Bioeconomy Education – The European Bioeconomy Network

Category: Bioeconomy Education

BIORADAR project

Posted on 01/09/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/06/2026

Monitoring system of the environmental and social sustainability and circularity of industrial bio-based systems

BioRadar project aim to help organizations, policy-makers and investors have the necessary information to step towards a more sustainable bio-based economic model with an information and self-assessment platform for bio-based industries.BioRadar proposes the simple, objective, and quantitative Bio-based systems Transition Indicators (BTI) framework. The project develops a one-stop digital solution including AI-benchmarking and analytics platform, a flexible and user-friendly self-assessment tool, a regulatory tracker tool, and an innovative multidimensional performance measurement scorecard. The framework and digital tools allow industries, investors, and policymakers to assess the circularity, environmental sustainability, and social aspects of bio-based products and services with just a few clicks.

Emad Yaghmaei: ey@yaghma.nl

Shiva Noori: sn@yaghma.nl

website: http://www.bioradar.org/

GenB project

Posted on 21/04/202325/07/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/04/2025

Informing and educating young people on more sustainable behaviours and choices to build a future Generation informed and interested in Bioeconomy

GenB aims to raise the Generation Bioeconomy aware on environmental issues co-creating innovative approaches in cooperation with young people, parents, teachers and other formal and non-formal education professionals. GenB widely communicates and engages the society, create synergies with other projects and initiatives, consolidate the GenB education model, produce policy recommendations targeting Ministries of Education and other policy makers.

Objectives:

Co-create approaches and tools through the cooperation between children, parents, teachers and other education professionals, to provide educational and informational toolkits;
Raise awareness of students at all stages on the environmental, social and economic benefits of sustainable and circular bioeconomy and its sectors;
Increase interest among new generations to join education and training on bioeconomy, create new ways of attracting talent in the life science, technology and the bioeconomy opportunities;
Maximise the project’s impacts towards behavioural and socio-economic changes by sparking multipliers and GenB networks and ensuring exploitation of project’s outcomes

Contacts:

Chiara Pocaterra: pocaterra@apre.it

website: https://www.genb-project.eu/

CIRCULAR BRICKS project

Posted on 03/03/202303/03/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 14/02/2024

Circular Bioeconomy for improving agrifood VET institutes’ teachers’ skills and competencies

Biotechnology has the potential to reduce the impact of human activities in nature. By developing new bio-based production platforms towards a more efficient use of waste streams, a step forward in industrial circularity can be achieved.

To help train and educate the new generation of bioeconomy professionals with the necessary hard and soft skills, we need to rethink and improve our current educational model for the bioeconomy. This is the long-term ambition of Circular Bricks. Across Europe, some initiatives have already been put in place. However, there seems to be a lack of generalized and consistent schemes, especially with regards to the VET field. In order to address these needs, Circular Bricks will train VET teachers from the agri-food sector in order to make them able to educate their students (i.e. the future generation of circular bioeconomy professionals) with the necessary green skills which are required by the current and future industries operating in the European circular bioeconomy.
The project will develop innovative pedagogical material on circular bioeconomy related topics for VET teachers, keeping a train-the-trainer approach. Specifically, involved teachers will be provided with a thorough and practical approach to circular bioeconomy principles and their implementation in the agri-food sector, as well as with efficient tools for holding effective design thinking sessions and preparing learners to become true agents of change. At the end of the project, both teachers and students will have acquired new green skills and competencies, thus adding “circular bricks” to their know-how.

Contacts:

Piergiuseppe Morone: piergiuseppe.morone@unitelmasapienza.it

website: https://www.circularbricks.eu/

Engage4BIO project

Posted on 13/02/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/09/2025

Better understanding, intensified engagement, training and development in regional bio-based systems

Engage4BIO will strengthen circular, sustainable bioeconomy and sustainable regional development through engaging quadruple helix actors – taking into account their diversity of societal, economic and cultural perspectives from five regional bio-based systems in processes of design thinking, co-creation, (re)training and skills development. Based on their regional specificities (availability of biomass feedstock, level of technology, planetary boundaries and social capital) activities will be co-created, performed and shaped to their best advantage for each region.

