BioMonitor’s session “Contribution of the Bioeconomy to Sustainable Development Goals”

On June 6, 2019, the BioMonitor project will have the session “Contribution of the Bioeconomy to Sustainable Development Goals” at this year’s International Consortium of Applied Bioeconomy Research conference in Ravello (Italy).

World leaders are now calling for immediate action in order to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. As many regions, including, Europe are heavily investing in the bioeconomy, this would entail a revamp on many of its existing regulation and financial schemes, innovations and policies. This year’s International Consortium of Applied Bioeconomy Research Conference (ICABR) conference “Regulation and Finance of Innovations for a Sustainable Bioeconomy” will explore these issues from June 4 to 7 in Ravello, Italy. 

The BioMonitor project seeks to address these issues by building a robust framework that will allow stakeholders-at-large to monitor and measure the bioeconomy and its impacts on the EU and its Member States. The project will organise the session “Contribution of the Bioeconomy to Sustainable Development Goals” with the project coordinator, Justus Wesseler (Wageningen University), and the BioMonitor partners Robert M’Barek (EU JRC) and Hans van Meijl (Wageningen Economic Research) as keynote speakers.
Here, Justus Wesseler shares his thoughts on BioMonitor and its presence at the ICABR conference.

Why is the presence of the BioMonitor project in Ravello strategic? 
By being present at the upcoming ICABR conference, the BioMonitor project will be able to present its results to a wider audience, including many participants from outside the EU. This will allow us to receive critical feedback and establish networks with scholars outside the European Union such as Africa, Argentina, Canada, China, Morocco, the United States and Uruguay. I will be President of the ICABR from June this year onwards. This will also help to further strengthen the collaboration between the ICABR and BioMonitor.

One of the main aspects of BioMonitor is training custom officers, statistics offices and industry representatives about the next-generation bioeconomy plan in Europe. Will BioMonitor tap such discourse into this year’s ICABR content?
Training is an important aspect. BioMonitor will not directly address this issue in the special session in detail, but will get engaged in another session dedicated to training. This is a topic of the plenary session on Friday. There is also a session on women in the bioeconomy. 

What are the issues you wish to address during the ICABR conference?
The important issues to be addressed include the overall approach used by BioMonitor such as the theoretical background supporting the methodological approach, the scope of the bioeconomy as applied by BioMonitor, the indicators identified and the translation put into practice. Another important issue we will discuss is the link of BioMonitor’s work with the EU Bioeconomy strategy.

BioMonitor is entering its second year. Which milestones do we expect from the project in the coming year?
The coming year will be a research-intensive year. One of the important results of the next year will be the database template of the BioMonitor Data Platform and the completion of methodologies for data collection in the short and medium run.

The BioMonitor session at ICABR Conference “Contribution of the Bioeconomy to Sustainable Development Goals” will take place on 6 June 2019.

Click here to read more details or visit the BioMonitor website. http://biomonitor.eu/event/23rd-icabr-conference/
http://biomonitor.eu/

SOURCE: cordis.europa.eu