Supporting research excellence

Major developments

EuropaBio's Camille Burel and Willy De Greef were speakers at the World Biofuels Congress in March 2009. They both highlighted the importance of accelerating the development of the bio-based economy.

Promoting Industrial Biotech research

This year the EU Commission invested about €80 million in research projects on industrial biotech and the bio-based economy. The calls for proposal published by the European Commission are inspired by the research priorities identified by the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) of the SusChem European Technology Platform, the IB section of which is coordinated by EuropaBio.

The importance of developing biorefinery plants and demonstrators to accelerate the development of the bio-based economy has been noted by the EU Commission. In response, the Commission has allocated €57 million for projects addressing these issues.

EuropaBio has also been focusing on cooperation with the European Technology Platforms on biofuels, the forest-based sector and Plants for the Future to consider synergies on cross-cutting issues. This has generated two FP7 projects:

• BeCoTEPs which analyses the cross-cutting issues and seeks to improve the understanding and implementation of R&D and policies on these issues at European and MS level
• Star-Colibri which aims at gathering information and results on past and ongoing research projects on biorefinery and foster their dissemination and further use by the research community and industry

Helping shape the biofuels research agenda

EuropaBio is a member of the Steering Committee of the European Technology Platform for Biofuels. The platform has published in 2008 its research agenda setting out what research is needed to ensure biofuels are developed and optimised in a sustainable way in Europe, and a strategic deployment document.

Challenges and opportunities

EuropaBio continues to input into Europe's research agendas.