On 22 October 2026, the EU-funded WaterProof project will host its final workshop at Science Park Amsterdam, bringing together young researchers, students, PhD candidates and young professionals interested in Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) and CO₂ valorisation.

The workshop is designed particularly for early-career researchers and students who would like to deepen their knowledge of CCU technologies, CO₂ conversion pathways and their role in the transition towards circular carbon solutions. At the same time, the event aims to strengthen awareness of these topics among participants from related disciplines, helping to connect CCU research with broader scientific, technological and sustainability perspectives.

A series of presentations will highlight key technological and systemic approaches explored within and around the WaterProof project. Topics will include the recovery of precious metals through acidic deep eutectic solvents (ADES), electrochemical processes for CO₂ valorisation, and the role of industrial-urban symbiosis in creating more circular and resource-efficient value chains.

The workshop will also feature contributions from the partner projects ICO2NIC and HICCUPS, which will present findings from their own work and provide additional perspectives on the development and application of carbon capture and utilisation technologies.

Opportunity for partner projects to present their work
WaterProof invites related projects to contribute to the workshop through a dedicated poster session. The session will provide an opportunity to present complementary approaches, research results and innovative concepts, and to exchange ideas with researchers and practitioners working across the CCU field.
By bringing together different projects and disciplines, the workshop aims to create a space for discussion, networking and future collaboration beyond the lifetime of the WaterProof project.
To submit a poster, please contact dusica.banduka@nova-institut.de

Registration
Join the event in Amsterdam
The WaterProof Final Workshop will take place:
22 October 2026
Matrix ONE
Science Park 301
1098 XH Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Registration: https://dusicabanduka.aidaform.com/waterproof-final-event-registration

Please note that the workshop will be held exclusively on site. There will be no online or hybrid participation option.

Registration is binding, and participants are therefore kindly asked to register only if they are able to attend in person.

The WaterProof team looks forward to welcoming students, PhD candidates, early-career researchers, partner projects and colleagues from related disciplines to Amsterdam for a day of exchange, learning and discussion on the future of CCU and CO₂ valorisation.

Download the agenda here:https://waterproof-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/26-09-16_Waterproof_Agenda.pdf

The WaterProof Project
The EU-funded research project WaterProof is developing a cutting-edge CO2 conversion technology . Powered by renewable energy, this unique electrochemical process converts CO₂ captured from wastewater treatment and waste incineration into formic acid. It hereby turns emissions into a sustainable carbon feedstock replacing fossil resources. The generated formic acid will be tested in applications like fish leather tanning and consumer cleaning products as well as the formulation of Formic-derived Acidic Deep Eutectic Solvents (ADES). The project’s synergies perfectly illustrate I-US potentials: Urban CO₂ emissions supply chemical industries. Peroxide by-products treat wastewater contaminated with pesticides, antibiotics, and pharmaceuticals. Formic-derived Acidic Deep Eutectic Solvents (ADES) extract precious metals from ash and sludge, creating closed loop circular systems.

More information on WaterProof is available at https://waterproof-project.eu.

WaterProof is funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101058578. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

After two years of building bridges between rural communities, startups and circular bioeconomy innovators across Europe, FoodCoP is coming to a close, and we want you to be part of the celebration.

Final Event | 6 October 2026 | Kočevje, Slovenia (and online)
Join us in person in Kočevje or follow the event online from anywhere. The programme brings together the people behind the project (Startup Villages, FoodCoP Ambassadors, mentors and partners) to share results, lessons learned and success stories from the FoodCoP journey, and to look at what comes next for circular bioeconomy in rural areas. Expect inspiring presentations, networking opportunities and a final quiz with a chance to win.

Global Online Roundtable: Circular Bioeconomy from the Ground Up
How do communities around the world move towards circular models, and what can Europe learn from them? In this online roundtable, community-driven initiatives from different continents from Asia to America, including Kamikatsu (Japan) and the Bichitos cooperative (Uruguay), will share their turning points and offer practical advice for rural communities taking their first steps in circular bioeconomy.

Who should join?
Rural communities, startups, researchers, policy makers, local authorities, cluster and network managers, and anyone interested in circular bioeconomy and community-led innovation.

