Inovação para a Agricultura

The transition towards a more sustainable, bio-based regional economy and society requires the active involvement of a broad spectrum of stakeholders and citizens in the design of strategies, which promote a sustainable use of agricultural, forest and marine ecosystems. Building on this idea, the overall goal of BE-Rural is to explore the potential of regional and local bio-based economies by supporting relevant actors in the participatory development of bioeconomy strategies, roadmaps and business models. The project will focus on regions in five modest and moderate innovator countries: Latvia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and North Macedonia.
As a first step, new, sustainable technology options suitable for local deployment and the biomass potential of the regions will be identified. Parallel to this, BE-Rural will establish five regional Open Innovation Platforms (OIPs) to kick-start the co-creation process, bringing together key stakeholders from academia, policy, business and civil society to develop ideas and capitalise on the identified bioeconomy potential. Furthermore, BE-Rural will raise awareness of the bioeconomy among citizens and stakeholders in the OIP regions and promote broad engagement. Activities will include research & innovation capacity-building workshops, educational seminars and webinars, summer schools, and bio-based pop-up stores. Building from this, BE-Rural will establish a 'Network of Knowledge' to share knowledge and lessons learned from the OIPs at an inter-regional level, further disseminating best practices, closing the information gap on issues related to sustainability, and increasing regional capacities of authorities and stakeholders. Finally, BE-Rural will link the identified bio-based business models to the regional context, will assess their market potentials and develop regional bioeconomy strategies and roadmaps.