Life and Biological Sciences and Technologies as Engines for Bio-based Innovation

Several initiatives have been conducted at European level to identify innovative bio-based products and markets and to analyse their drivers, barriers as well as potentials for the future exploitation. In particular, the study “Insights into the European market for bio-based chemicals” provides an overview of the 10 key product categories of the biochemical industry; while “From sugar platform to biofuels and biochemical” identifies the key benefits and development needs for the sugar platform. Our project complements such analyses.

“Life and Biological sciences and technologies as engines for bio-based innovation” covers innovations related to non-food products derived from biomass products (like algae, plants, crops, trees, marine organisms and biological waste from households, animals and food production) and bio-based innovation beyond biomass processing (including areas such as bioprospecting and bioinformatics, where advancements in other fields are exploited for the use in life and biological sciences, or vice versa).

Our ultimate goal is to make policy makers and other stakeholders fully aware of the potential and opportunities of the life and biological sciences and technologies as well as hurdles to overcome. Such knowledge will help them make informed decisions to boost the potential of bio-based innovation.

The study is funded by the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation.
It started in January 2020, and will run until February 2021, with the objective to:

• select the 50 most significant life and biological sciences and technologies driven bio-based innovations;
• identify requirements for further innovation and techniques by taking as an example industries and technological fields which have reached a higher maturity stage;
• develop forward looking scenarios to demonstrate to policy makers how informed policy choices and innovation strategies could drive bio-based innovations in Europe by 2030;
• identify and map the most relevant European actors in the field of life and biological sciences to build a database of innovation stakeholders by considering their relevance to the leading innovations;
• engage experts and stakeholders in a dialogue on the future of bio-based innovation in Europe;
• explain key bio-based innovations to non-experts and showcase their potential in Europe.

The members of the Consortium are: