Shifting the agri-food system from a linear “take-make-waste” model to a circular bioeconomy that prioritizes reducing, recycling, recovering, reusing, and regenerating waste, while transitioning from fossil-based to bio-based fuels and products, is widely recognized as essential for meeting the growing population’s food and energy demands in an environmentally sustainable manner.

In an era defined by climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation, the circular bioeconomy is emerging as a transformative model for sustainable development. At its core, the circular bioeconomy aims to replace fossil-based resources with renewable biological resources while creating closed-loop systems that minimize waste. From sustainable forestry to bioplastics and regenerative agriculture, this innovative approach holds promise for reshaping industries and preserving ecosystems.

The circular bioeconomy focuses on minimizing the inefficient use of biomass by promoting strategies such as reducing waste, finding alternative applications, recycling, and recovering biological resources across the entire biomass value chain. For example, agricultural by-products such as straw or sugarcane residues can be converted into biofuels, bioplastics, or fertilizers. Similarly, algae, a fast-growing and resource-efficient organism, is being explored for its potential to produce bio-based chemicals, cosmetics, and even sustainable feed for livestock.

The circular bioeconomy offers a vision of sustainability where economic growth aligns with ecological preservation. By leveraging biological resources, minimizing waste, and designing systems that regenerate, this approach addresses some of the most pressing challenges of our time.
The circular bioeconomy is considered a “green revolution in action” because it represents a transformative shift in how we produce, consume, and manage resources to create a sustainable and regenerative system.

The circular bioeconomy goes beyond sustainability by actively regenerating natural ecosystems. Through practices such as regenerative agriculture, sustainable forestry, and circular waste management, it helps restore soil health, improve biodiversity, and maintain ecological balance. In a circular bioeconomy, waste is no longer viewed as a problem but as an opportunity. Waste materials are converted into valuable inputs, such as turning food waste into bioenergy or agricultural residues into bio-based products. This closed-loop system significantly reduces reliance on landfills and mitigates pollution.

The circular bioeconomy fosters economic growth while safeguarding the environment. By creating green jobs, driving innovation, and opening new markets for bio-based products, it aligns economic development with environmental sustainability, demonstrating that prosperity doesn’t have to come at the expense of the planet. By prioritizing local, renewable resources and circular systems, the circular bioeconomy builds resilience against global issues such as climate change, resource scarcity, and food insecurity. Its focus on sustainable practices makes it a critical strategy for a more secure future. The circular bioeconomy embodies the principles of the green revolution—innovation, efficiency, and sustainability—applied in a modern context.

The circular bioecomony offers a path toward a greener and more sustainable future, proving that environmental responsibility and economic progress can go hand in hand. This is a revolution in action, paving the way for meaningful change.

Meet the author

My name is Lea Bellušová, and I am 25 years old and come from the Slovakia. I am freshly graduated master degree student of International relations and Diplomacy with a focus on Foreign Direct Investment as a tool to accelerate the process of globalisation with the practical part focused on Western Balkan countries and Foreign Direct Investments and their impact on economic development of Western Balkan countries. I have always been interested in economy and sustaibility. I enjoy writing articles, reading, and learning new things. I am excited to be part of future-oriented projects such as GenB.

On September 9th, 2024, the GenB project held its third and final Capacity Building Webinar, concluding the English Master Course series for GenB Ambassadors. This advanced-level session, held online with participants from across Europe and beyond, ran from 18:00 to 20:00 CET and aimed to equip ambassadors with critical communication skills, enabling them to effectively promote and explain bioeconomy topics to their peers.

The agenda featured five key modules designed to enhance various soft skills:

• Introduction to communication: Setting the foundation for effective and strategic messaging.
• Public speaking: Techniques to boost confidence and engage audiences.
• Writing articles: Guidance on crafting clear, compelling written content.
• Videomaking: Practical tips for creating engaging video content.
• Simplifying bioeconomy topics: Methods to break down complex bioeconomy concepts for general understanding.

The webinar was a great success, with attendees leaving equipped with valuable skills essential for both their ambassador roles and their broader personal and professional development. The training highlighted the importance of effective communication in bioeconomy, particularly when addressing youth and the wider public.

This final webinar was the culmination of a three-part series that began with Basic Level 1 on April 3rd, 2024. The first session provided a theoretical foundation, focusing on bioeconomy concepts, their applications, sustainability challenges, and the jobs and skills they create. It also addressed misconceptions, preparing ambassadors to communicate both the opportunities and the challenges within the bioeconomy field.

The second session, Basic Level 2, held on May 16th, 2024, provided hands-on experience with practical tools from the GenB toolkit. Participants learned how to use interactive materials such as quizzes, educational games, and videos to effectively engage different audiences. This session emphasised practical application, empowering ambassadors to make bioeconomy education accessible and engaging for their communities.

For those unable to attend, the webinar recordings and presentations are available on the GenB website. In addition, a specially prepared handout has been developed, summarising all three modules of the English Master Course series. This handout provides direct links to the relevant sections of the video, as well as accompanying PowerPoint slides for each module, ensuring participants can catch up on the content at their own pace.

GenB ambassadors and young people can still access these valuable materials and continue their journey toward becoming effective advocates for a sustainable bioeconomy. For more information or access to the webinar materials, please visit the GenB website or contact the project team via the email.

The GenB MOOC: “Bioeconomy for Educators: Cultivating a Sustainable Future” in collaboration with Scientix®, was organized to empower educators with bioeconomy insights for a sustainable future. Taking place between October 14 and November 20, 2024, over 5.5 weeks, the course brought togethered over 1,400 participants and reached more than 16,000students. With over 600 educators successfully completing the course, the program has demonstrated a significant impact, equipping educators with the tools and knowledge to bring bioeconomy concepts into their classrooms and inspire the next generation.
The course was aimed at practicing teachers working with students aged 4 to 19, with all levels of experience and across subject areas, as well as student teachers, other educational professionals, researchers, and stakeholders in the bioeconomy sector. The course provided participants with a comprehensive introduction to bioeconomy and its integration into classroom learning.
During the course, bioeconomy, was highlighted as essential for fostering economic growth, sustainability, and job creation. In addition, the course reflected upon challenges such as resource management and its’ environmental impact. It provided educators with the opportunity to prepare students for the global challenges of the 21st century by teaching bioeconomy and circular economy principles in innovative ways. Participants also explored practical tools, replicable teaching practices, and career pathways, enabling them to effectively introduce bioeconomy concepts. These resources developed as part of the GenB project included lesson plans, games, and career profiles, alongside the 7-Step Eco-Schools Methodology, which encouraged sustainability practices in schools. One of the outcomes of the course was the creation of Learning Scenarios tailored to classroom implementation.
The full MOOC content can be found on the GenB website and on the EUNA Academy platform.

Tuesday 5 November 2024

Policy recommendations, based on the findings of STEM projects, help policymakers and stakeholders to make informed decisions about the future of STEM education in Europe. As formal education depends on Ministries of Education (MoEs), it is crucial to share the results and recommendations with them to ensure that any solutions meet their needs properly.

The GenB, Life Terra and EU4Ocean projects co-organised the online workshop “Policy Recommendations on Bioeconomy, Oceans and Trees in Education” with Scientix® to present the lessons learnt and results from these projects to members of Scientix Ministries of Education STEM Representatives Working Group and to discuss with them how to deliver actionable policy support. The workshop brought together 10 representatives from 9 MoEs.

The workshop showcased the impact to date of the results and lessons learnt from the three environmental education initiatives and discussed with the MoE representatives how these resources can be incorporated into their respective educational paradigms.
Building on the discussion from a previous workshop, where we explored the length, depth, and format of policy recommendations and other policy background documents, this event moved on to highlighting the common policy considerations and challenges impacting the introduction of environmental subjects into the practice of European teachers.

From the need for trustworthy knowledge and accessible resources to quality professional development offerings, teachers across Europe face the same needs and challenges when introducing new pedagogies and topics into their teaching. In this dynamic discussion, we explored how Scientix® and the projects can help policymakers support their teachers. The workshop shed light on curriculum design and reform processes and on the need and opportunities for official endorsement and recognition of resources and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) offerings.

We summarise the core findings below:
• Education reform processes are country-specific and often involve a political component. Policy recommendations therefore need to account for national and regional specificities and be adaptable.
• It is key to depoliticise environmental education by contextualising it at supranational level and aligning it with competences and international agendas. One important way of promoting the project and its products is by contextualising them within EU and International Political and Pedagogical ambitions, not only the European Sustainability Competence Framework (GreenComp) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also the European Framework for the Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Key Competence (LifeComp) or the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp).
• Policy recommendations must be understandable to teachers and highlight resources that schools and policymakers can pass on or add to National repositories, frameworks, etc.
• Teacher training initiatives, networks and groups can make an important contribution to taking reforms forward and are crucial for making available the products, resources and tools of projects.
• Teachers’ and students’ perspectives are valuable in curriculum design.

