The European bioeconomy strategy has estimated that the bioeconomy in Europe has a total value of €2.3 trillion, accounts for 8.2% of the EU's workforce, and is a central element to the functioning and success of the EU economy. The aim of P2P FINBIO is to enable innovation support institutions and clusters in regions across Europe to quickly and effectively develop new initiatives as well as refine current methodologies to identify SMEs in the bioconomy with growth potential, to engage with them and assist them through the process of obtaining access to finance, as a means of maintaining or increasing competitiveness, growth and jobs. The consortium consists of innovation support organisations working within the entire bioeconomy value chain, who recognise the need to learn from each other, to improve the process of assisting SMEs, start-ups and spin-outs with access to finance. The five partners will share the current support services and methods offered to SMEs and will exchange good practices in order to renovate insights and develop a common Design Options Paper. The Design Option Paper will be the result of the peer-review process and will serve as a guide for other innovation agencies interested in implementing the addressed innovation support service. For the best use of the results of the project the goal is set on the possibility to reach as many innovation agencies as possible with the support of the European Association of Regional Development Agencies, EURADA, the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), as well as clusters working with Bio-based Industries (BBI)

The overall strategic objective (Ob) of the project Biomass4Synthons, is to place the Institutions – Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon (FFUL), Portugal and Institute of Organic Chemistry with Centre of Phytochemistry Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IOCCP-BAS) Sofia, Bulgaria, and the two non-academic partners: Spartax Chemicals and Science and Technology Park (BLC3) belonging both to Widening Countries. Within the core of a European network of laboratories FFUL and IOCCP-BAS seeks to produce cutting-edge research and training in the field of synthetic organic chemistry for the use of more modern and environmentally friendly tools to achieve the efficient transformation of bio-renewable based starting materials leading to valuable synthetic building blocks. Over the last decade, FFUL and IOCCP-BAS have developed sustainable collaboration in various research topics. The success of this collaboration formed the basis for a join twinning application, which will aim to consolidate it, support its sustainability and foster its growth. Some specific ongoing examples of raw materials valorisation readily available in the two Widening Countries are furan based molecules derived from carbohydrates such as furfural and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural; oleuropein from olive leaves; abietic and dehydroabietic acid from gum rosin (also called colophony) as industrial product extracted from Pinus pinaster and lupanine alkaloid obtained from wastewater treatment of processed lupin beans. The proposed Consortium will enhance the scientific and technological capacity of linked institutions FFUL and IOCCP-BAS in key areas of synthetic organic chemistry such as process intensification by flow chemistry, photochemical and photocatalytic reactions, efficient metal catalysis C-H, C-C and C-heteroatom activation and domino reactions.

The current climate change scenario predicts that global warming will have a dramatic impact on the Mediterranean basin, posing additional threats to the sustainability of current farming systems. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased food insecurity. BENEFIT-Med will promote the use of orphan legumes by implementing innovative/sustainable priming treatments to improve seed germination under water/heat stress, fundamental to address increased productivity/food security by stakeholders. The final outcomes are a sustainable priming treatment to improve germination of climate-ready crops (Trigonella foenum-graecum L., trigonella; Lathyrus sativus L., grass pea; Pisum sativum var. arvense, forage pea) from high-quality seeds and directions on their cropping. Such main goal will be met by the following specific objectives: i) set up a cartography of vulnerable mediterranean sites and a Database to integrate available information on orphan legumes with knowledge gathered by BENEFIT-Med; ii) develop tailored ‘on-farm’ seed priming to improve seed germination under stress conditions along with a sustainable, circular process for implementation of inoculant its production in locus; iv) validate effect of priming on agronomic performance and yield stability in open-field trials set in Tunisia, and Morocco ; v) valorise the importance and properties of local legumes; vi) quantify the impact of climate change and variability on existing and new farming systems; vii) estimate the life cycle of the new farming system; viii) establish a multi-stakeholder platform to promote the new farming system at multiple levels, through a participatory model, with focus on specific training/capacity building activities. BENEFIT-Med is a multidisciplinary project resulting from the synergic integration of eleven Partners: University of Pavia (Italy), University of Sfax (Tunisia), Agricultural University of Athens (Greece), Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l’Environnement (France), Associação BLC3-Campus de Tecnologia e Inovação (Portugal), Benaki Phytopatological Institute (Greece), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology-Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (Germany), Institute Hassan II of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine (Morocco), University of Casablanca (Morocco),University FerhatAbbas-Setif 1 (Algeria), AGROLAND SA (Greece). BENEFIT-Med meets the objective of the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) call, “Section 2, Call: Multi-topic 2021, Topic: 2.2.1 (RIA) Up-scaling field practices based on agroecology principles to increase ecosystem services and biodiversity, to adapt the small farming systems to climate change and to increase farmers incomes”, by addressing the specific challenges of the call from the perspective of seed quality, proxy of crop performance, so far poorly explored in orphan legumes. The new cropping system will be made of climate-ready orphan legumes developed from high-quality seeds tailored through a multidisciplinary strategy that combines basic seed technology (priming) with state-of-the-art knowledge on the seed repair response that positively correlates with seed vigour. Biopriming will be carried with plant growth promoting bacteria, able to secrete high levels of a natural super-absorbent anionic biopolymer, poly-γ-glutamate (PGA). This new seed formulation, based on natural microorganisms, will further enhance resilience in orphan legumes, permanently enhance soil properties, reduce irrigation, chemicals and fertilizers demand. The performance of this new farming system will be assessed looking at climate parameters and through socio-economic and ecological indicators, essential parameters for the engagement of relevant stakeholders, such as farmers’ associations and local governance, and in promoting technology transfer to local farmers.

RESIST will strengthen the resilience and accelerate the transformation and increase adaptive capacity of 12 climate-vulnerable EU regions, implementing 4 large-scale demonstrators of resilient innovations for Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) with quintuple-helix partnerships (including 1 in a less developed region) and promote transfer of know-how and innovative solutions to 8 twin regions (of which 4 less developed regions) through both physical mutual-learning activities and innovative immersive digital twins. The consortium will engage EU associations, CCA research groups, scientific experts, social engagement and communication institutions, innovation agencies and 1 Venture Capital Fund to co-create and validate innovative solutions, raise awareness, leverage citizens participation and promote sustainable exploitation of results towards the markets. RESIST will contribute to the EU agenda on CCA, through intervention in 3 main areas: Promote and demonstrate an innovative, more participative approach to resilience and CC adaptation in 4 demonstrator and 8 twinning regions (including 5 less developed regions in total) demonstrating >12 new solution lines, accelerating regional resilience and helping reach the adaptation-mission objectives of ‘building resilience and upscaling solutions through 100 demonstrators and accelerating the transition in 200 pilot regions and communities by 2030’ reaching already 4% and 6% of these aims by 2027, with 4 demonstrators and involvement of 12 regions Co-design and contribute to the development of new regional measures, policy instruments and social and technological solutions in 12 regions involving 22m citizens, increasing awareness/resilience by 10% and levels of green investments by 20%, reducing economic losses due to natural hazards such as floods by 14% and climate protection gap by 50%; Reduce time-to-market/risk for >100 new CCA Solutions from providers across Europe, offering them scale-up for their products.