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2007: Landmark European publication behind ‘Knowledge Based Bioeconomy’ in Europe

18/06/2021

Nominated by: BIO Deutschland

Under the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 42 experts from academia and industry across 13 countries were invited to contribute towards an expert paper which outlines the perspectives of a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) within the next 20 years.

The resulting paper ‘En Route to the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE)’, the so-called “Cologne Paper”, was published in May 2007 in Cologne. The paper was the first document which assisted policy makers in identifying priorities and adopting measures to establish a “bioeconomy”.

The document identified biotechnology as an important pillar of the future European economy, essential for sustainable economic growth, employment, energy supply and the maintenance of living standards.

The paper included language now very familiar within European policy, including targets for 2030, such as driving forces, bioproducts and bioprocessing, bioenergy, food and nutrition, biomedicine and emerging technologies.

The paper was the first to clearly state that biotechnology is an important pillar of Europe ́s economy by 2030, indispensable to sustainable economic growth, employment, energy supply and to maintaining the standard of living.

References:

  • En Route to the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE)
  • The Knowledge Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) in Europe: Achievements and Challenges, Full report

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Alexandra Simionca
Alexandra Simionca
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EuropaBio represents corporate and associate members across sectors, plus national and regional biotechnology associations which, in turn, represent over 5000 biotech companies, 4600 out of them are SMEs.

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