Category: Bioeconomy Education

 BeUBio project

 BeUBio project

Project concluded

BeUBio – targeting youth in the Baltic Sea Region for the SDG:s and Bioeconomy

This platform was designed to collect stories of young people whose business ideas, jobs and other activities lead the way towards a different and more sustainable economic path. With a variety of different examples, young people from across the Baltic Sea Region, inspire new ways of making business while having a positive impact to the environment and society. The overall aim is to build a community of like-minded people, by sharing our stories and inspiring each other.

This initiative comes from the BeUBio project, a collaboration between different partners across the Baltic Sea Region pushing for youth participation in the transition to a bio-based economy, and create synergies with other actors and initiatives addressing the SDGs.

Contacts:

Swedish Board of Agriculture:
Fredric Nilsson, Fredric.nilsson@jordbruksverket.se
Hans-Olof Stålgren, Hans-Olof.Stalgren@jordbruksverket.se

Nordic Council of Ministers Lithuania:
Helén Nilsson, helen@norden.lt
Lina Janusauskine, lina@norden.lt

Client: The Swedish Institute

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 BIOBEC project

 BIOBEC project

Project concluded

Preparing the creation of Bio-Based Education Centres to meet industry needs and boost the contribution of the bioeconomy to societal challenges

Unlocking the full potential of the bioeconomy and its value chains requires a systematic and collaborative perspective for) the development of new skills, educational approaches and organisational solutions to provide education and training services.
The aim of the BIObec project is to develop a holistic framework for multi-level Bio-Based Education Centers (BBEC) flexible enough to answer the present and future needs of the industry and of the surrounding ecosystem at local, regional, national and/or international levels.
The project will design 6 BBEC pilots assuring a wide geographical coverage in Europe and addressing different topics linked to the variety of value chains and institutional contexts (vocational to university level, primary producers, processors, SMEs to MNCs).
BIOBEC will clarify the needs of the different regional ecosystems and will provide detailed design, economic and financial assessment, governance plans for the educational training centres, as well as plans for life-long-learning programmes. It will also develop collaborative tools to maximize the synergies between them at the European and international level.
The project will mobilise a network of 19 partners, which are leaders in Bioeconomy Education from different perspectives (ranging from academia to industry) together with a wide network of Implementation and Replication Working Groups and local stakeholders based in the EU. This network will pave the way for implementation and replication of the BBEC, in order to boost the contribution of the education sector for the development of the bioeconomy.

Contacts:

Davide Viaggi: davide.viaggi@unibo.it

Founding source: BIOBEC is cofounded by H2020-EU.2.1.4. H2020-EU.3.2. H2020-EU.3.2.6.

 URBIOFIN project

 URBIOFIN project

Project concluded

URBIOFIN project: Demonstration of an integrated innovative biorefinery for the transformation of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) into new BioBased products

Due to the rapid growth of population, municipal solid waste (MSW) has contributed significantly to the total amount of waste generated by our society. Today in Europe, each habitant generates, in average, 0.5 tonnes of MSW per year, increasing at an annual rate of 10%. Around 40-50% of it correspond to organic waste. This organic fraction mainly contains carbohydrates, proteins and lipids, which are all useful raw material that can be converted to valuable products. Its valorisation will help to solve environmental pollution but also contributes to the transition from a linear to a renewable circular economy. Digestion and composting have contributed to the reduction of the biodegradable fraction of MSW sent to landfill. The low economical value of compost and biogas is limiting the sustainable implementation of separate sourcing systems since increasing citizen environmental (waste) taxes is then needed to tackle important logistic costs. New biobased products can help to improve waste treatment environmental and socioeconomical sustainability.

The aim of URBIOFIN project is to demonstrate the techno-economic and environmental viability of the conversion at semi-industrial scale (10 T/d) of the organic fraction of MSW (OFMSW) into: Chemical building blocks (bioethanol, volatile fatty acids, biogas), biopolymers (polyhydroyalkanoate and biocomposites) or additives (microalgae hydrolisated for biofertilisers). By using the biorefinery concept applied to MSW (urban biorefinery), URBIOFIN will exploit the OFMSW as feedstock to produce different valuable marketable products for different markets: agriculture, cosmetics. URBIOFIN will offer a new feasible and more sustainable scenario alternative to the current treatment of the OFMSW.

Contacts: Project Coordinator Ms Caterina Coll, caterina@perseobiotech.com

Mr Manolis Tsantakis, mdt@etam.gr
Founding source: Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) under the EU Horizon 2020 programme

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 UrBIOfuture project

 UrBIOfuture project

Project concluded

UrBIOfuture’s main goal is to bring Europe to the forefront of the bio-based industry, a sector in full growth that requires a high number of experts in its workforce. However, one of the challenges for its development is the educational gap between the professional profiles demanded by the sector and the existing educational offer. To bridge this gap is one of the main purposes of UrBIOfuture, which started on May 1st with the goal of boosting careers, new educational programmes and research activities. Since then, this initiative carried out research to map European educational programmes involving bio-based activities and to identify the skills mismatch between them and the bioindustry needs. In addition, it involved stakeholders from the education sector, academia and industry, it organised a series of events, and it elaborated a set of materials, all with the aim of setting the path for the industry to attract qualified talent.

