Accelerate the transition towards a BioBased Economy via Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Accelerate the transition towards a BioBased Economy via Education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Energy and resources; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The growing global population requires increasing amounts of resources (food, feed, material and energy) while climate change and the not endless availability of resources limit an ongoing growth. An important part of the answer to this problem is a transition to a more biobased economy. The biobased economy is about the transition from an economy that runs on fossil fuels to an economy that runs on biomass as a raw material. By changing the basic building blocks of our economy from fossil resources to a renewable and re-usable biomass as raw material, the consequences of the growth of the global population and the pressure on natural resources is more manageable.
The ongoing transition towards a biobased economy requires new educational methods and materials to educate students with relevant skills and expertise, as stated by BBI-JU, the BioEconomy Stakeholders Panel and many others. A biobased economy professional of the future needs to have in-depth knowledge on the sector he or she is working at, and of related sectors so that e.g. specifications for resources of the chemical industry can be translated to product requirements for the agricultural sector. In addition, future professionals need to have knowledge on the fundamental elements, applications and trends in biobased economy and the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams. Current educational programmes do not educate sufficiently for the biobased economy of the future because they focus mainly on the technologic aspects and lack a system approach to biobased economy. A system approach looks at the system as a whole, including aspects related to People, Planet as well as Profit. Higher Educational Institutions need to educate students from a holistic approach targeting key elements of biobased economy in a global context, as a surplus to disciplinary knowledge. In addition, enterprises and future employees need to understand their contribution in the value chain and the inter-relations of their operation with prior and subsequent links in the chain to fully benefit from the biobased opportunities (cross-sectoral).
In direct response to the identified gaps, the partners aim is to work together and develop new educational materials by which they can Accelerate the transition towards a BioBased Economy via Education (ABBEE). Therefore, four HEIs from four European countries who have already made a start with the systemic approach, work together to co-create, in cooperation with enterprises, new educational materials for Master students and professionals. Key elements of biobased economy, such as entrepreneurship, value chain approaches and biomass production are covered from a system approach. ABBEE starts from the concepts and philosophy of bioeconomy and from the beginning of the value chain. The courses focus on social-economic, ecological, market and sustainability aspects. All educational materials will be made available for students of the participating HEIs (online and on-site) and will be available for professionals working in the bioeconomy sectors (online).
The partners work together to develop the following intellectual outputs:
IO 1: Course on The Concepts of a Sustainable Bioeconomy
IO 2: Course on Advanced Sustainable Entrepreneurship
IO 3: Course on Forest-based Bioeconomy
IO 4: Course on Sustainable Agroproduction
IO 5: Online Platform and Network
Cooperation has been sought with several key players in the field of bioeconomy. Several networking organisations such as the Bio-based Industries Consortium and TKI-BBE have expressed their commitment to the project and will use their large network to disseminate the project results. In addition, several industry partners such as Metsä Group, BIOPRO and SEGES have expressed their commitment and will actively cooperate in the development of the courses. The cooperation between HEIs and industry partners and networks, will ensure that the newly developed courses will educate students for the bioeconomy of the future, and will allow professionals in the biobased sectors to continue Life Long Learning.
ABBEE will establish a knowledge triangle between research, education and industry in Europe. Through ABBEE, the current cooperation and existing links will be upgraded to become a full-fledged European network on education which will help to accomplish the following:
• Provide Master-students at HEIs throughout Europe the chance to follow courses on biobased economy which are currently not available;
• Provide professionals with the possibility to enrol in online courses on different topics of biobased economy, by which they are encouraged for Life Long Learning and they can expand their knowledge base;
• Stimulate a culture of sharing educational resources between HEIs by which their individual investments are limited and knowledge is accumulated.

Project Website

http://www.abbee.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 415435 Eur

Project Coordinator

WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY & Country: NL

Project Partners

• AARHUS UNIVERSITET
• UNIVERSITAET HOHENHEIM
• ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO