“As we enter our seventh call year, I can proudly say that the industry is maturing and our projects are delivering concrete results”, says Philippe Mengal (Executive Director of BBI JU) in the introduction of the booklet. Since the first call in 2014, the BBI JU portfolio is growing to 124 projects this year, with nearly 1,500 beneficiaries from 37 countries and a total funding of € 600 million.
“The two main positive effects of BBI JU are still the structuring and mobilising effect of key stakeholders across sectors, regions and countries towards the creation of new value chains. BBI JU projects are expected to create more than 200 new cross-sector interconnections and 180 new bio-based value chains by 2020, well exceeding the targets set in the Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA), which called for 36 new interconnections and 10 new value chains.”
Tangible results
The BBI JU projects are also delivering tangible socio-economic results. “Our portfolio now includes nine flagship biorefinery plants that are well spread over Europe, with two more coming in 2020. The first nine biorefineries are creating around 3,300 direct jobs and more than 10,000 indirect ones, most of them in rural areas. In total, these nine flagships received €195 million worth of grants, leveraging €1.2 billion of private investment that enabled diversification and growth of farmers’ income, as well as rural revitalisation. Once operational, the flagships will reduce CO2 emissions by 600kT/year showing a flavour of contribution to the European Green Deal.”
This year’s call will continue in the same direction, Mengal states. With an indicative budget of €102 million, our 2020 Call will cover 16 topics in four strategic orientations: feedstock, process, products, and market uptake. “I invite you to apply for this opportunity and join our community of beneficiaries who are working together to build a bio-based sector that is putting Europe back on the map of attractive areas for investment in bio-based industries.”
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