After 40 months, the BE-Rural project came to a close in its final conference in Frombork, Poland on July 11-14, 2022, under the title “Inspiring regional agendas for inclusive bioeconomies”. Around 40 project members and bioeconomy stakeholders travelled to Poland to review the activities and outputs of BE-Rural, discuss how the lessons learned can inform future initiatives and ongoing policy developments, and to outline concrete steps for future collaboration.

Through expert talks and dedicated working sessions, a key outcome of the conference was the co-development of the BE-Rural Policy Paper for the design and effective implementation of co-creation spaces in regional bioeconomies. Public and stakeholder engagement has a long history in European research and policy, and central to BE-Rural’s vision was the application of a variety of participatory tools. A comprehensive evaluation of the project’s engagement activities identified key lessons and helped to form the basis of the policy paper.

In addition to these final project outcomes, three policy briefs relevant for different governmental levels provide guidance on funding for bio-based business models, the ecological boundaries framing the bioeconomy in rural regions, and the relevance of bioeconomy for Pre-Accession Assistance projects in the Western Balkans.

While the bioeconomy carries great potential for achieving various policy aims related to sustainability, its suitability is not intrinsic and requires the capacity to assess its environmental impact. Over the course of the project, the need arose to develop a BE-Rural Sustainability Screening that supports decision-makers in incorporating considerations of ecological limits into their regional bioeconomy strategies and roadmaps.

Looking back, the BE-Rural project leaves behind a wealth of outputs and policy guidance on the development of regional bioeconomy strategies and roadmaps. While much has been accomplished, great potential remains to be tapped. In order to stay connected and keep facilitating knowledge exchange amongst the regions after the end of the project, BE-Rural launched a Network of Knowledge (Nok), an informal group open to all bioeconomy stakeholders interested in learning from others and exchanging on experiences in the design and implementation of bioeconomy strategies and bio-based business models, among others.

In the culmination of a two year co-creation process amongst key regional stakeholders, five regional bioeconomy strategy and roadmap documents have been finalized in the Open Innovation Platform (OIP) regions of Szczecin and Vistula Lagoons, Poland; Stara Zagora, Bulgaria; Strumica, North Macedonia; Vidzeme and Kurzeme, Latvia; and Covasna, Romania. The strategies and roadmaps were developed in the context of structured regional stakeholder processes and outline explicit actions that could support the further development of the regional bioeconomies.

In a celebration of the economic, ecological, and cultural diversity of European regions, the five documents present a broad range of strategies and tools for realising the potential of regional and local bio-based economies. Each document closely examines the regional context, the sectors relevant for the bioeconomy, as well as the existing national and regional institutional and policy environments.

In the Polish Baltic Lagoon regions, a strong focus is placed on social innovation in the fishery sector, whereas the utilisation of forest and agricultural biomass as well as waste and production residues take centre stage for bioeconomy development in the Vidzeme and Kurzeme regions of Latvia. The roadmap for the development of the bioeconomy in Strumica, North Macedonia focuses on the great potential of the agriculture sector and the need for advisory services for agricultural products, as well as training and education to aid the sector’s digital transition. Stara Zagora’s economy is dominated by a mix of small- and medium sized enterprises and, as such, one of the main priorities of the roadmap is creating conditions for the development of bio-based sectors and promoting the introduction of new technologies. In Romania, the development of the Roadmap for a Bioeconomy Strategy in Covasna County was strongly driven by innovation clusters and the need to harmonise rural development, social inclusion, and eco-innovation.

As a testament to one of the central aims of BE-Rural to enable broad and inclusive stakeholder participation in the roadmap and strategy development processes, the resulting documents demonstrate a strong mandate from various interest groups as well as clear relevance in the regional and national policy debates. Through the establishment of permanent bioeconomy stakeholder panels in each of the regions, BE-Rural will help maintain momentum and ensure broad support for the further development of the regional bioeconomies in the five OIP regions. The panels will consist of up to five members who will promote the bioeconomy within their regions and represent the regions and their interests to the national governments as ‘bioeconomy ambassadors’.

Summaries of strategy and roadmap documents are provided in the deliverable D5.3 and the individual documents can be accessed in their local languages here.

A critical component of BE-Rural is to accompany the elaboration process of bio-based strategies and roadmaps and relevant business models through the sharing of knowledge, good practices and mutual learning across the Open Innovation Platforms (OIPs). To this end, three inter-regional webinars were organised on 18 March 2020, 16 June 2020, and on 16 February 2021. Each of the three webinars were held as half-day events and successfully brought together between thirty and forty participants, mainly representing the five OIP regions.

The first webinar focused on improving the general understanding of the current regional situations with regard to their political contexts and main priorities for the development of local bioeconomy strategies. OIP facilitators and their stakeholders had the chance to provide details on their sector of activity, describe the status of the bioeconomy development in their region and discuss common points of interest, such as the need for more cross-sector collaboration, the lack of financing, and the utilization of abandoned private land in rural areas.

A second webinar further deepened the exchange of best practices between regions by examining experiences in the promotion of local food systems, funding opportunities, and the role of bioeconomy in the implementation of smart specialisation strategies. A key outcome highlighted throughout the webinar was the high replicability across regions of these three aspects. In addition, it was noted that the mobilisation of regional actors, accompanied by a sustained effort to educate society from an early age, was the key factor for success.

The third webinar was dedicated to best practices on strategy development and business models in each OIP region. Each region shared one or two best practices focused both on local/regional strategies and business models. A number of successful small-scale examples or initiatives helped complete the economic picture in each region.

The outcomes of these interactions have helped collect best practices and critical knowledge on the role of these activities in designing and implementing effective strategies. These learnings will be published in a “Best practice guide for strategy development” and will ultimately feed back into BE-Rural’s regional strategy and roadmap development processes.