Contacts:

Dr. Maria Schrammel: schrammel@zsi.at

website: www.engage4bio.eu

BIOLOC project

Posted on 30/01/202330/01/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/09/2025

Biobased and social innovation to revitalise European local communities

BIOLOC project is funded by European Commission, and it promotes social innovation and inclusion as enabling factors to accelerate the transition to circular bioeconomy and thus contributes to revitalizing local communities in 12 European regions in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. Through extensive interdisciplinary research and cross-sectoral analyses, BIOLOC will elaborate on concepts and solutions that will trigger positive cascading effects on communities by fostering a participatory and inclusive approach to develop resilient innovative biobased activities open to the contribution of socially disadvantaged or marginalised groups. In this way it will deliver innovative and inclusive business models and drive the establishment of permanent public-private multistakeholder hubs to pioneer a social trialogue on innovative and inclusive circular bioeconomy as a leveraging factor for sustainable and resilient local communities.

Contacts:

Mr. Peter Canciani, Project Manager: canciani@cei.int

website: https://bioloc.eu/

SCALE-UP project

Posted on 13/01/202313/01/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/08/2025

Concepts, tools and applications for community-driven bioeconomy development in European rural areas

The overall goal of SCALE-UP is to support regional multi-actor partnerships, consisting of private businesses, governments and policymakers, civil society organisations, and researchers in identifying and scaling-up innovative and sustainable bio-based value chains that build on regional resources.

Through its approach, SCALE-UP will adapt, implement and evaluate tools to help regional actors to overcome the apparent bottlenecks towards fully exploiting bioeconomy potentials in their region.

A four-phase methodology will:

i) establish existing knowledge and set the stage for further research, as well as create six regional platforms with local stakeholders;

ii) facilitate cross-regional transfer of knowledge and demand-driven capacity building, and provide support to multi-actor partnerships to carry out market assessments and business model designs;

iii) create a pan-European ‘Community of Practice’ to facilitate sharing good practices and lessons learned across European regions; and

iv) disseminate and exploit project results in collaboration with key stakeholders.

In addition to the focus on increasing capacity and knowledge on the bioeconomy among relevant actors in the regions, a key feature of SCALE-UP is the business development programme to be applied by the local communities.

With an emphasis on the principles of co-creation, transparency and open innovation, the project will provide advisory support to innovators and regional stakeholders to assess market conditions, elaborate business plans and identify compatible funding sources for 12 bio-based solutions.

Contacts:

Holger Gerdes: holger.gerdes@ecologic.eu
Zoritza Kiresiewa: zoritza.kiresiewa@ecologic.eu

website: http://scaleup-bioeconomy.eu/

ROBIN project

Posted on 10/01/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 31/08/2025

Deploying circular BIOecoNomies at Regional level with a territorial approach

Europe’s regional authorities have a crucial role to play as agents of just, inclusive and resilient economic development for their territories. ROBIN sets out to empower them to fulfil this role with support to co-shape their governance structures and models in ways that accelerate the deployment of their circular bioeconomy targets, while also promoting social innovation and accounting for different territorial contexts.

To this end, we establish and demonstrate the potential of innovative circular bioeconomy governance structures and models in 5 European Regions within Ireland, Germany, Spain, Slovakia and Greece.

Our journey begins by setting-up Multi-Actor Regional Constellations engaging key stakeholders to co-create and work alongside novel governance structures.

Additionally, we provide the regions with tailored support for enhanced and more inclusive stakeholder engagement, as well as a practical toolbox to improve the design, operation and monitoring of their governance models. In parallel, a monitoring and evaluation framework will gauge the performance and impact of our support actions and tools, providing quantifiable evidence of their economic, social and environmental impact.

We will use this evidence to engage over 10 additional European regional authorities to test our tools and make a concrete case for their transferability, while also offering mutual learning and capacity building opportunities.

Contacts:

Dr. Alejandra Campos: alejandra.campos@steinbeis-europa.de

website: https://robin-project.eu/

BioGov.net project

Posted on 19/12/2022 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 31/05/2025

Mobilizing European Communities of Practice in bio-based systems for better governance and skills development networks in bioeconomy

BioGov.net project engages 10 experienced partners to mobilize local resources and stakeholders in eight EU states (Estonia, Italy, Netherland, Greece, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Portugal and Germany). The project aims strategically to support the establishment of innovative governance models in bioeconomy to achieve better-informed decision-making processes, social engagement of all actors and uptake of sustainable innovations in bioeconomy. With the specific objective to provide validated guidelines for bioeconomy training and mentoring based on case studies from 8 EU regions, BioGov.net undertakes to:

identify and assess from the perspective of using the good practices and successful case studies for novel training framework,
complete an assessment based on regional capacities, opportunities, barriers and potentials;
define regional needs and expectations, local feedstock availabilities and use, governance barriers, social and economic landscape;
identify needs for skills required by the novel business models and related social measures to enable consumers, industry and public bodies to switch to socially and environmentally responsible behaviour within their spheres (e.g. regulatory measures, corporate responsibility initiatives, education and training).

The methodology of the project ensures the synergies between respective parties, transparency of actions and inclusiveness of all actors, incl the socially vulnerable groups.
Based on the collected materials, analyses and Quintuple Innovation Helix approach, the project develops guidelines for the setup of the modern and inclusive training and mentoring frameworks and programmes in specific European regions targeting the local bio-systems, regulators and policies for building the bridge between knowledge, skills, bioeconomy and good governance.

Contacts:

Mari Saar: mari.saar@civitta.com

website: https://www.biogov.net/

BIOCIRCULARCITIES project

Posted on 19/12/202211/01/2023 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 30/09/2023

Exploring the circular bioeconomy potential in cities. Proactive instruments for implementation by policy makers and stakeholders

The BIOCIRCULARCITIES project is designed to help identify and develop innovative and comprehensive regulatory frameworks and roadmaps that are well aligned with circular bioeconomy principles. The project will focus on the interactions between the circular and bio-economies, using insights derived from multi-stakeholder participatory processes. It will consider both supply-side and demand-side aspects of policymaking to maximise the effectiveness. It will determine these through four strands. The first will be by exploring the circular economy potential of unexploited bio-based waste streams generated around three European cities – Barcelona in Spain, Naples in Italy and Pazardzhik in Bulgaria. The second will be to identify and analyse those circular bioeconomy best practices in the EU that could be successful in the pilot areas. Third, opportunities and obstacles to for introducing such processes. It will then use the learnings from the three areas to propose proactive instruments and policy roadmaps that can be applied in a wider European context.

Contacts:

Rosaria Chifari: rchifari@ent.cat

website: https://biocircularcities.eu/

HARMONITOR project

Posted on 19/12/202219/12/2022 by Louis Ferrini

This project ends on: 31/05/2025

Harmonisation and monitoring platform for certification schemes and labels to advance the sustainability ofbio-based systems

The HARMONITOR project will improve the effectiveness of sustainability certification schemes and labels (CSLs) in various sectors of the EU bioeconomy and strengthen their possible use as a co-regulation instrument within the EU Bioeconomy policy framework. The project will also establish and test a participative review platform concept to help CSLs to find commonalities and cooperation when operating in bio-based value chains within and across EU borders. The goal of this platform is to promote continuous improvement of CSLs and continuous knowledge of these dynamic developments by market actors.

Contacts:

Sergio Ugarte: s.ugarte@sqconsult.com
Costanza Rossi: c.rossi@sqconsult.com
Monique Voogt: M.Voogt@sqconsult.com

website: https://www.harmonitor.eu