The European Bioeconomy University (EBU) Alliance

On September 7, 2023, two further universities joined the alliance as full members: Warsaw University of Life Sciences (Poland) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden).

This alliance is already collaborating on numerous training, research and innovation projects, contributing to a more sustainable, resource-efficient and competitive Europe. EBU has attracted the interest of players outside the academic world, including associated partners such as BIOEAST, European Bioplastics and the European Forest Institute (EFI).

This initiative is intended as a response to the European challenges of the bioeconomy, particularly in primary agricultural and forestry production, food, biotechnologies, etc. The bioeconomy is a very broad field of activity for AgroParisTech, which is also maintaining its historical activities in this field and the associated partnerships.

Since its creation, the following activities have been carried out:

• Setting up governance and working groups;
• Organization of the EBU Scientific Forum (EBSF) in September 2021 virtually and the EBSF in September 2023 at BOKU (Austria). Through workshops and plenary sessions, these two events brought together a total of over 500 participants. EBSF 2025 is currently being organized, this time hosted by the UEF.
• Organization of thematic workshops, including virtual ones, with the last one in October 2024 in Vienna on the EBU vision of the future of the bioeconomy;
• Organization of the “How to shape education for a sustainable circular bioeconomy” workshop for the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2020 and the “Exploring Global Foresight driven Collaboration Opportunities for Universities in the Bioeconomy Field” workshop for the GBS 2024.
• EBU participation as a speaker in several European events such as the European Research and Innovation Days 2021, the Bioeconomy Changemakers Festival in March 2024 as well as in workshops organized by the European Commission such as “Promoting education, training and skills across the EU bioeconomy” in 2021 or “Bioeconomy education to enable the transition to a competitive, regenerative, and fair (bio)economy. Building the next union of skills in the bioeconomy” in 2024;
• Publication of joint position/opinion papers;
• Signature of a cotutelle framework agreement;
• Definition of an alliance collaboration strategy and signature of cooperation agreements.

In addition, the EBU alliance aims to develop European projects between its members. Within this framework, several training and research initiatives have already been set up, in which AgroParisTech is actively involved:

• DESTINY (Design and Sustainability Assessment of Innovative Biomass Production Systems and Value-Chains in the Bioeconomy), a network of doctoral students under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Horizon Europe), coordinated by AgroParisTech;
• The Erasmus+ project FOEBE (Fostering Entrepreneurship for the Bioeconomy) and its continuation FOEBE+ (Fostering Entrepreneurship for a sustainable and innovative BioEconomy), coordinated by AgroParisTech;
• The BIObec project (Preparing the creation of Bio-Based Education Centres to meet industry needs and boost the contribution of the bioeconomy to societal challenges);
• The EBU Label project.