Bioeconomy clusters now work­ing togeth­er as 3BI at european level

The lead­ing bioeconomy clusters in the Neth­er­lands, France, the UK and Ger­many have joined forces as the 3BI inter­cluster – Broker­ing Bio-Based Innov­a­tion on Wed­nes­day. Their goal is to sup­port European com­pan­ies to access import­ant new mar­kets based on renew­able raw mater­i­als suc­cess­fully. 3BI is a stra­tegic European part­ner­ship that builds on the com­ple­ment­ary strengths of four region­al innov­a­tion clusters: Biobased Delta, BioEconomy, BioVale and Indus­tries & Agro Res­sources (IAR). All four clusters use biore­fin­ing to con­vert bio­lo­gic­al resources into mater­i­als, chem­ic­als, fuels, food and feed. They intend to work togeth­er in the research, devel­op­ment and deploy­ment of nov­el high-tech approaches to the con­ver­sion of bio­mass and waste streams into value-added products and applic­a­tions. The pro­duc­tion of renew­able bio­lo­gic­al resources and their con­ver­sion into every day products such as food, feed, energy, chem­ic­als and oth­er mater­i­als is increas­ing rap­idly. The bioeconomy cre­ates new mar­kets for innov­at­ive products across the globe. European com­pan­ies need sup­port if they are to access these import­ant new mar­kets suc­cess­fully. The form­a­tion of the 3BI inter­cluster rep­res­ents a com­mon inten­tion to explore busi­ness link­ages between the clusters and their mem­bers. 3BI will help European com­pan­ies to make the most of new mar­kets and new oppor­tun­it­ies from the bioeconomy. The 3BI part­ners focus on growth, innov­a­tion and smart spe­cial­isa­tion of their regions. Their goal is to pro­mote sus­tain­able solu­tions for lower car­bon foot­print and to sub­sti­tute fossil raw mater­i­als in indus­tri­al scale. ​“The neces­sity for com­pan­ies to use green raw mater­i­als and make their pro­cess tech­no­lo­gies more sus­tain­able, is a daily pri­or­ity. For sev­er­al years Biobased Delta has been work­ing on inter­na­tion­al col­lab­or­a­tion with lead­ing regions in the world. There­fore I am very pleased with the estab­lish­ment of 3BI as a European inter­cluster for long last­ing col­lab­or­a­tion with the lead­ing clusters in the UK, Ger­many and France. This will boost dur­able busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies for the next dec­ades.’’ Dr. Ir. Willem Seder­el, Biobased Delta (Neth­er­lands). ​“The bioeconomy not only helps to sig­ni­fic­antly reduce our soci­ety’s car­bon foot-print, but provides a lot of oppor­tun­it­ies for new mar­kets and high-value products and links the European agri­cul­ture and forestry to pro­cessing indus­tries like chem­ic­als, auto­mot­ive or plastics. To com­bine the power of four of the lead­ing bioeconomy regions with­in 3BI will strengthen the lead­er­ship of the European Uni­on in a future eco­nomy based on renew­able resources.” Prof. Dr. Mat­thi­as Zscheile, BioEconomy (Ger­many). ​“The 3BI inter­cluster will strengthen European col­lab­or­a­tion and innov­a­tion and help European SMEs to cre­ate glob­ally com­pet­it­ive products and ser­vices for the bioeconomy.” Dr Joe Ross, BioVale (UK). ​“Over the next dec­ades, the bioeconomy will play an increas­ingly import­ant role in boost­ing Europe’s eco­nomy by revital­ising rur­al areas while provid­ing more growth and jobs. IAR has been deeply involved from the begin­ning in the estab­lish­ment of 3BI. We are glad to launch the inter­cluster today as we believe it will foster col­lab­or­a­tions between European sta­ce­hold­ers and con­trib­ute to make Europe the world lead­ing bioeconomy region.’’ Thi­erry Stadler, IAR (France). Source: idw