The BOOST4BIOEAST project aims to set in motion the levers for bioeconomy deployment in the Central Eastern European and Baltic countries. The consortium will focus on building upon BIOEASTsUP outcomes and the Vision Paper of the BIOEAST Initiative by boosting the participation of national stakeholder networks in the development of national bioeconomy action plans and to build long-lasting structures for national and macro-regional cooperation. The BIOEAST HUBs will be the national platforms directly linked to public administrations under which capacities are built and the different stakeholders of the bioeconomy are mobilised to more effectively contribute to and take part in decision-making processes using participatory approaches. BIOEAST-wide mapping of bioeconomy competencies and biomass will be undertaken to advance the knowledge on bioeconomy in the macro-region as well as BIOEAST Knowledge Platform will be created to act as repository of knowledge materials and relevant information on bioeconomy that will allow BIOEAST´s stakeholders to access, share and store bioeconomy-related materials towards developing national BIOEAST HUBs into active contributors to bioeconomy in each member state. In order to boost bioeconomy innovation and education in the BIOEAST countries, the project will bring together public and private funders with relevant business stakeholders and expand the BIOEAST UNI NET network. Activities such as training, reskilling, awareness spreading and communication channels creation will set the basis of the bioeconomic transition, creating spaces of dialogue and involvement among all agents of the industry (academia, private and public), which will boost the stakeholders engagement for the integration of programmes and policies in turn of bioeconomy. The hereby proposed consortium is composed of stakeholders of all BIOEAST member states along with partners distributed throughout Western Europe (BE, FI, GER, IE, IT& ES).

Biodiversity protection and restoration are critical for maintaining the ecological balance and ensuring the planet's sustainability. In the absence of sustainable management and protection of natural resources, the negative impacts of climate change and other environmental issues will only increase. Private investment can be a critical tool that has the potential to play a transformative role in financing conservation and restoration efforts, as public financing alone may be insufficient to address the scale of these challenges. By activating innovative sustainable finance solutions and incorporating technological advances within the field of geospatial analytics, the project can attract private investment in a way that benefits the environment and secures investors’ confidence. BIO-CAPITAL project is going to develop and implement an interdisciplinary research and innovation endeavour by combining actions in the three fields of (i) Biodiversity protection and restoration, (ii) biodiversity-friendly Financing mechanisms and (iii) advanced Space Technology. The implementation will involve three key steps to leverage innovation. First, BIO-CAPITAL will analyse, understand and learn from UCs. Second, it will elaborate, monitor, and demonstrate through UCs. Finally, it will co-develop, implement and amplify back to the UCs. BIO-CAPITAL will engage stakeholders through iterative processes, in order to reach shared views on the aforementioned three stages and how they can be effectively combined to increase financial flows for biodiversity protection, restoration and sustainable utilisation.

The goal of the COASTAL project is to formulate and evaluate business solutions and policy recommendations aimed at improving the coastal-rural synergy to foster rural and coastal development while preserving the environment. Rural development in the EU is increasingly affected by changing market developments, decreasing population densities, urban sprawl, lack of employment, desertification and other environmental, economic and social pressures. On the other hand, coastal areas provide interesting business opportunities but are also influenced by economic activities in the hinterland. Multi-Actor Approaches will be combined with System Dynamics to analyse the environmental, economic, and social interactions of rural and coastal areas in a holistic manner. The underlying feedback structures governing the dynamics, vulnerabilities, limitations, and business opportunities of the land-sea system will be identified and analysed, taking into consideration the regulatory frameworks, stakeholder priorities and social-economic conditions at the local, regional and macro-regional scale levels. Multi-Actor Labs using qualitative and quantitative tools will be set up to support the co-creation exchanges between scientific experts, stakeholders, business entrepreneurs, sector- and administrative representatives. The project will be structured around six closely interacting work packages with six complementary case studies in Sweden, Belgium, France, Spain, Greece and Romania.