Testing of input materials and finished footwear, before and after market introduction,
• managing integrated research, educational and development projects, co-financed by national government and/or European Union development funds and programs (EUREKA, Erasmus+ , Horizon2020…)
• cooperation with other domestic and foreign research institutes and partners Today IRCUO has its laboratory in the city of Žiri, which has a very long tradition in footwear production.

Successfully finished integrated project cofinanced by Phare (EU) and Slovenian government funds, enabled IRCUO to gain 18 hi-tech equipment for testing input materials and finished footwear on various characteristics. With modern equipment IRCUO is able to contribute to higher quality and added value of our clients’ products. By applying IRCUO services also on different R&D projects, they are able to contribute to project success, and on the other hand transform gained knowledge to R&D departments of members and clients.