BIO – INSPIRE project launched to connect regional bioeconomy clusters in Eastern and Southeastern Europe
On May 1, 2025, Green Synergy Cluster began its new project: BIO-INSPIRЕ. It launches our mission to support and strengthen regional bioeconomy clusters in Eastern and Southeastern Europe by promoting innovation and collaboration.
Regional bioeconomy clusters play a key role in local development by connecting businesses, research institutions and other stakeholders. These clusters stimulate innovation, attract investment and scale up bio-based solutions. However, many clusters, especially in the less developed regions of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, face significant challenges, such as limited access to research and innovation infrastructure, weak networks and insufficiently skilled workers.
In response to these challenges, BIO – INSPIRE aims to support them by building bridges between seven regional bioeconomy clusters in Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland.
The main objective of the project is to develop a governance roadmap that provides a clear and step-by-step framework for establishing long-term and sustainable cooperation. The roadmap will help bioeconomy actors overcome existing barriers, improve their innovation capacity and foster cross-border cooperation to unlock new growth opportunities.
BIO – INSPIRE will provide customized capacity-building tools and digital collaboration platforms, such as creating 8 thematic communities of practice for knowledge exchange, launching a knowledge transfer program, organizing a cross-border open call and creating a collaboration network.
The 8 thematic areas include:
- Agriculture and forestry
- Municipal biowaste
- Industrial biowaste
- Bioproducts and processes
- Digital tools
- Financing a biobased economy
- Policies
- Regional knowledge transfer programs
By partnering with experienced research institutes and universities from Sweden and the Netherlands, the project will overcome regional disparities and enhance cross-border cooperation. In this way, the project aims to create a legacy, providing regions with the necessary tools to develop their research and innovation capacity and their ability to expand their collaboration networks, and supporting regions to achieve sustainable growth and continued participation in the bio-based economy.
BIO – INSPIRE officially started its activities on 1 May 2025 and will last for 3 years. The project consortium, coordinated by CLuBE – Bioeconomy and Environment Cluster of Western Macedonia (Greece), includes 14 organizations from 12 countries:
- Greenovate ! Europe (Belgium),
- Geonardo (Hungary),
- Bay Zoltán Non-profit for Applied Research (Hungary),
- Zabala Innovation (Portugal and Spain),
- RISE RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF SWEDEN (Sweden),
- Wageningen Research University (Netherlands),
- Bioeconomy Cluster(Slovakia),
- LithuaniaBIO (Lithuania),
- AgroTransilvania (Romania),
- Green Synergy Cluster (Bulgaria),
- West Pomeranian Chemical Cluster Green Chemistry (Poland).
You can follow the progress of the project on the LinkedIn page. The project is supported by the Circular Economy Joint Undertaking. Bio – based Europe and its members.
Project information
- Grant Agreement Identification Number: 101214256
- Call topic: HORIZON – JU – CBE -2024- CSA -02
- Full name: ENHANCING BIO-BASED INNOVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN UNDER-REPRESENTED REGIONS
- THROUGH CLUSTER MOBILIZATION AND JOINT MANAGEMENT
- Budget : 2,999,180.00 euros
- Duration : 36 months