MainstreamBIO: finishing big with three onsite events!

The MainstreamBIO project will come to an end in August 2025, after three years of hard but rewarding work. In this period, Innovarum has organized several events, accounting to the intrinsic practical and rural aspects of the project. Here is a summary of our last two events, targeting awareness raising and matchmaking. Read till the end for a bonus: the first edition of the European Rural Circular Bioeconomy Conference, which included the final event of the project.

Bioparks to attract population into rural areas

Spanish rural areas face a continuous population decline: inhabitants, especially of younger ages, flee to urban areas to study and work. In 2019, 77% of the national surface was home to only 10.4% of the population[1]. One of the causes is the lack of job positions for graduates in rural regions. Thus, areas such as Catalonia are publishing strategic plans to develop rural economy and attract population, e.g., through the development of bioparks and biogas plants. MainstreamBIO co-organized with public authorities (Diputació de Lleida), dissemination initiatives (Proyecto Onda ODS), and research centres (ICAEN) an awareness raising event that gathered over 200 students and local actors at the Lleida-Alguaire Airport. Four keynote speakers presented bioeconomy and related career opportunities, bioparks, and current Catalonian efforts to specifically promote biogas. Questions from the audience were addressed in two round tables, focused on bioparks and biogas, respectively. Our colleague Flore Victor presented examples of bioparks throughout Europe and provided valuable insights on the round table focused on these industrial structures.

From Innovarum, we’d like to extend our sincere gratitude to our co-organisers. If you missed the event, don’t worry! You can enjoy the session at the website of Lleida TV, the regional TV channel.

[1] MAPA, FIAB, Cajamar. The contribution of the food and beverage industry to emptied rural Spain.

Flore Victor intervening at the round table on bioparks.

Creating valuable connections to foster biomass-based bioeconomy

For its last MainstreamBIO event as organizer, Innovarum carried out a matchmaking and networking session as part of Expobiomasa 2025, a flagship event in the field of biomass. In its 15^th edition, over 6,400 people from 35 different countries attended. Congratulations to the organizers, AVEBIOM, and many thanks for this fruitful collaboration!

MainstreamBIO’s event addressed a key gap in the bioeconomy sector: actors, often of small size, cannot find suitable partners that meet their business needs (e.g., logistic partners, suitable technology providers, or investors, among others). The session started with a brief presentation of MainstreamBIO, available at AVEBIOM’s youtube channel. We organized three business-to-business conversations for each attendee based on common needs and bioeconomy fields. Then, all participants introduced themselves to allow a distended network, accompanied by coffee.

When asked about how many connections established in the event had the potential to become long-lasting, a third of the respondents answered 5 or more. This proves such tailored sessions are effective to fill the gap among bioeconomy actors and holds great potential to boost bioeconomy implementation.

Closing a cycle: MainstreamBIO’s final event in the EuRCBC

With the three-year anniversary of MainstreamBIO approaching, it was time to host its final event. Our project partners, White Research, organized it the 13^th of May 2025, as part of the European Rural Circular Bioeconomy Conference (EuRCBC), a collaborative initiative among six Horizon Europe projects: MainstreamBIO, ROBIN, SCALE UP, BioRural, BIOMODEL4REGIONS, and RuralBioUp.

The EuRCBC presented policy developments and policy recommendations, showed practical tools, lessons learnt, and success cases from the six HE projects, and discussed detected gaps to shape future projects. Our colleague Beatriz Deltoro presented key data on the innovation support services provided free of charge under Innovarum’s leadership within MainstreamBIO. Then, she participated in the panel discussion Inspiring change through success stories, where practical examples of bioeconomy and their limitations were addressed.

EuRCBC’s audience included not only researchers and project members, but also industry leaders and policymakers, such as representatives from DG AGRI (Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development). Overall, this event showcased how collaborative efforts among projects can provide a more complete picture of bioeconomy. It also proved the interest of the European Commission (EC) in learning from our experience. EC representatives specifically stressed the call for evidence on the topic Towards a circular, regenerative and competitive bioeconomy, open until the 23^rd of June. Don’t miss the chance to make your contribution: use this link and have your say!