Tag: actions

STAR4BBI Regulatory and Standardization needs in bio-based industries

Posted on by LIFT-Team

Standards play a crucial role in supporting the growth of the bio-based products market. They can help to increase market transparency by providing common reference methods and requirements that enable the verification of claims and certification regarding the bio-based content, biodegradability or environmental sustainability of different products. However, inadequate standards can also act as barriers for certain products. So, what are the current EU standards or other related issues that hamper the growth of bio-based products? STAR4BBI (“Developing standards for bio-based industries.

Building on an earlier STAR4BBI project report (Identification of technological trends in selected value chains), the STAR4BBI report Regulatory and Standardization needs in bio-based industries (D3.2) provides an overview of the existing regulatory and standardization needs that should be overcome to support the development of a cutting-edge bioeconomy in Europe. It discusses experts’ suggestions and proposed actions.

BIO-TIC Pragmatic recommendations for action

Posted on by LIFT-Team

The BIO-TIC project comprehensively examined the innovation hurdles in industrial biotechnology (IB) across Europe and formulated action plans and recommendations to overcome them. The projects is built on three pillars: an online industrial biotech community, an assessment of biomass and sustainability in industrial biotech, and an action plan for industrial biotech in Europe.  As part of the action plan for industrial biotech three roadmaps to overcome barriers were developed: Market roadmap, R&D roadmap and Non-Technological roadmap.

Principal barrier to European industrial biotechnology development was cost-competitiveness, both compared to fossil alternatives and compared to other regions of the world. This was affected by many factors including the cost of feedstock, technology readiness levels, and the market support for bio-based products. The cost competitiveness issue was compounded by difficulties in accessing finance for large scale projects, an often low end user awareness of IB derived products and by a lack of skills and operational alliances to drive the sector forward.

This press release discusses ten pragmatic recommendations for action to tackle identified barriers and hurdles, and to ensure that most of the market potential is realised in Europe. These cover feedstock issues (improve the opportunities for feedstock producers within the bioeconomy, investigate the scope for using novel biomass), processing issues (promote the use of co-products from processing, improve the bioconversion and downstream processing steps, identify, leverage and build upon EU capabilities for pilot and demonstration facilities), investment challenges (introduce a long-term, stable and transparent policy and incentive framework to promote the bioeconomy, and improve access to finance for large-scale projects) and support for innovation more generally (develop the skills needed now and in the future for the IB industry, assess and improve public perception and awareness of IB and bio-based products, develop stronger relationships between conventional and non-conventional players).

RDI2CluB: Joint Action Plan for the Development of Regional Bioeconomy Innovation Ecosystems

Posted on by LIFT-Team

The goal of the project RDI2CluB project is to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth of the bioeconomy in rural areas of the Baltic Sea region. RDI2CluB aims to help innovation actors apply EU smart specialisation approaches to their specific field and region. The transnational partnership and network of the project plans to, for instance, support new business development in rural areas and create bio-business hubs to improve innovation management.

At the core is a transnational learning process that results in regional bioeconomy profiles and joint action plans for developing innovation capacity and enhancing smart specialization. Thereafter, the five partner regions build a joint innovation model and a digital platform that functions as a virtual working environment for collaborative development of new products and services. The platform offers an interface to access data on natural resources and bioeconomy potential that can spark new ideas and market entries both at regional and transnational levels.

A Joint Action Plan (JAP) is the document aiming to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in bio-economy in rural regions. It is developed in cooperation with public authorities charged with  implementing national smart specialisation strategy, universities, RDI institutes, business development bodies, clusters, SMEs in bio-economy business and other stakeholders.

The JAP provides details on planned measures and actions arising from bio-economy profile of the region, consisting of objective facts on the present performance and the future potential of bio-economy in regions and good practices and lessons learnt from other bio-economy clusters and bioregions, and SWOT analysis.