Funded under Horizon Europe and led by BIC member INRAE, the three-year project will address key challenges and opportunities across the entire bio-based value chain, from feedstock to products and consumers. Through a holistic, systemic approach, BIOLEAD aims to strengthen stakeholder alignment and generate evidence-based recommendations to support market deployment, investment, sustainability and effective policy and regulatory measures.

The project comes at a critical time for Europe, as growing global competition, resource scarcity, security challenges and rapid technological developments highlight the need to strengthen Europe’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing capabilities. BIOLEAD will contribute to unlocking the potential of these sectors and positioning them as key drivers of a climate-neutral, resource-efficient and competitive European bioeconomy.

A central element of BIOLEAD is extensive stakeholder engagement. The project will combine scientific evidence and strategic intelligence with co-creation activities involving key stakeholders across the value chain. This process will lead to a shared European vision and Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), alongside a practical roadmap with recommendations for implementation.

BIC is a partner in the BIOLEAD consortium and will lead two key work package activities:

• WP2 – Feedstock mapping for bio-based innovation, supporting a comprehensive understanding of available and relevant feedstock resources for bio-based innovation; and
• WP5 – Legislation and policy analysis, assessing the policy and regulatory landscape and identifying measures that can help enable the accelerated deployment of bio-based solutions.

BIC will work alongside fellow consortium members BIOEAST, VTT, Bioeconomy for Change, Aarhus University, EuropaBio, Imperial College London, INsociety, and Wageningen University & Research.

BIOLEAD’s long-term ambition is to contribute to sustainable prosperity and competitiveness in Europe across four key dimensions, environmental, economic, social and political, while strengthening biotechnology and biomanufacturing as essential pillars of Europe’s transition towards a climate-neutral and resource-efficient bioeconomy.