diff --git a/rocrate/model/entity.py b/rocrate/model/entity.py
index 473a7eb..b9acc16 100644
--- a/rocrate/model/entity.py
+++ b/rocrate/model/entity.py
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ def __init__(self, crate, identifier=None, properties=None):
                 if name.startswith("@"):
                     self._jsonld[name] = value
                 else:
+                    # this will call the __setitem__ method defined below
                     self[name] = value
 
     @property
diff --git a/rocrate/rocrate.py b/rocrate/rocrate.py
index d36750e..c51710f 100644
--- a/rocrate/rocrate.py
+++ b/rocrate/rocrate.py
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 
 import errno
+from typing import cast
 import uuid
 import zipfile
 import atexit
@@ -74,16 +75,37 @@ def is_data_entity(entity):
     return DATA_ENTITY_TYPES.intersection(as_list(entity.get("@type", [])))
 
 
-def pick_type(json_entity, type_map, fallback=None):
+def pick_type(json_entity, type_map, fallback=None, parse_subcrate=False):
     try:
         t = json_entity["@type"]
     except KeyError:
         raise ValueError(f'entity {json_entity["@id"]!r} has no @type')
     types = {_.strip() for _ in set(t if isinstance(t, list) else [t])}
+
+    entity_class = None
     for name, c in type_map.items():
         if name in types:
-            return c
-    return fallback
+            entity_class = c
+            break
+
+    if not entity_class:
+        return fallback
+
+    if entity_class is Dataset:
+
+        # Check if the dataset is a Subcrate
+        # i.e it has a conformsTo entry matching a RO-Crate profile
+        # TODO find a better way to check the profiles?
+        if parse_subcrate and (list_profiles := get_norm_value(json_entity, "conformsTo")):
+
+            for profile_ref in list_profiles:
+                if profile_ref.startswith("https://w3id.org/ro/crate"):
+                    return Subcrate
+
+        return Dataset
+
+    else:
+        return entity_class
 
 
 def get_version(metadata_properties):
@@ -96,10 +118,16 @@ def get_version(metadata_properties):
 
 class ROCrate():
 
-    def __init__(self, source=None, gen_preview=False, init=False, exclude=None, version=DEFAULT_VERSION):
+    def __init__(self,
+                 source=None,
+                 gen_preview=False,
+                 init=False, exclude=None,
+                 version=DEFAULT_VERSION,
+                 parse_subcrate=False):
         self.mode = None
         self.source = source
         self.exclude = exclude
+        self.parse_subcrate = parse_subcrate
         self.__entity_map = {}
         # TODO: add this as @base in the context? At least when loading
         # from zip
@@ -182,6 +210,14 @@ def __read_data_entities(self, entities, source, gen_preview):
         self.__add_parts(parts, entities, source)
 
     def __add_parts(self, parts, entities, source):
+        """
+        Add entities to the crate from a list of entities id and Entity object.
+
+        :param self: Description
+        :param parts: a list of dicts (one dict per entity) in the form {@id : "entity_id"}
+        :param entities: a dict with the full list of entities information as in the hasPart of the root dataset of the crate.
+        :param source: Description
+        """
         type_map = OrderedDict((_.__name__, _) for _ in subclasses(FileOrDir))
         for ref in parts:
             id_ = ref['@id']
@@ -192,16 +228,28 @@ def __add_parts(self, parts, entities, source):
                     continue
             entity = entities.pop(id_)
             assert id_ == entity.pop('@id')
-            cls = pick_type(entity, type_map, fallback=DataEntity)
-            if cls is DataEntity:
+            cls = pick_type(entity, type_map, fallback=DataEntity, parse_subcrate=self.parse_subcrate)
+
+            if cls is Subcrate:
+
+                if is_url(id_):
+                    instance = Subcrate(self, source=id_, properties=entity)
+                else:
+                    instance = Subcrate(self, source=source / unquote(id_), properties=entity)
+
+            elif cls is DataEntity:
                 instance = DataEntity(self, identifier=id_, properties=entity)
+
             else:
+                # cls is either a File or a Dataset (Directory)
                 if is_url(id_):
                     instance = cls(self, id_, properties=entity)
                 else:
                     instance = cls(self, source / unquote(id_), id_, properties=entity)
             self.add(instance)
             if instance.type == "Dataset":
+                # for Subcrate, type is currently Dataset too,
+                # but the hasPart is not populated yet only once accessing a subcrate element (lazy loading)
                 self.__add_parts(as_list(entity.get("hasPart", [])), entities, source)
 
     def __read_contextual_entities(self, entities):
@@ -234,6 +282,11 @@ def contextual_entities(self):
                 if not isinstance(e, (RootDataset, Metadata, Preview))
                 and not hasattr(e, "write")]
 
