Category: Projects

 Glaukos project

 Glaukos project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

The EU-funded Glaukos project aims to develop innovative and environmentally sustainable textile fibres and coatings. The complete life cycle of these textiles will be redesigned: their sustainability performance (i.e. biodegradability and bio-recyclability) will be enhanced significantly, while their technical performance will be matched to end-user requirements. Glaukos builds on two concepts: triggerable biodegradability as a key concept in polymer design to mitigate textile-based microplastics pollution, and bio-recycling as a sustainable end-of-life solution. The supply chain distance is also substantially reduced by scaling up a disruptive way of producing the main polymer building block from several bio-based feedstocks. The underlying objective of Glaukos is to reduce the carbon and the plastic footprint of clothing and fishing gear. Stakeholders’ engagement will be encouraged through the involvement of individuals from the clothing and fishing gear industry.

Contacts:

Project Coordinator Zsófia Kádár zsofia.kadar@bbeu.org

Project Manager Tanja Meyer tanja.meyer@bbeu.org

Project Communication and Dissemination Manager Louis Ferrini ferrini@fvaweb.it

Website

 FASTER project

 FASTER project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

Objective

FASTER – Farmers’ Adaptation and Sustainability in Tunisia through Excellence in Research will reinforce research and knowledge transfer capacity of INRGREF related to innovative land and water management in view of climate change and its implementation through the use of Farm Advisory Systems (FAS). To achieve this, we will develop a sustainable framework for research capacity building, international networking and FAS practice. Strengthening of researchers and technicians of INRGREF and associated centres (IRESA) will be developed by EU partners of established scientific excellence in the topic (CREAF, LU) and demonstrated experience in economic impact and awareness raising (EFB, Vision), and integration into national policies (AVFA). The proposal is structured into 5 work packages, during 3 years and amounting 1million €, including: coordination; capacity building through training and staff exchanges; living lab stablishing through summer schools, e-learning and stakeholder involvement; project sustainability by monitoring, networking and governmental support; and communication through awareness raising and knowledge co-creation. Expected impacts to INRGREF and Tunisian partners are increased number of publications in peer review journals, mobility and international co-funding, increased international reputation, awareness and engagement, new skills and competencies, new services and employment related to FAS, and new research avenues.

Contacts:

Dr Sihem Jebari, FASTER Project Coordinator:sihem.jebari@gmail.com
Chiara Colalelli (Communication and Dissemination): chiara@vision-communication.org

Website

 ENABLING project

 ENABLING project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

ENABLING is the initiative of 16 partners in 13 EU and associated (IL, NO) countries. The main goal is to support the spreading of best practices and innovation in the provision (production, pre-processing) of biomass for the BBI (Bio-Based Industry).

In particular, ENABLING aims at creating appropriate conditions for the development of efficient biomass to BBPs (Bio-Based Products and Processes) value chains.

The consortium’s vision is that Europe bears a huge potential for optimising the supply of biomass into innovative bio-based processes and products.

Upscaling biomass production and pre-processing, and combining streams towards the BBPs with those of more traditional bioenergy chains would enhance at least three interlinked types of impact. a) biomass production gains scale to meet higher demand in both sectors (bioenergy and the BBI); b) the reinforcement of biomass supply for the BBI benefits smaller BBI players, helping them diversify and consolidate biomass input sources; c) reinforcing the biomass and BBPs linkages may contribute to job-creation, due to the increased need for specialised workers.

To realise such potential, ENABLING also anticipates its longer term exploitation pathways. In the intention of the consortium, the project should aggregate and engage partners for the establishment of a permanent innovation brokerage platform, likely to become in the future, one of the main marketplaces and innovation transfer accelerators at European level.

In this sense, the project organises its work around two building blocks: one relates to animating the stakeholders (on the farming and BBPs sides), identifying best practices, turning them into easy to access content (in the EIP format) for their potential users and providing stakeholders with coaching and guidance on innovation. The other one looks at future developments, with the consolidation, in a self-sustainable way, of the innovation brokerage platforms after the end of the EU funded initiative.

Contacts: Zusepe Elias Zidda: zusepe.zidda@euknow.eu

Website

 Danube S3 Cluster

 Danube S3 Cluster

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

The Danube Transnational Programme is a financing instrument of the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), better known as Interreg. ETC is one of the goals of the European Union cohesion policy and provides a framework for the implementation of joint actions and policy exchanges between national, regional and local actors from different Member States.

The Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) promotes economic, social and territorial cohesion in the Danube Region through policy integration in selected fields.

In order to achieve a higher degree of territorial integration of the very heterogeneous Danube region, the transnational cooperation programme acts as a policy driver and pioneer to tackle common challenges and needs in specific policy fields where transnational cooperation is expected to deliver tangible results.