Contacts: info@urbiofuture.eu and Ana Martinez: anamartinez@sustainableinnovations.eu

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 Transition2BIO project

 Transition2BIO project

Project concluded

An integrated package of activities for sustainable production and consumption

Production and consumption drive the economy. Global challenges like climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, coupled with a growing population, force us to seek new, sustainable ways of life that respect the ecological boundaries of our planet. The EU-funded Transition2BIO project is proposing an integrated package of activities addressing a wide range of stakeholders (demand side, supply side, multipliers and supportive environment). It will valorise and exploit sectoral communication tools and activities, raise public awareness of bioeconomy and contribute to the transition towards more sustainable production through engagement and education activities. The project is also funding the activities of the European Bioeconomy Network, an alliance of more than 80 projects and initiatives promoting bioeconomy.

Contacts: Chiara Pocaterra: pocaterra@apre.it

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 MPowerBIO project

 MPowerBIO project

Project concluded

Europe’s bioeconomy strategy addresses the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into vital products and bioenergy. The industry is leading in innovative and sustainable solutions, but SMEs face challenges as regards investments. To address this issue, the EU-funded MPowerBIO will create an online platform with digital tools for evaluating and training skills, enabling SME readiness for investment. It will hold 10 train-the-trainer sessions for 90 European bioeconomy clusters. The aim is to improve capacity to support SMEs in the high-quality preparation process of presenting their projects to investors. The best SMEs will be selected to compete in two final events. In addition, 72 ready-for-investment SMEs will be selected and rewarded during the European Bioeconomy Venture Forum.

Contacts: Britt Sandvad (coordinator) Food & Bio Cluster Denmark: bs@foodbiocluster.dk

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 BLOOM project

 BLOOM project

Project concluded

The main objective of this project was to establish open and informed dialogues, co-created by European citizens, the civil society, bioeconomy innovation networks, local research centers, business and industry stakeholders and various levels of government including the European Commission. For that BLOOM established five regional hubs (communities of practice) that allowed for an iterative process involving different stakeholders through various cycles of value development, enabling cross-fertilization and idea generation through shared knowledge and experiences.
The interactions aimed to (a) raise awareness and knowledge on bioeconomy by enabling open and informed dialogue throughout the bioeconomy innovation processes (b) build up and strengthen a bioeconomy community, (c) gain a common understanding of the concept, providing reliable insights into bioeconomies, its practices, benefits and implications (d) foster learning and education. With that, the project supported the reduction of existing barriers towards a bioeconomy and stimulated bioeconomy activities at the regional and EU level.

The webpage will stay active until December 2025 providing for example guidelines on co-creation and engagement, a quiz on bioeconomy,  several videos and pod-casts and the BLOOM school box which entails learning scenarios for STEM classes (primary and secondary level education) in 6 different languages, co-created and tested by teachers and questions frequently raised at outreach activities are listed and answered. Check it out: https://bloom-bioeconomy.eu

Contacts: Maria Schrammel: schrammel@zsi.at
Judith Feichtinger: feichtinger@zsi.at

Website

 BIOWAYS project

 BIOWAYS project

Project concluded

Despite significant economic investment and dedicated research in the bio-based domain, public awareness of the potential benefits of bio-based products and applications is still relatively low.
The need to raise awareness of this potential and promote the benefits of these products and applications is clear. We also need to provide the means for anyone with an interest in this domain to be able to follow ongoing developments in the industry and from research.

The Bioways Project objectives are to:

  • understand the characteristics and potential of bio-based products and applications;
  • to enhance the visibility of bio-based products and applications;
  • to encourage discussion about the potential of the bio-based economy for society and contribute to awareness of it and its promotion;
  • to increase awareness and knowledge of how bio-based products are used and the overall interest of young students in the bio-based economy at large.

Contacts: Iakovos Delioglanis: delioglanis@qplan.gr

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 BIOVOICES project

 BIOVOICES project

Project concluded

BIOVOICES is a 40 months project aiming at engaging all relevant stakeholder groups “voices” (policy makers, researchers, the business community and the civil society) in order to address societal, environmental and economic challenges related to bio-based products and applications.
The platform developed by BIOVoices builds on the concept the concept of Mobilisation & Mutual Learning Platforms (MML) and methods developed previously in European projects with the ultimate objective of delivering an Action Plan addressing the challenges of raising awareness of and engaging with the citizens on the bio-based products.

1) Define a framework for MML by reviewing barriers and opportunities for the development of bio-based value chains, identifying stakeholders and expected benefits from mutual learning and mapping bio-based products based on stakeholders’ interests.

2) Launch the BIOVoices multi-stakeholders community and social platform to support and enable discussion, workshops, mobilization and mutual learning events.

4) Improve framework conditions for new bio-based market opportunities including action plans and processes, by involving in more than 70 co-creation events, at European, National and Regional level more than 4.000 experts.

5) Transform the experience of the BIOVoices community in Actionable Knowledge for the different stakeholders, publishing recommendations and policy briefs (at least four) to address the challenges related to bioeconomy.

6) Ensure that the BIOVoices outcomes will have an impact on the different stakeholders, though and early impact, dissemination, communication and exploitation strategy.

The BIOVoices Consortium merges a variety of complementary expertise, aiming to build a consistent multi-actor approach integrating 12 partners from 10 EU Member States from Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean area to central and eastern European countries.

Contacts: Chiara Pocaterra: pocaterra@apre.it

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