+    @property
+    def subcrate_entities(self):
+        return [e for e in self.__entity_map.values()
+                if isinstance(e, Subcrate)]
+
     @property
     def name(self):
         return self.root_dataset.get('name')
@@ -364,9 +417,31 @@ def get_entities(self):
     def _get_root_jsonld(self):
         self.root_dataset.properties()
 
+    def __contains__(self, entity_id):
+        canonical_id = self.resolve_id(entity_id)
+        return canonical_id in self.__entity_map
+
     def dereference(self, entity_id, default=None):
         canonical_id = self.resolve_id(entity_id)
-        return self.__entity_map.get(canonical_id, default)
+
+        if canonical_id in self.__entity_map:
+            return self.__entity_map[canonical_id]
+
+        for subcrate_entity in self.subcrate_entities:
+
+            # check if the entity_id might be within a subcrate
+            # i.e entity_id would start with a subcrate id e.g subcrate/subfile.txt
+            if entity_id.startswith(subcrate_entity.id):
+
+                # replace id of subcrate to use get in the subcrate
+                # subcrate/subfile.txt --> subfile.txt
+                # dont use replace, as it could replace in the middle of the id
+                entity_id_in_subcrate = entity_id[len(subcrate_entity.id):]
+
+                return subcrate_entity.get_crate().get(entity_id_in_subcrate, default=default)
+
+        # fallback
+        return default
 
     get = dereference
 
@@ -492,7 +567,7 @@ def _copy_unlisted(self, top, base_path):
             for name in files:
                 source = root / name
                 rel = source.relative_to(top)
-                if not self.dereference(str(rel)):
+                if str(rel) not in self:
                     dest = base_path / rel
                     if not dest.exists() or not dest.samefile(source):
                         shutil.copyfile(source, dest)
@@ -550,7 +625,7 @@ def _stream_zip(self, chunk_size=8192, out_path=None):
                             continue
 
                         rel = source.relative_to(self.source)
-                        if not self.dereference(str(rel)) and not str(rel) in listed_files:
+                        if str(rel) not in self and not str(rel) in listed_files:
                             with archive.open(str(rel), mode='w') as out_file, open(source, 'rb') as in_file:
                                 while chunk := in_file.read(chunk_size):
                                     out_file.write(chunk)
@@ -782,6 +857,45 @@ def __validate_suite(self, suite):
         return suite
 