How to participate
Registration is free but required: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4cac6c2a-11e9-4730-bc76-e4ec65677e9c@4746b8a0-431f-4ae6-a9be-33c7e530db87
Event schedule: 10:00 to 13.30
Questions? Contact us at info@foodcop.eu

FoodCoP has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme under Grant Agreement No. 101182001.

From Local Solutions to Global Transformation

October 19, 1pm
Dublin, Ireland

Join us in Dublin to explore how regions across Europe are advancing the bioeconomy transition – from forestry and agricultural regions to coastal communities. Take the opportunity to connect with peers facing the same regional challenges.

The bioeconomy transition is increasingly built region by region, through governance decisions and stakeholder initiatives. But regional actors rarely get the chance to exchange experiences.

This event, co-organised by the Horizon Europe BIO2REG project and EFI Bioregions, will take place alongside the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2026. It brings together regional policymakers, practitioners and researchers to compare notes on approaches that can be adapted across regional contexts, and explore opportunities for future collaboration.

It also marks the final public event of the BIO2REG project, presenting key findings and regional case studies in the context of the Bioeconomy Summit.

The BIOECONOMY GIANTS project has launched Open Call 1, offering travel vouchers (up to €500) for primary producers to attend the BIOECONOMY Bootcamp, part of the Pitch Perfect and Boost the European Bioeconomy event.

The initiative aims to connect primary producers with the wider bioeconomy ecosystem, providing opportunities for networking, knowledge exchange, and collaboration with industry and research actors.

Eligible applicants include farmers, forestry producers, cooperatives, and organisations representing primary production, based in EU Member States or Horizon Europe associated countries.

Deadline: 31 July 2026, 17:00 CEST

More information and application: https://bioeconomygiants.com/open-call-1/

In the final year of the BOOST4BIOEAST (B4B) project, the BIOEAST community gathered for the Annual BIOEAST Bioeconomy Conference jointly held with the project’s Annual Meeting between April 20th to the 23rd at the very special location; in the jewel of Dalmatian coast, Zadar, Croatia, hosted by the University of Zadar.

At the Annual Project Meeting (20–21 April), all 30 partners of the B4B consortium took stock of last year’s progress and prepared for the final rush of remaining activities, generating lasting impact and carrying on in a new follow-up project, BIOEASTWIDE. During the second year, B4B has made strong progress in co-creating inclusively the bioeconomy action plans through national workshops organised by the 11 BIOEAST HUBs across the CEE countries, updating the BIOEAST Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) with the help of the seven, macro-regional Thematic Working Groups (TWGs), successfully assessing the macro-region’s bioeconomy competences, biomass availability, educational needs and innovation systems and organising the first BIOEAST Open Innovation Challenge (OIC) which recognised 8 promising solutions boosting bioeconomy innovation across the macro-region. The major goals for 2026 remain to deliver the final bioeconomy action plans and the SRIA, to hold five pitching events with investors for the winners of the OIC and other startups and innovators and turn overall results into valuable policy recommendations for national and European decision-makers.

Following the project meeting, the BIOEAST Bioeconomy Conference (22–23 April), co-organized by the B4B project and the BIOEAST Initiative, brought together more than 120 participants from across the CEE to initiate discussion about the policy implications, future impact and valorisation opportunities of the bioeconomy action plans at national, macro-regional and European levels while showcasing good examples of bioeconomy strategy implementation from the BIOEAST macro-region.

The conference was opened by David Vlajčić, Vice president of Croatian Government and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Croatian Ministry of Agriculture, Ante Ćurković, Deputy Mayor, City of Zadar and Josip Faricic, Rector, University of Zadar.