Considering its geographical coverage, this highly complex programme provides a political dimension to transnational cooperation which is unique in Europe, successfully facing challenges such as ensuring good mechanisms to contract partners who receive funding from different EU instruments.

The Danube Transnational Programme finances projects for the development and practical implementation of policy frameworks, tools and services and concrete small-scale pilot investments. Strong complementarities with the broader EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) are sought.

Contacts: Gilda Niculescu: programe@adrmuntenia.ro

Website

 EMBRACED project

 EMBRACED project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

Objective

A sizeable category in terms of organic content within MSW is represented by Absorbent Hygiene Products (AHPs; e.g. nappies, adult incontinence products, feminine hygiene items, wipes, etc.) waste, which is currently considered as non-recyclable fraction of MSW and finds its way to landfills or incineration, leading to important environmental concerns. Indeed, each year 8,500,000 tons of such waste are incinerated or landfilled in Europe (the equivalent of almost 30 landfills every year), and over 30,000,000 tons in the world. AHP are mainly composed of a mix of natural fibres (cellulose) and polymers (PP/PE and superabsorbent polymer), valuable materials that currently don’t find a proper valorization. Within EMBRACED project, a first-of-its-kind multi-purpose integrated biorefinery will be established in order to valorize in a relevant environment scenario the cellulosic fractions obtained from AHP waste towards the production of bio-products of significant commercial interest, and – concurrently – high added-value co-products, such polyolefinic plastics and SAP (superabsorbent polymers).
This innovative biorefinery model will involve all the main actors of the whole value chain, from AHP consumers and local population to waste management and logistic companies, leading AHP producers and bioprocess developers, as well as final products developers. In a view of circular economy, all the fractions obtained from the processed AHP waste will be reused through valorization into final products, and in particular the high-quality cellulosic fraction of AHP (ca. 1,275,000 ton/y in Europe), which has significant advantages vs. traditional 2nd generation lignocellulosic feedstocks in terms of homogeneity and downstream bioprocessing costs, will be converted and valorized in two parallel value chains, leading to the production of biobased building blocks, polymers and fertilizers.

Contacts: Orsola Bolognani: embraced@fatergroup.com

Website

 CommBeBiz project

 CommBeBiz project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

Communicate and Bridge BioEconomy Research to Business.

The overall objective of the CommBeBiz project is to contribute to the improvement of sustainable living conditions through the most effective and responsible use of our biological resources.

This will be achieved through designing, delivering, assessing & evaluating a Pilot scheme (BeBizPilotPlan), that provides tailored and targeted support and co-ordination activities across all Member States.

The Pilot will bring KBBE funded research projects in FP7 and Horizon2020 programmes together with bioeconomy research, knowledge transfer, social innovation, policy development and communication experts, SMEs and entrepreneurs to drive innovation and exploitation faster for the environmental good and commercial benefit.

The full results of the BeBizPilotPlan will be published in the BeBizBlueprint. The project will use a tailormade approach to the segments of the bioeconomy : agriculture, fisheries, food, forestry and biotechnology. CommBeBiz will work collaboratively on the FP7 database with ‘Allied Projects’ BioLinx and ProBio utilising the Heads of Agreement document agreed between us (July 2015).

Contacts:

Rhonda Smith: rhonda@minervacomms.net
Virginia Neal: virginia@minervacomms.net
Marie Saville: marie@minervacomms.net

Website

 CELEBio project

 CELEBio project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
Project concluded

The level of activities of the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) is not balanced throughout Europe.

This is particularly the case in ‘moderate/modest innovator’ countries according to the European Innovation Scoreboard.

This may be the result of insufficient knowledge of the potential for the bio-based industry in these countries, by actors in bio-based activities in these countries as well as by BIC.

Additionally, actors in these countries may not be fully aware of the opportunities offered by BIC and the Bio-based Industries Initiative.

The Central Europe LEaders in Bioeconomy (CELEBio) project will contribute with fact-based information and networking, which will represent a starting point for further expansion of the Bioeconomy in the relevant geographical area.

The main objective of CELEBio is therefore to contribute to strengthening Bioeconomy-related activities in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovak Republic and Slovenia through the elaboration of evidence-based Action Plans for each of the targeted countries, as well as through the dissemination of information on the opportunities offered by BBI.

To this end, the CELEBio project team will support the setting-up of a network of BBI info points (BBI Ambassadors). In order to set the grounds for further action in support of the uptake of bio-based technologies and facilitate matchmaking between stakeholders in research and industry, the CELEBio project team will map Bioeconomy stakeholders.

Contacts: Peter Canciani: canciani@cei.int
Olga Izquierdo Sotorrio: sotorrio@cei.int

Website

 BLOOM project

 BLOOM project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
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

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
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

Website

 BIOVOICES project

 BIOVOICES project

Posted on by Louis Ferrini
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

Website