The valuable insights from the workshop will serve to refine the design of the GenB project’s policy supporting documents and recommendations due in 2025.
Read on for a more detailed account of the workshop.

Bioeconomy-focused stories for curious children and young innovators (AGE 4-8)

APRE is supporting, through a participatory creative process, the production of 10 bioeconomy stories for children written by selected authors which have been scientifically validated by APRE’s experts. The final product, will be available in Italian by March 2025 and in English by April 2025. The podcast will initially launch with a collection of ten stories, with each 8-10 minute episode featuring one story that introduces children to the basic principles of bioeconomy.

INTRODUCTION

The digital world is changing rapidly, and with it the ways in which we learn and entertain ourselves and our children. A clear example of this evolution is the explosion of podcasts, a tool that is becoming popular especially among young people, who are increasingly comfortable with the use of new technologies as a means to learn and play. As part of the Horizon Europe project GenB , APRE is supporting the development of a collection of stories about the bioeconomy, designed to introduce children to complex scientific topics with a simple, engaging and, above all, fun appraoch.

CONCEPT: THE BIOECONOMY FOR THE YOUNG CHILDREN

Podcasts are perfect learning vehicles for children, who can enjoy them in any occasion: at school, traveling, while playing, or even before bedtime. This format allows to learn while having fun, stimulating imagination and curiosity. Using the power of stories to explain concepts such as sustainability, circularity, and respect for the environment, thus making the bioeconomy an accessible and fascinating topic for young children is a core goal of the GenB project.

A COLLECTION OF 10 STORIES

Our objective is to engage children and make them aware of the importance of sustainable living. Each story will be approximately 8 to 10 minutes long, in line with the attention span of our 4-8 year old audience.

The first story is devoted to explaining the basic concepts of the bioeconomy, a simple and clear introduction. The following stories focus on more practical and concrete aspects, talking about various environments and contexts of the bioeconomy (city, forest, countryside, and sea) and the biomasses that you can find in each one of them, as the source of bio-based products.  Then the last story addresses the role that children and all of us can play in the process toward a greener world.

Each episode is comprised of scientific and socially relevant content and messages, presented in a narrative format that allows children to learn complex topics naturally as they listen to engaging stories that stimulate their imaginations.

THE SELECTION AND TRAINING OF AUTHORS

From January to May 2024, APRE began an author selection process, evaluating candidates’ experience and passion for the theme of Bioeconomy. Our careful and dynamic selection process reviewed authors’ past works and related reader reviews while also identifying those with podcast creation experience. We also examined the authors’ social media influence, particularly their ability to engage audiences and inspire curiosity among young children and families, thus ensuring a relevant database of followers. In June 2024, the final team of 10 Italian authors was finalised, consisting of diverse personalities from various creative fields, ready to bring a variety of styles and content to the project.

On July 18, 2024, APRE held an online meeting with all the authors, where they also had the possibility to share their background and and meet each other. Throughout the meeting, a capacity building webinar was held, where APRE informed these important “multipliers” about the bioeconomy opportunities, challenges and its applications, the bio-based products and the bio-based professions, so that they could translate these concepts into their stories. After the introduction to the GenB project and the capacity building with APREs’ bioeconomy experts, the authors began working on their first story drafts .Over the summer, the ideas grew; in late September, the summaries underwent a final review by APRE.

A PARTICIPATORY CREATION PROCESS

In October 2024, a second meeting was held, during which the authors shared their first summaries of stories and where the name of the podcast series (“BIO-ADVENTURES, first steps for young innovators”) was also decided, through a creative “brand naming” session. Throughout this creative process, the authors discussed and refined their ideas with the artistic-scientific validation team to ensure that each story was scientifically accurate and, at the same time, engaging for our young audience.

In November, the authors worked on the final drafts of the stories, which are now going through the last round of validation before publication. By December 20^th 2024, the stories will be completed, and APRE will start the production work of the podcasts: from recording to defining the brand identity and preparing the English translations of the stories.

