Now in its third year, the "Circular Bioeconomy as an Innovation Driver in Structural Change" was the focus of the BioökonomieREVIER business forum, streamed live from the Medio.Rhein.Erft in Bergheim. With around 200 participants, the afternoon offered different, sometimes unexpected perspectives with high-level keynotes and a multi-faceted look at strategies, opportunities and challenges.

With the founding of the BioökonomieREVIER initiative at the beginning of 2020, 15 „innovation labs“ were also launched. They are intended to facilitate the rapid transfer of new, bio-based approaches from different areas of science into the economy in the structural change in the Rhenish mining area - based on the principles of sustainability. Six of the labs will now receive further funding for up to five years in an innovation cluster called „Innovative Agriculture“ (InnoLa).

The Science Year 2020|21 Bioeconomy came to an end on November 29 with a digital closing event looking back on numerous events and funded projects. Among the winners of the 2020 and 2021 university competitions that received awards at the event was the podcast KRAUTNAH from the Institute of Plant Physiology at RWTH Aachen University - one of the contributions to the Science Year coming from BioSC. Another BioSC contribution was the exhibit "Clean Water Through Algae" on the MS Wissenschaft.

The Bioeconomy Council of the German Federal Government has published recommendations for a coalition agreement between SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP on how to achieve the goal of a sustainable societal transformation process to reach the 1.5 degree target.

The new publication of the Kompetenznetzwerk Umweltwirtschaft NRW presents outstanding innovations from companies and research institutions. The two central topics are Circular Economy and Sustainable Bioeconomy. BioSC Core Groups are involved in several of the innovations presented.

For two summers, the floating bioeconomy exhibition was underway on the MS Wissenschaft. After one and a half years and about 50 visited cities, the tour ended on October 26 in Nuremberg. On board was the exhibit "Clean water through algae" by BioSC and IBG-2 Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich.