Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BIOVoices (Mobilization of a plurality of voices and mutual learning to accelerate the Bio-based sector)

Teaser

The successful transition towards the bioeconomy requires a profound transformation both on the supply and the demand side of the economy. On the demand side, consumers and their behaviour play a major role in this transformation process. As demonstrated by a number of...

Summary

The successful transition towards the bioeconomy requires a profound transformation both on the supply and the demand side of the economy. On the demand side, consumers and their behaviour play a major role in this transformation process. As demonstrated by a number of studies, consumer awareness and knowledge are important factors determining responsible consumption behaviour. Additionally, raising awareness is also important to accelerate the implementation of Bioeconomy strategies at national, regional and community level, and also to allow the citizens to have their say and provide their feedback on bioeconomy-related issues, such as through the EU Citizens’ Initiatives tool.
BIOVOICES overall aim is ensure the engagement of all relevant stakeholder groups and tackle BIO-based related challenges by establishing a multi-stakeholder platform, involving a plurality of actors (voices) with different perspectives, knowledge and experiences, and animating open dialogue and Mutual Learning between the different stakeholders. BIOVOICES is expected to increase the quality, the relevance, the social acceptability and the sustainability of research and innovation outcomes in various domains supporting pro-active discussion and co-creation among relevant stakeholders and promoting the direct engagement of citizens and society at large in a co-creation research and innovation process.
The BIOVOICES’ strategic objectives are:
1: Promote multi-actor dialogue and multi-stakeholder co-creation of research, innovation, development and political context in the bio-based economy.
2: Design and promote a Mobilisation and Mutual Learning (MML) platform, engaging different stakeholders at European, national and local levels, including a plurality of perspectives, experiences, interests, aspirations and knowledge.
3: Increase the quality, relevance, social acceptability and sustainability of research and innovation outcomes in the bio-based domain, thus minimising the technology mismatches.
4: Through the BIOVOICES multi-stakeholder platform, design and implement an action plan fostering the awareness of the wider public about the benefits and potential social, economic and environmental impact of the bioeconomy and widening the diffusion of bio-based products (BBPs).

Work performed

To achieve the strategic objectives, during the first reporting period BIOVOICES has produced the following activities and results:
1. Definition of a framework (WP3) for the organisation of the Mobilisation and Mutual Learning workshops, by:
a. Presenting an overview of the existing barriers and opportunities to commercialise bio-based applications in Europe, as described in current literature, to indicate key issues in the transition to the bio-based economy (D3.1).
b. Identifying the quadruple helix stakeholders’ interests and motivations to participate in the BIOVOICES MML community (D3.2) collecting 82 interviews within 10 countries.
c. Mapping the bio-based products (applications) based on stakeholders\' interests (D3.3) to define the challenges to be addressed during the MML workshops.
d. Developing the guidelines for the design of the BIOVOICES MML approach (D3.4) that are relevant, attractive and motivating for the quadruple helix stakeholders to contribute to and deliver impactful outcomes.
2. Launch of the BIOVOICES multi-stakeholder community (WP4), supporting and enabling discussion, workshops and MML workshops, through the:
a. Creation of a stakeholders’ classification to set up the best way to identify the thematic groups to be involved in MML activities. To achieve these objectives, BIOVOICES considered different literature and opinions from experts in this area (D4.1).
b. Engagement of stakeholders, leveraging of existing networks, contacts, initiatives and similar projects, to create a database according to the thematic stakeholders´ classifications identified in WP3 (T4.2).
c. Production of the methodology that supports the design of MML workshops (D4.4).
3. Creation of the BIOVOICES social platform and online mutual learning activities (WP5) to foster the BIOVOICES community activities and deliver related knowledge and contents to the different stakeholders and design the social media strategy, infrastructure, actions and tools to increase the impact of the BIOVOICES activities and outcomes. This has been done through:
a. Design, implementation (D5.1) and population (D5.3) of the BIOVOICES social platform, representing the technical infrastructure for managing participatory tools, co-production of contents, knowledge co-creation, launching initiatives, etc., supporting on-line communities (starting from e-communities already existing in the bio-based sector, and applicable in other application domains) in their work. https://www.biovoices-platform.eu/login.
b. Creation of the BioArt Gallery App (D5.7), an online dynamic slideshow with a menu and drag-and-drop navigation features registered under the URL: https://www.biovoices.eu/gallery/ as part of the BIOVOICES website.
c. Social media profiles for BIOVOICES were created (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram with 2,335 followers).
4. Improvement of the framework conditions for new bio-based market opportunities (WP6), including action plans and processes by involving the stakeholders in co-creation MML events at European, National and Local/Regional levels. In this WP, 25 MML workshops were organised by the partners: a. two workshops at European level; b. eleven workshops at National level; c. twelve workshops at Regional level.
5. Transform the experience of the BIOVOICES community into Actionable Knowledge (WP6) for the different stakeholders, publishing recommendations and policy briefs to address the challenges related to the development and delivery of the bioeconomy:
a. T6.4 is designed to convert the actionable knowledge being created by the BIOVOICES community via the MMLs into recommendations and good practice.
6. Ensure that the BIOVOICES outcomes will have an impact on the different stakeholders through the early impact, dissemination, communication and exploitation strategy (WP7):
a. All partners were involved in dissemination and communication activities in order to maximise the BIOVOICES outreach and impact (T7.2).
b. The Explo

Final results

An important impact of BIOVOICES is the creation of the “European Bioeconomy Network”.
Initiated in March 2018 and launched in May, the European Bioeconomy Network (EuBioNet) is a proactive alliance of EU funded projects dealing with the promotion of the bioeconomy , communication and support.
The main goal of the EuBioNet is to maximise the efforts of the projects, increasing knowledge sharing, networking, mutual learning and co-ordination of joint activities and events. Promoted by the BIOVOICES project, the EuBioNet has 47 formal partners.
The mission of the EuBioNet is to:
• increase the awareness of sustainable circular bioeconomy in Europe;
• stimulate the debate, knowledge sharing and mutual learning to address bioeconomy related challenges and opportunities;
• identify impact-oriented strategies to boost the sustainable circular bioeconomy in Europe;
• facilitate networking among stakeholders.
The EuBioNet partners benefit from the mutual promotion of outcomes, new partnerships, joint event planning and knowledge sharing.
www.eubionet.eu

Website & more info

More info: https://www.biovoices-platform.eu.