The INTERfaces program will train 14 ESRs within an EID network jointly designed by European academic and industry partners in innovative research projects dedicated to developing clean bioprocesses for the production of chemicals. The assembly of biocatalysts to reaction sequences allows avoiding steps for isolation and purification of intermediates and thus a significant improvement of the environmental footprint of catalytic processes. The main goal of INTERfaces is the extension of this concept towards multi-step biocatalytic reactions in immobilized form. These “Heterogeneous Biocatalytic Reaction Cascades” will greatly facilitate re-use of the catalysts and further simplify downstream-processing. INTERfaces combines material science and protein engineering to design tailored enzymes and (bio-based) materials that will complement each other to obtain optimized heterogeneous biocatalysts. These tools will be applied to solve synthetic challenges in the use of two biobased monomers as starting materials to synthesize products for application fields like antioxidants and biopolymers. Process optimization and up-scale in industry will reveal key factors for synthetic utilization of the biocatalysts. INTERfaces emphasizes particularly the engineering of the designed cascades in solid phase. This includes the design of reactors, use of computational modeling tools, application of the right operational modes, and reaction medium needed for desired space-time-yields and product titers. Commercial relevant processes will be up-scaled together with industry for technical implementation. 13 Non-academic partners ranging from high-tech SMEs to large producing companies and 9 academic institutions offer an intersectoral and interdisciplinary environment to provide 14 Ph.D. candidates with outstanding employability profiles for the European Biotech Sector. Dedicated workshops and well-balanced supervisory team aim at increasing the gender diversity in biotech research.

Rapid transition toward the use of renewable, energy-efficient and recyclable resource is needed in industrial biotechnology to achieve sustainable production of chemicals. However, enzyme based biocatalytic processes still mostly rely on fossil-sourced or carbon rich reactants. Efficient, scalable, selective and robust catalysts are needed to deploy H2 as a clean, circular and renewable reactant in industrial biotechnology. Our recent breakthrough in making robust and scalable hydrogenases, Nature's highly active catalyst for H2 oxidation and H2 production, opens the possibility to meet the industrial requirements in terms of i) compatibility with biocatalysis, ii) circular chemistry, and iii) economic and technical competitiveness over fossil-sourced reactants. The overarching aim of CirculH2 is to demonstrate the successful development of one or more highly robust and scalable hydrogenases for use of H2 that selectively drives biotransformations of bio-based materials to specialty and commodity chemicals in an industrial environment (TRL6). Modelling of the reaction processes and lifecycle assessment will deliver a full quantitative evaluation of the performances and applicability of the hydrogenase-biotransformation systems. This will provide convincing evidence for the adoption in industry. CirculH2 will deliver a scalable and robust H2-driven biotechnology compatible with the existing infrastructure that will advance European competitiveness in the sustainable and circular production of chemicals. It will minimize energy usage by having negligible resource losses and minimal downstream processing due to its highly selective hydrogenase catalysts. The CirculH2 technology aims at replacing the heavily used legacy methods of chemical production and enable decarbonization of industrial biotechnology.

The DECADES doctoral network will conduct innovative research while training 10 PhD candidates with the interdisciplinary skills, intersectoral experience and entrepreneurial mindset to implement sustainability concepts in the European Biotech Sector, making a significant contribution to achieve the GREEN DEAL objectives of European Union. DECADES will focus on solvents as central part of the sustainability of biotechnological processes. Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) are biobased and biodegradable solvents that hold potential to revolutionize the chemistry of the 21st century. Aim is to apply these 'Safe and Sustainable-by-Design' solvents to increase efficiency and sustainability of industrial biocatalysis. DECADES will bring to fruition the benefits of DESs by bridging current proof-of-concept knowledge from academia to industrial applications, and by a holistic exploitation considering solvent design and application through multiple aspects (catalyst, substrate, environmental impact) and along the whole pipeline (upstream/downstream). DECADES will greatly contribute to the transition to synthetic processes based on circular economy, by establishing biocatalytic synthesis of several value-added (bio-based) chemicals. DECADES emphasizes particularly the engineering of multi-step catalytic reactions in DESs. The scientific approach of DECADES is highly interdisciplinary and brings together biology, chemistry and process engineering to achieve significantly increased productivities and diminished waste. Commercial relevant processes will be up-scaled together with industry; for which continuous processing will be of main focus. 10 Non-academic partners ranging from high-tech SMEs to large producing companies and 6 academic institutions offer an intersectoral and interdisciplinary environment to provide 10 PhD candidates with outstanding employability profiles for the European Biotech Sector, both in academia and in industry.