After much interest last year, the public lecture series "Meet the Cicular Economy - Sustainability in Practice", co-organised by the BioSC, has started for the second time at RWTH Aachen University. At the first event on 24 April, the company Covestro, among others, presented its approaches to sustainable production. Six further dates will take place in May and June.

A new Sonderforschungsbereich is being funded at HHU Düsseldorf for the next four years, focusing on communities of microorganisms. Cooperation partners are Forschungszentrum Jülich, RWTH Aachen University, the Universities of Bielefeld and Cologne and the MPI for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. 15 of the 29 project leaders are members of the BioSC, where a large part of the necessary collaborations have been initiated.

Homepage of SFB 1535 „Microbial networking – from organelles to cross-kingdom communities“

Since September 2019, the FocusLab Transform2Bio analysed the regional characteristics and strengths of the Rheinische Revier, developed possible transformation paths towards a sustainable bioeconomy and investigated how divergent interests of different social groups can be brought together. On 1 December 2022, the final workshop took place at Forschungszentrum Jülich.

On 11 November from 7 pm to midnight, RWTH Aachen University opened its doors and presented hands-on science for all generations. The aim of the event is to explain science in a comprehensible way and make it tangible, as well as to liven things up by combining it with music, art and culture.

The Bioeconomy Science Center and the structural change initiative BioökonomieREVIER presented approaches to the bioeconomy at a joint stand using practical examples. Around 5,000 visitors enjoyed accessible explanations of scientific topics during the Night of Science.

The 7th NRW PhD Day on 20 October 2022 took place in Düsseldorf with around 50 participants from a wide range of disciplines and regional universities. The excellent presentations by the invited speakers gave the PhD students insights into companies, development processes, but also personal career paths and decisions. It became clear how far-reaching the relevance of the topic "Scaling in the bioeconomy," which was the focus of this year's PhD Day, is for science and business.

On 23 August, the International BioSC Symposium was held as a face-to-face event for the first time since 2019. Four lecture sessions with national and international speakers covered a broad spectrum of integrated bioeconomy research.