SUPERBIO focuses on the biobased economy. This emerging economy relies on the use of biomass (e.g. plants, waste) as renewable raw material for the production of new or existing products. The technologies used are a combination of biochemistry, biotechnology, chemistry and processing technology. The cluster coordinating SUPERBIO (GBEV) has already more than 3 years’ experience in building new biobased economy value chains at regional level and is active in European projects aimed at supporting SMEs to bring innovations to the market. The consortium consists of three cluster organisations specialised in the biobased economy from regions with synergetic smart specialisations, 4 highly skilled and experienced SME intermediates considered as important opinion makers in the biobased economy and 2 cross-sectorial SMEs regarded as specialists in their respective activities. The biobased economy goes along at least 19 different industrial sectors. The project aims at constructing and validating new value chains providing the SMEs in the new value chains the tools to convince investors to contribute to building new emerging industries or to generate improved processes or products. SUPERBIO will create a comprehensive open collaboration space based on the combined network of all partners, an idea validation procedure and a complementary innovation support program. Specifically, we expect to identify 10 validated value chains. With an average of 3 SMEs per value chain, this would result in providing support to about 30 SMEs or 10 SME groups. Our approach ensures the validation of sustainable and commercially viable value chains. The output of this project will lead to the implementation of new value chains, the production of drop-in chemicals and products the production of new chemicals and products with improved features and can lead to investments in dedicated industrial production sites.

Pilots4U aims to setup one very visible, easy accessible network of open access pilot and multipurpose demo-infrastructures for the European bio-economy with Europe-wide coverage and protecting IP rights of users. Since pilot- and demo equipment is very expensive and requires specific expertise, open access infrastructures are the most cost-effective manner to support the deployment of industry-driven innovations in the market. To assure that the network meets the needs of the European bio-economy industry (SMEs, start-ups, Large enterprises), current European pilot and demo-capabilities are compared with the needs of the European biobased industry. Up to six business cases of investments in additional equipment, facilities or capabilities will be evaluated, and the first steps will be taken to attract financing. Different cooperation schemes for the open access pilot- and demo-network will be considered. The project consortium has all the required players to succeed: Six partners are coordinating bio-economy pilot or multipurpose demo-infrastructure networks, and therefore assure the involvement of over 40 infrastructures: Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (SmartPilots), VTT (ERIFORE), Royal Institute of Technology KTH (BRISK), Swansea University (Enalgae), Ghent University (Biorefine Cluster Europe) and NNFCC (as secretary of the BioPilotsUK initiative). The cluster organisation CLIC Innovation is representing industry that is contributing in cash to the project. The Europan Regions, research and innovation network with 150 member regions will attract interested European stakeholders (infraststructure owners and users) to get involved in the project, and NNFCC, the bio-economy consultant, is a professional, independent consultant who will lead the study.

Continuing population and consumption growth are driving global food demand, with agricultural activity increasing to keep pace. Europe has a major agricultural waste problem, generating some 700 million tonnes of waste annually. There is an urgent need and huge opportunity to address the efficient use of agricultural wastes, co-products and by-products (AWCB) towards delivering sustainable value chains in the farming and processing sectors. As such, AgroCycle will convert low value agricultural waste into highly valuable products, achieving a 10% increase in waste recycling and valorisation by 2020. This will be achieved by developing a detailed and holistic understanding of the waste streams and piloting a key number of waste utilisation/valorisation pathways. It will bring technologies and systems from ~TRL4 to ~TRL7 within the 3 years of the project. A post-project commercialisation plan will bring commercially promising technologies/systems to TRL8 and TRL9, ensuring AgroCycle will have an enduring impact by achieving sustainable use of AWCB both inside and outside the agricultural sector, leading to the realisation of a Circular Economy. AgroCycle addresses wastes from several agricultural sectors: wine, olive oil, horticulture, fruit, grassland, swine, dairy and poultry. The AgroCycle consortium is a large (25) multi-national group (including China) comprising the necessary and relevant multi-actors (i.e. researchers; companies in the technical, manufacturing, advisory, retail sectors (Large and SMEs); lead users; end users; and trade/producer associations) for achieving the project’s ambitions goals. Farming’s unique regional (rural) location means that AgroCycle will help reduce the EU’s Innovation Divide and address the Regional Smart Specialisation Strategies for each partner country: impact will be Regional with National and International dimensions. The presence of three partners from China ensures international synergies and a global impact.

Municipal solids waste (MSW) are collected by municipalities and represents more than 500 kg/capita (EU-27 average), 300 million tonnes overall every year in the EU-32. Currently, approximately 50% of this volume is landfilled. More than 1.3 million tonnes of Marine rest raw material (MRRM) are generated in Europe each year. Some countries, such as Norway and Denmark, have traditionally for animal feed. It will therefore be a challenge for the industry to develop methods to turn fish viscera and skin, currently considered as undesirable raw materials for hydrolysis and human consumption, into profitable products. DAFIA will exploit MSW and MRRM as feedstocks for high value products. The parallel exploitation of the two feedstocks may create synergies. This expertise will be utilised in process development from MSW, while at the same time, new added-value products may be identified from both feed stocks. The main objective of the DAFIA project is to explore the conversion routes of municipal solid waste (MSW), and marine rest raw-materials (MRRM) from the fish processing industries, to obtain high added value products, i.e. flame retardants, edible/barrier coatings and chemical building blocks (dicarboxylic acids and diamine) to produce polyamides and polyesters for a wide range industrial applications. Different value-chains and products will be selected and explored based on the potential commercial value and the technical feasibility including new microbial strains and processes for conversion of major feedstock fractions, enzymatic and chemical modifications of components isolated from the feedstock or produced in microbial processes. Up to four cost-effective molecule groups suitable for the final selected applications will be targeted (nucleic acids, dicarboxylic acids, diamines and gelatine), & two value-chains (MSW & MRRM) will be evaluated at pilot scale to reach TRL5.

Chemical synthesis is often difficult and may be subject to unclear mechanisms, frequently producing undesired by-products, while the complexity of some compounds may rendered them virtually unattainable. Nature can provide a wealth of products, however typically at very low concentrations, which makes their extraction process expensive. Conversely, microbial production is a well-established process for compounds naturally produced by the hosts or for which there are fully characterised biosynthetic pathways. However, relying on nature’s diversity as a provider for industrial applications typically requires major screenings for pathways, genes and optimisation of cell factories for the efficient production of the target compounds. SHIKIFACTORY100 project aims towards the production of a universe of more than 100 high-added value compounds from the shikimate pathway, a hub in cell metabolism, through the development of an optimised shikimate chassis) and the proposal and implementation of novel biosynthetic routes exploring enzyme promiscuity to propose new pathways for the production of known and newly designed compounds. To champion SHIKIFACTORY100 project a consortium with some of the most relevant players in Europe has been assembled, covering research leading institutions in computational design, rapid prototyping and in vivo implementation of pathways and cell factories. As such, six world-leading research partners, four biotechnology SMEs with complementary focus areas and one large industrial company have been integrated. The research partners will be responsible for novel methods for pathway discovery and compound design, collaborating with the SMEs in the implementation and optimisation of the chassis, while SMEs and industrial partners will lead the assessment of the products and the exploitation of the results for different application areas. The industrial partner will be responsible for the validation of the production.