“Bioeconomy: a sustainable development opportunity for the Adriatic Ionian region”
09 Dec 2020
Innovation, technology transfer, green chemistry, agro-industry, circular economy, integration between business clusters, internationalisation and territorial cooperation. These are the main themes that the Umbria Region's Minister for Economic Development Michele Fioroni and the President of Sviluppumbria Michela Sciurpa placed at the centre of the international digital conference "Bioeconomy: key opportunities for the sustainable development of the Adriatic Ionian Region" organised on 4th December, on the occasion of the official closing event of the European project BIOECO R.D.I., financed by the Interreg Adrion programme.
The project, with Sviluppumbria as lead partner, starts from the idea of enhancing organic waste from the agriculture, forestry and aquaculture sectors for the production of bio-based products or bio-fuels. It has seen the involvement of a large and highly qualified international partnership: Confindustria Umbria for Italy, the National Institute of Chemistry in Slovenia, the Ruder Boskovic Research Institute in Croatia, the CERTH Centre for Research and Technology in Greece, the Regional Development Agency of Vojvodina "Alma Mons" in Serbia and the Albanian National Chamber of Commerce.
During the three years of the project, the international partners have promoted the development of the bio-economy in the Adriatic-Ionian region, of which Umbria is part, through the definition of regional and interregional cooperation strategies based on three main pillars: technology transfer applied to the green chemistry sector, trans-sectoral integration between clusters of the green chemistry sector and agro-industry, transnational integration between clusters and companies experiencing different states of technological and entrepreneurial maturity.
The conference, held online due to the health emergency, registered an excellent flow of national and international attendees.
The conference was opened by the institutional greetings of the Regional Minister for Economic Development, Michele Fioroni, who explained to the participants the strategies and experiences related to the bio-economy in Umbria. The President of Sviluppumbria, Michela Sciurpa, introduced the theme of access to the market for bioeconomy products as fundamental drivers of development in the sector, a topic to which Confindustria Umbria is also committed, as noted in the comments by Riccardo Concetti, President of Umbria Export.
In the first panel, Adrian Tistan of the Directorate General for Research and Innovation - Sustainability - Bioeconomy and Agro-industry of the European Commission and Prof. Fabio Fava, scientific coordinator of the National Coordination Group for the Bioeconomy of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, outlined the future lines of action of the bioeconomy at European and national level. They were followed by Luciano Concezzi representing the National Agrifood Cluster (CL.A.N) and Prof. Gabriele Cruciani, professor at the University of Perugia and Chancellor’s delegate for the Third Mission Sector.
The conference was watched over live streaming by more than 120 people from 10 countries and ended with a session dedicated to the presentation of the final results of the project by partners and expert speakers from Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Greece and Albania who expressed their wish to continue the collaboration started together.
For more information on the BIOECO project please visit the website.
