Project Overview

The project “Accelerating circular bio-based solutions integration in European rural areas” – BioRural is funded by the EU’s research and innovation funding programme Horizon.  BioRural will create a pan-European Rural Bioeconomy Network under which related stakeholders will cooperate to promote currently available small-scale bio-based solutions in rural areas, giving increased value in such remote areas.

The Bioeconomy refers to all systems that are dependent on biological resources (biomass, animals, plants, organisms), their functions, and principles. It includes land and marine ecosystems; primary production sectors (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture), and; all economic and industrial sectors using biological resources to produce food, feed, biobased products, energy, and services.

Such a framework will contribute in bridging the gap between available novel high-end bio-based solutions and the everyday life of rural European citizens by assessing the existing situation of the European rural Bioeconomy, capturing grassroots-level needs and ideas, promoting effective exchange of knowledge and information and investigating the business opportunities for regional development through bio-based solutions integration in rural Europe.

 

Project coordinator: Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), Greece
Project starting date: 1 September 2022
Project end date: 31 August 2025
Project duration: 36 months

 

Project Objectives

BioRural will address the following Strategic Objectives:

  1. Assess and evaluate the current performance of the European rural Bioeconomy and identify factors affecting innovation adoption and diffusion of bio-based solutions in rural areas.
  2. Create a European rural Bioeconomy network.
  3. Assess and promote success stories of bio-based solutions in rural areas.
  4. Facilitate knowledge exchange and capacity building for the European rural Bioeconomy
  5. Develop and continuously optimise an online open stakeholders’ tool.
  6. Create rural development blueprints for regional and business scale-up of resilient and circular biobased solutions in rural areas.

This way, BioRural will develop a transition framework towards a sustainable, regenerative, inclusive, and just circular Bioeconomy across all of Europe at a local and regional scale and support innovators to scale-up inclusive and small-scale bio-based solutions in rural areas.

 

Role of GGP

Green Growth Platform (GGP), as one of the partners in the BioRural project, will be involved in the evaluation of current performance of EU rural Bioeconomy & identification of factors for adoption and diffusion of bio-based solutions in rural areas. Also, GGP will have a significant role in creating a European Rural Bioeconomy Network (ERBN) by locating, connecting and developing synergies with related stakeholders and by liaising with existing networks and projects on Bioeconomy, targeting at increasing the communication and cooperation channels to assist all BioRural actions and Bioeconomy in general.

 

Project Partners

Participants in the BioRural project are the following:

  • Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH), Greece [Coordinator of the project]
  • DELPHY, The Netherlands
  • Valorial, France
  • NaturePlast (NP), France
  • Institut fur ZukunftsEnergie Stoffstromsysteme (IZES), Germany
  • University of Aarhus (AU), Denmark
  • Institute for Soil Science & Plant Production (IUNG), Poland
  • Vytauto Didziojo Universitetas (VDU), Lithuania
  • Latvijas Biozinātņu un tehnoloģiju universitāte (LBTU), Latvia
  • AVEBIOM, Spain
  • University of Coimbra (UC), Portugal
  • Centro da Biomassa para a Energia (CBE), Portugal
  • Associazione Italiana Energie Agroforestali (AIEL), Italy
  • Food Scale Hub (FSH), Greece
  • InCommOn (ICO), Greece
  • University of Ljubliana (UL), Slovenia
  • AlgEn (ALGEN), Slovenia
  • Asociata Green Energy (GEA), Romania
  • Green Growth Platform (GGP), North Macedonia

 

Official website of the project:  https://biorural.eu/