General coordinator Víctor Falguera visits projects in Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Finland
11th December 2024
The general assembly of PRIMED met today in Barcelona to evaluate progress in the development of long-term strategic agreements that promote the economic transformation towards the bioeconomy.
The assembly came after stakeholders had visited the European regions where this work is being carried out, in Catalonia, Portugal, Finland, Ireland and Italy, during the months of November and December.
The BioHubCat general coordinator, Víctor Falguera, who provides methodological support to the initiatives, claims that “today we have shared how the methodology is being adapted to these regions”.
The debate at the assembly concluded that the Living Lab in Alcarràs is the model to follow for the project. Therefore, it has been requested to extend the concept to the other participating regions, where it is proposed to form partnerships to promote the PRIMED concept more effectively.
A great potential for the future
The PRIMED project started earlier this year, in January, with the aim of releasing the great potential of underutilized biomass resources in the primary sectors. With the support of the European Union’s Horizon Europe Program, which includes a consortium of 12 partners from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Portugal, the project develops several fair value chains to convert underutilized biomass resources into value-added products based on advanced biorefineries.
The project aims to support the Common Agricultural Policy and the EU’s bioeconomy strategy, having received a European grant of 4 million euros to develop and test innovative circular business models in bioeconomy.
PRIMED involves primary producers and end-users through bioeconomy Living Labs in five countries to showcase and test these models over three years, between 2024 and 2026. The project also plans to develop an open access digital toolbox to facilitate collaboration between European stakeholders.
Field visits
BioHubCat General Coordinator Víctor Falguera has been visiting the regions involved in the project in recent weeks. In Genoa, he explored the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem with the Liguria Economic Development Agency, a participant in the PRIMED project.
Earlier, Falguera had spoken to the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation in Tipperary County to work on progress made since a previous visit to the organization two years ago.
In Finland, Falguera explored the strategic framework for the development of the bioeconomy and its intersection with specialization strategies in one of the most innovative European environments in Europe.
It is worth noting that the shared agendas developed in Catalonia have been included as a reference in the OECD’s “Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy Online Toolkit”. This recognizes the effectiveness of these difficult-to-build tools. This methodology has been shared with the EU through this PRIMED project.