Living Ecosystem; Accelerating the transition to biobased materials through collaboration between economy, technology and society

Globally, we face the urgent task of the transition to a climate neutral and circular society. Biobased materials are regenerative and add considerably less to the carbon stock in the atmosphere. Therefore they get high priority in several missions of the KIA theme “Energy transition and Sustainability”.

In recent years significant progress has been made in biobased materials technology. In the “Circular Biobased Delta” region the Universities of Applied Sciences have grown into strong research partners in this field. However, successful business cases are few and society reacts only hesitantly.

Accelerating the transition to biobased materials asks for a strategic move to a truly interdisciplinary collaboration.

In response, in the Living Ecosystem programme, technological, economic and societal researchers from the three Universities of Applied Sciences (HZ, RUAS, Avans) join to form a core group. Together they will align and extend their research in shared topics such as biobased ingredients, circular building, and bioplastics. Around these topics, cross-sectoral communities within the existing regional ecosystem will be organised, connected and called upon to articulate interdisciplinary research projects and valorise the outcomes.

The partners have different levels of achievement together forming a strong research group. They will share their experiences to collectively improve the volume, impact and quality of their research. In doing so they aim to become leaders within their separate disciplines and collectively evolve into an (inter)nationally recognised top-rank research community.

The core group of researchers is assisted by a strong consortium, whose members represent the different topics and functions in the ecosystem. The consortium will advise the core group in defining and valorising their research.

The regional ecosystem already hosts many “field labs”. The programme aims to create focus in their utilisation for an impactful programme of development, education and communication activities.