National Transfer and Acceleration Network Industrial Bioeconomy

Description

The bioeconomy concept aims to reduce dependence on non-renewable raw materials and instead rely on biological, renewable resources and biogenic residues. The approach combines ecological sustainability with economic growth. Innovations in the fields of biotechnology, green chemistry and sustainable resource utilisation play an important role here.

However, the transfer of bioeconomic developments from research laboratories to industrial production is progressing very slowly. Promising bioeconomic solutions are already available in Germany today, but are often not ready for industrial production. Biotechnological innovations that have been successfully developed in the laboratory must first be validated in an industry-oriented environment before production can be scaled up and market acceptance can be generated with a corresponding willingness to invest. As the test environment required for this, e.g. the construction of demonstration plants, is very cost-intensive and associated with technical and regulatory challenges, experts refer to this phase of the technology maturity model as the 'Valley of Death'.

The aim of the nationwide TransBIB funding project is to accelerate the transfer and scaling of bioeconomic innovations:

• Networking bioeconomy stakeholders bottom-up throughout Germany

The TransBIB transfer network links the example regions of the industrial bioeconomy and pools expertise in research, industry and politics in order to make scalable bioeconomy technologies accessible to industry more quickly from the bottom up. TransBIB forms the national framework for accelerating the bioeconomy and actively promotes cooperation with the state ministries responsible for the bioeconomy, including the Federal Government's Bioeconomy Council and the Industrial Bioeconomy Dialogue Platform.

• Inventory of the one-stop shop bioeconomy

Knowledge on the bioeconomy has so far been very scattered and fragmented. TransBIB is therefore conducting a Germany-wide inventory of industrial sites and databases in order to subsequently bundle them in a new one-stop shop. In addition, expert networks are preparing important bioeconomy topics and communicating them to specific target groups.

• Prediction and evaluation of new bio-based value chains

In order to achieve independence from oil, new bio-based value chains are required. To this end, a digital tool is being used to digitally record and utilise material flows in the sample regions and thus develop new value creation networks. These will then be assessed in terms of their feasibility and sustainability and proposed to the example region for implementation.

• Easy access to regulatory and certification issues

TransBIB will provide easy access to regulatory issues and certification for companies and develop proposals to simplify them.

• Industry-related training for the professionals of the future

The transition of the economy to bio-based circular systems requires new skills for industry specialists. TransBIB is therefore developing future-oriented training concepts to counteract a shortage of skilled labour in Germany.

The TransBIB project is being funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) as part of the Directive to promote the utilisation and construction of demonstration plants and model regions for the industrial bioeconomy with a total of over €5.6 million. The project sponsor is VDI Technologiezentrum GmbH. The first funding period will run for 36 months from October 2023 to September 2026. The TransBIB consortium consists of 14 partner organisations, including universities, research institutes, innovation clusters and regional development companies as well as other associated partners and subcontractors. The joint project is headed by Dr Matthias S. Scholz at the Technical University of Munich.

The SKZ is increasingly active in the areas of regulation and certification, as well as industry-related training. As part of a stakeholder dialogue on Certification and Regulation, the players involved in complex certification processes are networked and the interaction of existing certification systems is promoted with a view to possible meta-certification. As part of the industry-related training, the project is focussing on three areas: knowledge transfer, scaling and transfer, and networking.