Tugomir Majdak, State Secretary, Croatian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries kicked off the plenary by giving an overview of the current state of Croatian bioeconomy and presented the newly adopted national bioeconomy strategy. The strategy outlines the most prominent development areas from mapping the availability and demand for biomass​, managing sustainably natural resources​, fostering scientific and research activities and innovation as well as their usage in bioeconomy​, to enabling selected bioeconomy value chains​ and fostering the consumption of domestic bioeconomy products.​ Wim Haentjens, Head of Sector for Bioeconomy at DG Research and Innovation provided a comprehensive outlook on how EU’s new Bioeconomy Strategy will be implemented considering specific geopolitical factors. He highlighted the strong alignment with the BIOEAST Initiative and its UniNet for supporting the implementation and acknowledged the project’s efforts in advancing bioeconomy policies in the CEE countries, especially the strong link established with the national ministries. Barna Kovács, Secretary of the BIOEAST Initiative, closed the plenary with a call to further strengthen the competitiveness and sustainability of BIOEAST countries by turning local biomass, biowaste and natural resources into higher value products and services through research, innovation and knowledge-based cooperation, including education, thereby contributing to the EU’s strategic autonomy through a new BIOEASTWIDE cooperation which will not only include the BIOEAST countries, but the Western Balkan, Ukraine, Moldova and other EU countries. (The foundations of this EU-wide partnership will be laid down by the follow-up project of BOOST4BIOEAST, the BIOEASTWIDE from 2026 onwards.

After the plenary presentations, the programme continued with an engaging panel discussion highlighting the innovative solutions of five winners of the BIOEAST OIC moderated by Kevin Ryan from Irish Bioeconomy Foundation. Rossen Kolev, co-founder and CEO of SmartFarm Robotix introduced a chemicals-free automated solution for weed management, Simona Kelher, from KNOFmowa, a modular, free-standing partition wall made from locally collected surplus materials, Alen Hrustić, CEO of ALGO EKO, a multispectral and hyperspectral cameras implemented on drones to determine the usage of illegal plant protection products in organic agricultural production, Rastislav Rasi from NLC,  the Smart BIOHUB Network which operates 78 decentralised collection hubs across the Banská Bystrica Region (Slovakia) to optimize biomass and biodegradable waste logistics and Camelia Tulcan, from University of Life Sciences “King Mihai I”, presented a digital platform developed for circular economy training, stakeholder collaboration, and sustainable energy design.

Following the panel, an action plan valorisation workshop took place engaging every participant to discuss how to transform strategic documents to action moderated by Valeria Csonka from ÖMKi. The session began with Aleksejs Nipers, Associate Professor and Leading Researcher from Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, who talked about the successful example of Latvia’s bioeconomy action plan implementation emphasising that an action plan without a strategy loses direction​ and the importance of meaningful stakeholder involvement that ensures ownership​. In the interactive session, participants worked in pre-assigned groups of 8–10 people with the aim to help them understand how strategic documents could be turned into concrete actions under different decision-making conditions. Participants took on roles such as decision-makers, policy designers, stakeholders, and observers. During the exercise, participants explored various implementation options, negotiation strategies, and barriers.

The day concluded with the closed TWG sessions discussing the finalisation of thematic SRIAs across seven thematic priority areas (agroecology, bioenergy, food systems, forestry, freshwater-based bioeconomy, education, and advanced biobased materials), the upcoming science-policy dialogues and continuing the joint work in the BIOEASTWIDE project.

The conference also featured a poster exhibition which showcased 19 posters on best practices and projects focusing on advancing bioeconomy policy and governance from the BIOEAST countries or relevant to the macro-region. Best Poster Awards recognized outstanding contributions to the field which were given to “Co-creating a National Roadmap for Circular Bioeconomy in Poland: A Bottom-up, Multi-Actor Approach” poster presented by Piotr Jurga from Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation State Research Institute, Poland and to “Boosting Circular Bioeconomy Innovation in Estonia BIOEAST HUB” poster presented by Olha Aleksandrova from the Estonian University of Life Sciences.

Field trips closed the conference on the next day. The participants had the opportunity to visit two unique practical examples of sustainable and circular bioeconomy solutions; a traditional cheese dairy on the Island of Pag, Sirana Gligora and one of the oldest working saltworks in Europe, the organically certified Nin Saltworks.

The conference was part of a series of events, organized back-to-back with the meetings of the BIOEAST Board, TWG Coordinators and B4B annual project meeting making the week between 20-23 April specifically dedicated to the BIOEAST community in Zadar.

We would like to thank all speakers and participants for offering their insights and ideas on shaping the future of the macro-region’s bioeconomy and hope to meet again at the Final Conference of the project held in Brussels on 25 November.

Conference related materials are available on the BIOEAST Knowledge Platform here.