The parallel sessions included contributions to the following topics, among others: biorefineries, bio-based materials and micro and macro algae technologies. In addition to many other interesting lectures, two keynote lectures were held by renowned scientists. Gadi Rothenberg from the University of Amsterdam spoke about “A new biodegradable plastic made from plants” and Mark Mascal from the University of California presented “CMF is the new HMF: Functionally equivalent but more practical in terms of its production from biomass”.

The Bioeconomy Science Center was well represented by a series of scientific contributions: In addition to lectures from the focus labs AP³ (Philipp M. Grande and Holger Klose, FZ Jülich) and Bio² (Markus Müller, RWTH Aachen), additional lectures were presented by the core groups Büchs and Mitsos from RWTH Aachen with Benedikt Heyman and Andrea König. The more than 230 participants from over 30 different countries reflected the very extensive and interdisciplinary spectrum of bioeconomy. In addition to the poster sessions, the breaks between the lectures provided time to make contact with colleagues from academia, industry, different funding organizations and publishers. Last but not least, the involvement of Ghent University, which celebrated its 200^th anniversary, and the city of Ghent as one of the sponsors of the conference invigoratingly rounded out the conference and a city and a harbor tour ensured an interesting local context.