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Expand the bio-based industry across Europe

 

Map the available and potential biomass feedstock, actors and opportunities for industrial bio-based activities in selected countries, and specify an action plan to arouse interest and commitment from local actors to increase and/or create the bio-based activities in their respective countries.

The scope of this topic is fully in line with current EU policies and the Bioeconomy Strategy. It covers all local biomass sources that could serve as feedstock for bio-based industrial activities in an integrated fashion with the food chain, and do not cause indirect land use change nor any damage to the ecosystems.

The scope also covers all major actors (biomass providers and processors) in the respective countries who could help advance sustainable bio-based activities and investments in their countries.

Proposals should target five (5) countries from the following list, with a justification of the selection: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary.

Proposals should build on the work completed by BIC for Portugal, Romania and Poland in 2017 and the subsequent action plans1.

The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) will set up an industry expert group from among its members to provide expertise in the implementation and follow-up of the different tasks and help organise meetings. This expert group should have an advisory role in the project, but as such is not a beneficiary in the consortium.

Indicative funding:

It is considered that proposals requesting a maximum of EUR 750 000 and a planned duration of not more than one year would be able to address this specific challenge appropriately. However, this does not preclude the submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

1 The final reports will be available on http://biconsortium.eu.

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 Scoreboard1. 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.

In order to explore how to remediate this situation, BIC has started in 2017 a pilot study in Portugal, Romania and Poland, identifying opportunities to expand the bio-based industry into these countries on a sustainable basis. This pilot study includes mapping local biomass sources that potentially could be used as sustainable feedstock for the bio-based industry, and mapping the major actors in the various relevant sectors. Additionally, the study sets up an action plan that seeks to establish interest and commitment from the actors and governmental institutions in the countries for expanding their industrial bio-based activities. BIC will continue this work in 2018 for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Similar work needs to be done in other countries, building on the ongoing work.

The specific challenge of this topic is to increase bio-based industrial activities in countries where these activities are relatively low2.

1 http://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/innovation/facts-figures/scoreboards_en

2 See also the SC2 topic RUR-09-2018 Realising the potential of regional and local bio-based economies.

  • concrete opportunities to expand and/or create industrial bio-based activities in the selected countries;
  • first-pass indication of benefits to the local economies, environment and society by establishing industrial bio-based activities in the targeted countries.

Number of projects: A maximum of one project will be funded under this topic.

Expected duration: Up to one year.

Type of action: Coordination and support action.