New deliverable: Methodology to set up/update bioeconomy strategies

The confidential report D2.4 was delivered to the European Commission

Within the POWER4BIO project, the confidential report D2.4 “Methodology to set up/update bioeconomy strategies” was delivered to the European Commission. The aim of this deliverable is to present the methodology developed to set up or update bioeconomy strategies in European regions. The methodology will be integrated in an online tool, the Bioeconomy Strategy Accelerator Toolkit (BSAT), which will guide the regions in this undertaking. The methodology is meant to steer mainly policy makers in charge of regional strategies towards their transition into the bioeconomy field.

The regions play an instrumental role in boosting bioeconomy. However, due to the complexity of the bioeconomy topic, they face the challenge of analysing many different sources of information, in some cases, scattered data bases, different measurement systems and references, and unstructured guidelines to support decision-making at regional level. At a regional level, the picture is varied, and decisive and integrated action has yet to become a reality in many locations. A common sensation felt by professionals working at the ground level is a lack of sense of urgency and a need for more joined up approaches. Members of the regions on a unilateral bottom-up basis require some actions and smooth guidelines.

The methodology developed in the POWER4BIO project, depicted in this deliverable, aims at combining all the resources developed in the project to help regions develop updated or new bioeconomy strategies. To this end, a structured and thorough analysis of which inputs and how to link them has been undertaken to facilitate their use beyond the execution of the POWER4BIO project.

The aim is to help regional authorities not only to identify whether their strategies are geared toward the highest likely impact. But also, whether the self-attributed characterisations of their strategies will improve the framework conditions and support cross-sectorial collaboration with a view to flourish bioeconomy activities in their region.

Lastly, the methodology is mirroring what the 10 POWER4BIO regions have experienced along the project. As such, all the 10 regions of the project have enormously contributed and participated in all the steps through. Their inputs, opinions, experiences, difficulties, and opportunities in the development of all the deliverables of the project as participants and beneficiaries have been collected. Their feedback means a very useful trial process to set up and design the final methodology to be used by other regional representatives beyond the execution of the POWER4BIO.

This methodology will be integrated in the Bioeconomy Strategy Analysis Toolkit (BSAT) in a form of an easy-to-use software as the next step. The overall objective of this work is to provide advisory support guidelines, substantiated by many examples, best cases, real experiences, and expert analysis, which will steer the policy advisors in the regional discussions. The POWER4BIO BSAT software will be available at the beginning of 2021.