NEXT STEPS AND FINAL OUTCOME: A PODCAST FOR CHILDREN FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

The goal is to publish the podcast in Italian by March 2025, and to translate the stories into English to reach a broader audience. This collection of stories is not only an opportunity to educate the young about the bioeconomy, but also to build a new generation that is aware, curious, and ready to become protagonists of a more sustainable future.

With the perfect mix of science, creativity and storytelling, the stories of the bioeconomy podcast is intended to be an exciting journey that will help children better understand the world around them while having fun and learning. And who knows, maybe this will inspire them to become pioneers of a greener, more circular world, too!

On Wednesday 20 November 2024, GenB project participated in the European Commission’s DG Research & Innovation workshop in Brussels entitled “Bioeconomy education to enable the transition to a competitive, regenerative, and fair (bio)economy. Building the next union of skills in the bioeconomy”.

This event gathered around 100 experts in bioeconomy education to discuss concrete future policy needs on this subject to be addressed in the update of the European Bioeconomy Strategy. Participants included high-level policy makers such as Joanna Drake – Deputy Director-General: Planet, People and Science for Policy – Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, Peter Wehrheim – Head of Unit, Bioeconomy & Food Systems – Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, Giuseppe Pellegrino – Policy Officer, Bioeconomy & Food Systems – Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, Ioana Dewandeler, Policy Officer Higher Education – DG Education and Culture of the European Commission and Norbert Lins, Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

In this occasion, our project coordinator Chiara Pocaterra from APRE presented the project’s interim results, providing an overview of the comprehensive tools developed and initiatives implemented to support educators, youth, and stakeholders in general in fostering bioeconomy education and engagement. These resources are tailored to make bioeconomy concepts accessible, engaging, and actionable for pre-university students and broader audiences, through hands-on labs, gamified experiences, engaging educational videos, quizzes and cards, as well as a MOOC in bioeconomy designed for teachers.

Chiara also introduced the outcomes of the recent GenB workshops involving different Ministries of Education organised on 3 September and 5 November,as well as the results from the EU workshop “What’s Next for Bioeconomy Education?”, held on 28 October, which brought together experts, educators, and policymakers to discuss educational and policy recommendations for future pre-university education and communication strategies.

Additionally, our GenB Ambassador Nicholas Ferrini participated in the session dedicated to “Youth and Bioeconomy Education”, together with representatives from the Bioeconomy Youth Ambassadors and the Youth Champion of International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy. Nicholas presented specifically the GenB Ambassadors Program through the different activities implemented, such as TEDx pitches, large-scale events and social media campaigns. A huge relevance was given to the capacity building and mentorship activities that GenB Ambassadors received from the project, to be empowered with knowledge, tools and formats and actively take a role in their communities.

Finally, world café breakout groups were organised among the invited experts, allowing focused group discussions on critical topics. Participants divided in the different tables explored questions such as “What role can bioeconomy education play in upskilling the bioeconomy workforce of our society?” and “What policy actions can support these efforts?”. These intimate, collaborative dialogues allowed for a deeper dive into challenges and opportunities, generating targeted insights and actionable recommendations to bridge education, workforce development, and policy support for the bioeconomy at different educational levels.

On November 21st, the European Commission hosted a hybrid meeting to spotlight the progress of two pivotal projects in bioeconomy education: GenB and BioBeo. This collaborative dissemination event marked a significant milestone for both initiatives as they move closer to their goals of fostering youth engagement in the bioeconomy.

During the event, the outcomes of the first 18 months of both GenB and BioBeo were presented, highlighting the project’s milestones, the innovative approaches to involving youth in bioeconomy education and the policy recommendations tailored for Ministries of Education, emphasizing the integration of bioeconomy concepts into educational frameworks.

The event brought together policy officers from DG RTD,such as Giuseppe Pellegrino – Policy Officer – Bioeconomy Analysis and Bioeconomy Educationand Adrian Leip – Head of Sector – Bioeconomy European Commission – DG Research & Innovation, Bioeconomy and Food Systems Unit (RTD.B2), together with the GenB/BioBeo project officer Gaelle Le Bouler from the European Research Executive Agency and consortium partners, underscoring the collaborative efforts driving these projects.

As both GenB and BioBeo approach their final stages, this meeting reinforced their joint commitment to shaping a bioeconomy that resonates with and empowers future generations.