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GoDanuBio’s contribution to the bioeconomisation of the Danube Region

GoDanuBio supported the set-up of policy frameworks and participative governance schemes in the participating regions. The main topics were circular bioeconomy, sustainable rural development and rural-urban interactions.

The GoDanuBio partnership was mainly composed of a long-standing network of Ministries, state agencies and business support organisations belonging to the Danube Region. Based partly on the outcomes of the DanuBioValNet project (2017-2019), the new consortia included several new partner profiles e.g. a municipality, a county administration and a research institute.

The project was implemented from July 2020 till December 2022 through the harsh period of the COVID-19 pandemic, what reduced dramatically the physical interaction and caused more than two-thirds of the activities to be implemented online. The project finished officially on 31st December 2022.

Main achievements

Advancing on the deployment of policy frameworks & infrastructures

The project supported the progress of political approaches toward the circular bioeconomy in Croatia, Czech Republic Hungary and Romania. In some of these cases, the approach was embedding the bioeconomy concept in circular economy policies. In the case of Serbia, the impulse given through the organisation of a two-day Final Conference in its territory could be determinant to strengthen recent initiatives such as the launch of a bioeconomy cluster.

Making the bioeconomisation of the Danube Region more effective

The mobilisation of bioeconomy-related actors through the value chain was refined and speeded up. An Integration plan -that can serve as a guideline to empower rural-urban interactions from the policy-making side- was published. The preparation of a “Best Practice Brochure on the mobilization of actors for the Circular Bioeconomy”, collecting 26 best practices from different participating regions was a well-rated exercise for mutual learning between partners.

Increasing the culture of participative governance

Between May 2021 and November 2022, the partnership organised 12 trainings on capacity-building and 32 co-creation workshops with the “bioeconomy” and “cooperation and networking” as the main themes addressed. Around 500 single organisations and 800 participants were reached through the co-creation workshops in ten countries. Knowing that Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia had had already participative governance experiences in the past, the project contributed to enhance new forms of democratic policy-making in some of the other participating regions, or at least to initiate steps toward them.

The Brain Trust Roadmap

The Brain Trust was one of the ideas inherited from the DanuBioValNet project and through GoDanuBio this idea was further explored. The Trust is a board of experts covering expertise on circular bioeconomy, cluster development and innovation in the value chain. The experts could act as national focus points to accompany the bioeconomy transformation through e.g. further EUSDR PA8 flagships, Interreg or Horizon Europe projects. A roadmap for upcoming actions in 2023 was drafted.

More visibility for Interreg

Particularly BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg teamed up with the BIOEAST Initiative, with whom collaborated in a draft note addressed to different General Directorates of the European Commission (RTD, AGRI, GROW, REGIO) and other European stakeholders. This exercise, as well as the participation of Prof. Dr. Kindervater and the State Secretary at the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds (Croatia) in the EU Bioeconomy Conference in Brussels (October 2022), was a lively proof of how the project interacted with other initiatives and try to capitalise on previous project’s results.

The follow-up

As assessed through an internal enquire within the partnership, the GoDanuBio project delivers a medium-to-high impact in the different participating countries in the years to come. A follow-up through EU-funded projects or the way the European Green Deal is managed in each country might play a role on this remit. Surely, some of the findings of the project will be conveyed through two recently started projects funded by Horizon Europe: CEE2ACT and ROBIN, the latter with Baden-Württemberg and Žilina (Slovakia) as participating regions.

The output reports and deliverables of the project can be downloaded via the Link in the sidebar.

Website address: https://www.bio-pro.de/en/information/press-release/aufbruch-zu-mehr-biooekonomie-im-donauraum