BIO-TIC: Register now for ‘Bio Business’ Workshops

Registration for five 'bio-Business case' workshops organised by SusChem’s FP7 BIO-TIC project is now open. By participating in these workshops you can help shape the strategic agenda to boost the uptake of industrial biotechnology (IB) in Europe. In addition BIO-TIC has just released a series of videos that describe the project’s rationale and objectives and the IB business roadmaps that it is developing.

The BIO-TIC project is organising five 'bio-Business case' workshops during the Autumn of 2014. These events will look into five major product segments and applications of Industrial Biotechnology (IB) in Europe that promise significant potential for Europe’s industry and society by 2030.

The workshops are organised around the following topics:

• Use of IB in Biosurfactants on 3 September 2014 in Berlin, Germany
• CO2-based Chemicals Business Case on 24 September 2014 at CPE Lyon, France
• Chemical Building Blocks: 'What do we need to do to build sustainable foundations for the bio-based chemical industry in Europe?' on 1 October 2014 in Reims, France
• Biofuels on 20 October 2014 in London, United Kingdom.
• Bio-based Plastics: 'How do we Grow the EU Industry?' on 1 December 2014 in Brussels, Belgium

Registration for all of the workshops is now open and can be accessed here via a dedicated website.

Knowledge exchange
With these workshops, the BIO-TIC project consortium aims to bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes.

The objective of the workshops is to:

• Identify technological, non-technological and market hurdles for the uptake of industrial biotechnology in these sectors
• Develop recommendations and solutions to overcome the identified hurdles
• Contribute to the development, testing and fine-tuning of the BIO-TIC roadmaps
• Bring together industrial biotechnology end users (downstream) with technology providers (upstream), innovation agencies and decision makers to stimulate interconnected discussion and knowledge exchange platforms and processes
• Collect data to develop draft indicators to measure the socio-economic and environmental impact of IB and the use of renewables-based products in the European Union

BIO-TIC videos
Funded by the European Commission, BIO-TIC was launched in 2012, as an FP7 project, with the aim to establish an overview of the barriers to biotechnology innovation and propose solutions to overcome them.

BIO-TIC has now published a series of videos that explain the rationale and objectives of the project and the three roadmaps that it is developing.

In the first video Antoine Peeters, Manager for Industrial Biotechnology at EuropaBio, gives an overview of the BIO-TIC project; its main activities and current status; the business cases, the project’s anticipated impact and future actions. This video is embedded at the end of this blog

Pádraig Naughton, Cefic innovation manager, features in a video explaining Cefic's role in the BIO-TIC project and outlining how wider use of industrial biotechnology (IB) can help the chemical industry grow.

A major milestone in the BIO-TIC project is the development of three roadmaps: market, technological, and non-technological. The project has recently released the second draft versions of the roadmaps which can be downloaded from the project website.

Anna Saarentaus, Principal at Pöyry, talks about the market drivers related to the various product segments and gives an overview of the projected use of IB in Europe by 2030. This video gives a comprehensive overview of the market potential for industrial biotechnology and of the value chain composition and stakeholders in various product segments and is an excellent introduction to the market roadmap.

The technological roadmap aims to gain insight into the R&D related hurdles that are impeding the full realisation of Europe’s IB market potential in 2030. In addition, the roadmap seeks to set priorities in terms of R&D and other actions to overcome the R&D barriers. In the video introducing the technological roadmap Elsbeth Roelofs, Senior Business Consultant at TNO, gives an overview of the R&D hurdles in Industrial Biotechnology in Europe and explains how the BIO-TIC roadmaps can help to overcome them.

The non-technological roadmap aims to identify regulatory and non-technological hurdles that may inhibit innovation and prevent the realisation of the market and technological potential of IB. Furthermore, the non-technological roadmap seeks to propose solutions to these hurdles by confronting theory and practice. The non-technological roadmap is introduced in a video with Antoine Peeters of EuropaBio who gives an overview of the non-technological hurdles of IB and explains how the BIO-TIC roadmaps will contribute to further develop the non-technological opportunities for IB applications in Europe.

More information
Input from the market and experts in industry and research are critical to build a basis for the roadmaps and to ensure that actions are developed which best fit the needs of this sector.  SusChem, Cefic and the BIO-TIC partners welcome any comments on the current draft documents. You can submit comments via email.

For more information on the BIO-TIC project and the business-case workshops visit the project website or contact Pierre Barthélemy, Innovation Manager at Cefic.