Between 30 September and 4 October, Unesp hosted the Key Technologies in Bioeconomy 2024 event, which welcomed around 50 Brazilian and foreign researchers in sessions held at the University Rectory in São Paulo and in Ubatuba, on the state's northern coast. The event was organised jointly by Unesp's Postgraduate Dean's Office, Research Dean's Office and External Relations Office.
As well as presentations of research projects, talks on funding and fundraising opportunities and alignment sessions for prospecting scientific collaborations, participants visited the facilities of the National Centre for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), the largest national investment in science in Brazil's history, located in Campinas.
The event organised by Unesp marks the fourth face-to-face meeting of scientists from a scientific consortium created in 2019 called the Global Bioeconomy Alliance. In addition to Unesp, the group includes the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the University of Queensland in Australia and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), which joined the alliance last year. Unesp hosted the group's first meeting in 2019.
‘There is a big discussion today about how industrialised nations, which are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, should finance mitigation and adaptation to climate change in developing countries. The bioeconomy has the potential to receive part of these mitigation investments, as well as research aimed at developing technologies in this area,’ points out Professor Dulce Helena Siqueira Silva, advisor to Unesp's Dean of Postgraduate Studies.
Brazil leads debate on bioeconomy at G20
At the beginning of September, after nine months of debate within the G20, the forum that brings together the world's main economies, Brazil managed to reach a consensus among all the nations to approve a document that establishes 10 High Level Principles on the Bioeconomy. The agreement signed by the representatives of the planet's main nationsassociates the activities identified under the term bioeconomy with a series of premises, such as promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns, conserving biodiversity, promoting equity, social inclusion and gender equality, the efficient use of biological resources and encouraging the creation of sustainable business models and the generation of decent jobs, among other points.
The expectation is that the new document, by establishing the outlines of the bioeconomy concept for the first time in an international forum, can serve as a basis for future discussions on the subject, guiding, for example, the design of public policies, international investments, diplomatic discussions, commercial practices or the promotion of research projects for the transition towards a more sustainable and inclusive global economy.
On the first day of the event, the researchers present in Unesp's University Council room celebrated the document approved at the G20, which was highlighted by the main speaker at the meeting, veteran Christian Patermann, considered the ‘father’ of the Bioeconomy in Europe [see box], who emphasised the unprecedented nature of the discussion on the subject of the bioeconomy in global forums.
Current president of the Global Alliance for the Bioeconomy, researcher Volker Sieber emphasised that the agreement has the potential to stimulate the bioeconomy in different ways. ‘I believe the document can change the focus of development policies and strategy,’ says the TUM scientist, who sees Brazil as a bioeconomy hotspot due to its immense biodiversity. ‘The presence of companies working in this area will require research and the creation of methodologies which, in the end, could increase the capacity of universities to deliver new technologies. At the same time, governments also seem committed to making the commitments set out in this declaration. I believe that all these factors should boost activities in the bioeconomy.’
The president of the Global Alliance for the Bioeconomy Volker Sieber and the dean of postgraduate studies Maria Valnice Boldrin
The first day's activities included a series of presentations by the researchers present. Most of the speakers gave examples of impactful initiatives and collaborations in the bioeconomy.
One of the speakers was Denmark's Andreas Worberg, who spoke about his experience in collaborating with industry at the head of DTU Biosustain, a centre funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation that specialises in developing solutions for more sustainable industrial processes from different areas of research. Another experience from Denmark was presented by André Pick, CEO of the startup CASCAT, which works to develop technologies based on chemical and enzymatic reactions to make chemical processes more sustainable and efficient.
Professor Guilherme Bueno, from Unesp's Aquaculture Centre, presented the Aquários de Ideias initiative, the first technology and science-based business incubator located in the Vale do Ribeira region, in the city of Registro, which was recently included in the API network (Ambiente Paulista de Inovação) alongside more than 20 other institutions focused on entrepreneurship and innovation. During this presentation, Unesp graduate Danilo Proença presented the experience of Biomonetize, a start-up based at the incubator that offers solutions for entrepreneurs in the fish industry and farmers, two of the region's main economic activities, in valuing and monetising environmental services.