 
+class Subcrate(Dataset):
+
+    def __init__(self, crate, source=None, dest_path=None, fetch_remote=False,
+                 validate_url=False, properties=None, record_size=False):
+        """
+        Data-entity representing a subcrate inside another RO-Crate.
+
+        :param crate: The parent crate
+        :param source: The relative path to the subcrate, or its URL
+        """
+        super().__init__(crate, source, dest_path, fetch_remote,
+                         validate_url, properties=properties, record_size=record_size)
+
+        self._crate = None
+        """
+        A ROCrate instance allowing access to the nested RO-Crate.
+        The nested RO-Crate is loaded on first access to any of its attribute.
+        This attribute should not be confused with the crate attribute, which is a reference to the parent crate.
+        Caller should rather use the get_crate() method to access the nested RO-Crate.
+        """
+
+    def get_crate(self) -> ROCrate:
+        """
+        Return the RO-Crate object referenced by this subcrate.
+        """
+        if self._crate is None:
+            self._load_subcrate()
+
+        return cast(ROCrate, self._crate)
+
+    def _load_subcrate(self):
+        """
+        Load the nested RO-Crate from the source path or URL.
+        """
+        if self._crate is None:
+            # parse_subcrate=True to load further nested RO-Crate (on-demand / lazily too)
+            self._crate = ROCrate(self.source, parse_subcrate=True)
+
+
 def make_workflow_rocrate(workflow_path, wf_type, include_files=[],
                           fetch_remote=False, cwl=None, diagram=None):
     wf_crate = ROCrate()
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/file.txt b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/file.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b4d68d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/file.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+empty
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..89e7413
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+{
+    "@context": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1/context",
+    "@graph": [
+        {
+            "@id": "./",
+            "@type": "Dataset",
+            "name": "Top-level crate with subcrate",
+            "description": "A RO-Crate containing a subcrate",
+            "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html",
+            "datePublished": "2025-12-02T08:39:54+00:00",
+            "hasPart": [
+                {
+                    "@id": "file.txt"
+                },
+                {
+                    "@id": "subcrate/"
+                }
+            ]
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "ro-crate-metadata.json",
+            "@type": "CreativeWork",
+            "about": {
+                "@id": "./"
+            },
+            "conformsTo": {
+                "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1"
+            }
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "file.txt",
+            "@type": "File"
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "subcrate/",
+            "@type": "Dataset",
+            "conformsTo": {
+                "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate"
+            }
+        }
+    ]
+}
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eca9026
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+{
+    "@context": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1/context",
+    "@graph": [
+        {
+            "@id": "./",
+            "@type": "Dataset",
+            "datePublished": "2025-12-02T08:39:54+00:00",
+            "hasPart": [
+                {
+                    "@id": "subfile.txt"
+                },
+                {
+                    "@id": "subsubcrate/"
+                }
+            ]
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "ro-crate-metadata.json",
+            "@type": "CreativeWork",
+            "about": {
+                "@id": "./"
+            },
+            "conformsTo": {
+                "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1"
+            }
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "subfile.txt",
+            "@type": "File"
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "subsubcrate/",
+            "@type": "Dataset",
+            "conformsTo": {
+                "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate"
+            }
+        }
+    ]
+}
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subfile.txt b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subfile.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b4d68d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subfile.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+empty
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/deepfile.txt b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/deepfile.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6cac69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/deepfile.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+empty
diff --git a/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b552c79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test-data/crate_with_subcrate/subcrate/subsubcrate/ro-crate-metadata.json
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+{
+    "@context": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1/context",
+    "@graph": [
+        {
+            "@id": "./",
+            "@type": "Dataset",
+            "datePublished": "2025-12-02T08:39:54+00:00",
+            "hasPart": [
+                {
+                    "@id": "deepfile.txt"
+                }
+            ]
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "ro-crate-metadata.json",
+            "@type": "CreativeWork",
+            "about": {
+                "@id": "./"
+            },
+            "conformsTo": {
+                "@id": "https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1"
+            }
+        },
+        {
+            "@id": "deepfile.txt",
+            "@type": "File"
+        }
+    ]
+}
diff --git a/test/test_model.py b/test/test_model.py
index a86c25f..26b13d2 100644
--- a/test/test_model.py
+++ b/test/test_model.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 
 import pytest
-from rocrate.rocrate import ROCrate
+from rocrate.rocrate import ROCrate, Subcrate
 from rocrate.model import (
     DataEntity,
     File,
@@ -103,10 +103,11 @@ def test_data_entities(test_data_dir):
     crate = ROCrate()
     file_ = crate.add(File(crate, test_data_dir / 'sample_file.txt'))
     dataset = crate.add(Dataset(crate, test_data_dir / 'test_add_dir'))
+    subcrate = crate.add(Subcrate(crate, test_data_dir / 'crate-1.0'))
     data_entity = crate.add(DataEntity(crate, '#mysterious'))
-    assert set(crate.data_entities) == {file_, dataset, data_entity}
+    assert set(crate.data_entities) == {file_, dataset, subcrate, data_entity}
     part_ids = set(_["@id"] for _ in crate.root_dataset._jsonld["hasPart"])
-    assert set(_.id for _ in (file_, dataset, data_entity)) <= part_ids
+    assert set(_.id for _ in (file_, dataset, subcrate, data_entity)) <= part_ids
 
