The CBE JU founding partners, the European Commission and the Bio-based Industries Consortium, have set out the partnership’s priorities in the CBE JU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for the 2022-2030 period.
Delivery of innovative bio-based solutions will be the key priority of the partnership, along with a strong focus on the EU’s environmental goals and support to local economies. CBE JU will implement the SRIA via its annual work programmes.
Focus on innovative and sustainable bio-based solutions
The mission of CBE JU is to advance a competitive bioeconomy for a sustainable future. The €2 billion public-private partnership will fund projects delivering innovative bio-based solutions - materials and products made from waste and biomass in an innovative, sustainable and circular way.
The scope of CBE JU is underpinned by the EU Bioeconomy Strategy and contributes to the EU’s commitment to becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 while creating jobs and economic growth in regions across Europe, in line with the European Green Deal objectives.
CBE JU is expected to deliver innovative bio-based solutions, which:
- Reduce Europe’s dependence on fossil resources
- Support the attainment of the climate goals
- Combat pollution
- Protect and enhance biodiversity
- Deploy a fair transition to the green economy, which protects workers, communities, countries and regions while seeking to meet the climate goals
The CBE JU-funded projects will apply the cascading use of sustainably sourced biological feedstock. This means that the projects will strive to reuse the biomass that has been processed into a bio-based final product at least once more, either for material or energy purposes. The biomass itself includes organic waste, residues and side-streams of other production processes.
A strong point of CBE JU-funded projects will be their capacity to deliver innovative solutions with improved climate and environmental performance.
Three strategic objectives to reach the partnership’s goals
The SRIA puts forward a strategy for the CBE JU operation consisting of three main partnership objectives:
- Accelerate the innovation process and development of bio-based innovative solutions
- Accelerate market deployment of existing mature and innovative bio-based solutions
- Ensure a high level of environmental performance of bio-based industrial systems
Each of these objectives is deployed via specific objectives and priorities, which constitute the main part of the document.
The SRIA begins by outlining the legal and policy context and the success factors of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) - CBE JU’s predecessor -, on which the partnership is building, as well as defining the priorities of both founding partners. The remaining chapters detail the governance and financing of the partnership and provide an overview of synergies with other EU innovation programmes and funding instruments.
Strong support to local economies
The CBE JU’s support of the bio-based industries will contribute to local and regional economies while reducing Europe’s dependency on imports of biological resources. The partnership’s funding is expected to mobilise national and regional authorities and create more favourable conditions for the market uptake of bio-based solutions and services.
Countries and regions with great untapped potential for bio-based industries are, in particular, expected to benefit from the CBE JU funding, as the partnership will focus on integrating the primary sectors of the land and sea in the European bioeconomy.
The CBE JU’s key goals in support of local economies will be:
- Increase the competitiveness of industries
- Create new green jobs
- Generate regional development and economic cohesion
- Create better market conditions and remove remaining barriers
- De-risk investments
- Increase resource-efficient, circular technologies and operations while engaging all actors in the bio-based systems
Open and transparent funding scheme
CBE JU operates under Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme, and will fund projects following open calls for proposals.
CBE JU will fund three types of actions:
- Research and Innovation Actions will establish new knowledge or explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution.
- Innovation Actions will scale up activities from prototype to product validation and market replication. Among them, Flagships will deploy the first-of-their-kind innovation in the European market.
- Coordination and Support Actions will structure stakeholder communities, support technological visions and outreach, and disseminate and exploit research results, among others.
All CBE JU projects will implement a value chain approach which ensures that all the bio-based system actors, including feedstock suppliers, are appropriately involved in the projects.
A robust planning and monitoring system
Both CBE JU founding partners, in collaboration with the Programme Office, and considering the recommendations of the CBE JU’s advisory bodies, will develop annual work programmes based on the SRIA. These yearly strategic documents are expected to include a total of six calls for project proposals with an indicative operational budget of €976.5 million.
CBE JU will monitor the progress of the programme with a set of key performance indicators and report on the achievements in annual activity reports.
Related links
Read the CBE JU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA)
CBE JU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) - webpage