The meeting in the University Council room also gave participants the opportunity to learn about the possibilities for funding research projects in the state of São Paulo. In this vein, Fapesp's work was presented by Professor Carlos Graeff, the state agency's Strategic Programmes and Infrastructure coordinator. Graeff spoke about the agency's different research promotion programmes, which annually receive 1% of the state's tax revenue to fund research grants and projects, making it one of the main sources of funding for this purpose in the country.
Carlos Graeff, coordinator of Strategic Programmes and Infrastructure at Fapesp
Another initiative to encourage research into the bioeconomy was the Novo Nordisk Foundation's announcement of a €15,000 prize for work on the bioeconomy to be offered directly to the researcher, in addition to another €100,000 to be invested in supporting and continuing the winning project. ‘The aim of the prize is to draw attention to the opportunities offered by biotechnology and the bioeconomy for global sustainability and to the work of this Global Bioeconomy Alliance,’ said Torben Borchert, scientific director of the Danish foundation. In principle, the prize is to be awarded over three years, between 2025 and 2027, and will cover projects that develop or improve processes and concepts in the bioeconomy area that deal with topics such as decarbonisation technologies, innovative sustainable solutions, among others.
Throughout the week, researchers from the different institutions that make up the Global Bioeconomy Alliance presented their projects in different areas of the bioeconomy, such as sustainable agriculture and food production, the use of natural resources to meet different demands from society, waste recovery, decarbonisation strategies, cell-free systems and sustainable mining.
For researcher Rodrigo Costa Marques, the meeting reinforced the impression that Brazil is recognised as a strategic global partner for its ability to contribute to combating climate change. A researcher in the area of biofuels at the Unesp campus in Araraquara, Marques highlighted the amount of work looking into technological innovations to reduce dependence on the petrochemical industry. ‘What is very clear at the end of this meeting is that the bioeconomy should not be restricted to solving environmental problems. The bioeconomy is an opportunity for development based on new technologies that are on the frontier of knowledge.’
Summer School on the bioeconomy
In another initiative related to the meeting, the Postgraduate Dean's Office, together with the Research Dean's Office and the External Relations Office, organised the Bioeconomy Summer School last week which, in addition to 20 PhD students from Unesp programmes, also welcomed five PhD students from the Technical University of Munich, one of the institutions that is part of the Global Bioeconomy Alliance. The programme of activities included lectures by researchers from both institutions, visits to laboratories and to a large ethanol production plant located in the west of São Paulo. The activities took place on three Unesp campuses, where the students were welcomed at the Chemistry Institute in Araraquara, the Bioenergy Research Institute and the Biosciences Institute in Rio Claro, and the Science and Technology Institute in São José dos Campos.
Father of the Bioeconomy was Keynote Speaker
Considered the father of the bioeconomy in Europe, Professor Christian Patermann opened the Key Technologies in Bioeconomy 2024 activities. Throughout his professional and academic career, Patermann has held various positions related to science and technology policy within the European Commission, most notably as Director of Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food Research and Director of Environment and Sustainable Development. During this time he was responsible for drawing up the new concept of the Knowledge-Based Bioeconomy, a pioneering concept that involves the application of natural sciences to create new, more sustainable and competitive products.
Right at the start of his speech, the professor emphasised the impact of the G20's approval of the document establishing bioeconomy principles. ‘The signing of this agreement symbolises a major milestone for the bioeconomy worldwide and a special moment for us, who have been working on this topic for more than 25 years,’ he said, noting that the issue has been discussed in other international forums, such as the G7, which brings together the world's seven main economies, and the FAO, the UN's Food and Agriculture agency.
Throughout his presentation, Patermann highlighted some of the positive points of using biological resources as a basis for the bioeconomy, such as their renewable properties, low carbon emissions, in some cases even the ability to capture the element from the atmosphere, their ability to add value to production chains, among other points. The professor also mentioned the permeability of the bioeconomy to integration with other technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and, in the specific case of Brazil, the effort to incorporate the knowledge of traditional communities.
(This article was originally posted on the journal of UNESP)