 
 @pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform == "darwin", reason="CI sometimes fails on macOS")
diff --git a/test/test_read.py b/test/test_read.py
index 359da13..abe0c62 100644
--- a/test/test_read.py
+++ b/test/test_read.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 import zipfile
 from pathlib import Path
 
-from rocrate.rocrate import ROCrate
+from rocrate.rocrate import ROCrate, Subcrate
 from rocrate.model import DataEntity, ContextEntity, File, Dataset
 
 _URL = ('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ResearchObject/ro-crate-py/master/'
@@ -192,6 +192,48 @@ def test_bad_crate(test_data_dir, tmpdir):
         ROCrate(crate_dir)
 
 
+def load_crate_with_subcrate(test_data_dir):
+    return ROCrate(test_data_dir / "crate_with_subcrate", parse_subcrate=True)
+
+
+def test_crate_with_subcrate(test_data_dir):
+
+    main_crate = load_crate_with_subcrate(test_data_dir)
+
+    subcrate = main_crate.get("subcrate")
+    assert isinstance(subcrate, Subcrate)
+    assert main_crate.subcrate_entities == [subcrate]
+
+    # Check the subcrate kept the conformsTo attribute from the original Dataset entity
+    assert subcrate.get("conformsTo") == "https://w3id.org/ro/crate"
+
+    # check that at this point, we have not yet loaded the subcrate
+    assert subcrate._crate is None
+
+    # check access from the top-level crate
+    subfile = main_crate.get("subcrate/subfile.txt")
+    assert isinstance(subfile, File)
+
+    # check that the above dereferencing triggered lazy loading
+    assert isinstance(subcrate._crate, ROCrate)
+    assert subfile.id == "subfile.txt"
+    assert subfile.crate is not main_crate
+    assert subfile.crate is subcrate._crate
+
+    # check with another nested rocrate
+    assert isinstance(main_crate.get("subcrate/subsubcrate/deepfile.txt"), File)
+
+    # reload the crate to "reset" the state to unloaded
+    main_crate = load_crate_with_subcrate(test_data_dir)
+    subcrate = main_crate.get("subcrate")
+    assert subcrate._crate is None
+
+    # get_crate() should trigger loading of the subcrate
+    nested_crate = subcrate.get_crate()
+    assert isinstance(nested_crate, ROCrate)
+    assert subcrate._crate is nested_crate
+
+
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("override", [False, True])
 def test_init(test_data_dir, tmpdir, helpers, override):
     crate_dir = test_data_dir / "ro-crate-galaxy-sortchangecase"
diff --git a/test/test_write.py b/test/test_write.py
index 3cf0422..3b55897 100644
--- a/test/test_write.py
+++ b/test/test_write.py
@@ -627,6 +627,30 @@ def test_write_zip_nested_dest(tmpdir, helpers):
     assert (unpack_path / "subdir" / "a b" / "j k" / "l m.txt").is_file()
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("to_zip", [False, True])
+def test_write_subcrate(test_data_dir, tmpdir, to_zip):
+    """Read the test crate with subcrate and write it to a new location.
+    Check that the subcrate contents are correctly written."""
+    crate = ROCrate(test_data_dir / "crate_with_subcrate", parse_subcrate=True)
+    out_path = tmpdir / "ro_crate_out"
+    if to_zip:
+        zip_path = tmpdir / 'ro_crate_out.crate.zip'
+        crate.write_zip(zip_path)
+        with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_path, "r") as zf:
+            zf.extractall(out_path)
+    else:
+        crate.write(out_path)
+
+    assert (out_path / "file.txt").is_file()
+    assert (out_path / "ro-crate-metadata.json").is_file()
+
+    assert (out_path / "subcrate" / "ro-crate-metadata.json").is_file()
+    assert (out_path / "subcrate" / "subfile.txt").is_file()
+
+    assert (out_path / "subcrate" / "subsubcrate" / "deepfile.txt").is_file()
+    assert (out_path / "subcrate" / "subsubcrate" / "ro-crate-metadata.json").is_file()
+
+
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("version", ["1.0", "1.1", "1.2"])
 def test_write_version(tmpdir, helpers, version):
     basename = helpers.LEGACY_METADATA_FILE_NAME if version == "1.0" else helpers.METADATA_FILE_NAME