3rd NRW PhD Day "Future bioeconomy"

October 31, 2018 | Lindner Congress Hotel | Düsseldorf

The third NRW-wide Doctoral Students Day, this time on the subject “Future Bioeconomy” with around 70 participants at the Lindner Congress Hotel Düsseldorf, was again a great success. The main focus was perception and representation of the bioeconomy in industry. Following keynote speeches in the morning, there was opportunity for direct and intensive exchange between representatives of bioeconomy-oriented companies and doctoral students within small groups in the afternoon.

Photo: Forschungszentrum Jülich

In the morning, invited speakers presented their definition of and perspectives on the bioeconomy in their own company. After a welcoming address by Minister Dr. Christiane Fricke, the first session was presented by Dr. Frank Roeber (Corteva Agrisciences/DowDuPont) and Dr. Grégoire Hummel (PhenoSpex) on the topic “Value added chains in agriculture (e.g. in breeding, cultivation and phenotyping)”. Different aspects such as breeding and provision of sufficient biomass, as well as monitoring and optimization of the cultivation of plants were addressed. In the second session with the subject “Molecules and active compounds: Biotechnological production and use”, Dr. Peter Welters (Phytowelt), Daniel Grünes (Aquila Biolabs) and David Schönauer (SeSaM Biotech) introduced their companies and covered topics ranging from the isolation of value-adding components from biomass to the optimal cultivation of single-celled organisms and production of tailor-made enzymes. The companies introduced ranged from start-ups to small- and medium-sized companies up to large group consortiums. The keynote speeches then served as the starting point for round table discussions in small groups in the afternoon. The speakers of the morning were complemented by discussion partners Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schurr (BioSC) and Dr. Günter Strittmatter (IBR consulting). In such company, doctoral students had the opportunity to briefly introduce themselves and their projects and then enter into an intensive round of questions with the respective speakers. Both speakers and students felt this part of the day was especially effective and inspiring, since very different contributions were offered in the direct discussion round and by the different perspectives from participants from various disciplines of the bioeconomy.