On Tuesday the 15th of October, the Southern Regional Assembly (SRA) and Munster Technological University (MTU) celebrated Bioeconomy Ireland Week 2024 in Assembly House in Waterford, Ireland. The event, promoted under the banner of the Horizon Europe ROBIN Project, brought together a panel of expert speakers who delivered presentations on different aspects of bioeconomy. Their presentations offered unique insights and prompted a very lively and interesting discussion among the 28 Irish bioeconomy stakeholders in attendance regarding strategies to improve stakeholder networking and governance cohesion to overcome obstacles on the path towards further developing the bioeconomy in Ireland.
Ajay Kumar Sutrakar from the Biomethane Carbon and Community (BCC) Project and manager of the recently established Biomethane Development Office based at the National Bioeconomy Campus in Lisheen in County Tipperary introduced us to the potential for biomethane production in Ireland and updated attendees with details of the Project and the work and outputs of the Biomethane Development Office
Liz Gavin, NuaFund founder, walked us through some of the success stories of bioeconomy projects for which NuaFund has helped to secure funding to the value of €52m to date. NuaFund assists Irish bioeconomy enterprises and projects with proposal writing, research and project management. Liz also imparted insights into the potential for exploitation of bioeconomy resources in Ireland and outlined innovations and available funding stream opportunities.
Joanna O’Riordan from the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) presented the results of research carried out alongside colleagues into comparative governance of the circular economy and bioeconomy in selected European countries, including Ireland. The research has highlighted a number of topics worthy of serious attention, including assigning ownership of governance roles, building capacity and the importance of including harder to reach stakeholder groups in order to increase public knowledge and foster greater acceptance of the important role of the bioeconomy.
There followed a questions and answer session and discussion that teased out the issues highlighted by each of our presenters which set the scene for a deeper exploration of our themes during our ROBIN Tools validation workshop.
The second part of our event focussed on the ROBIN Project, of which both SRA and MTU are the Irish partners. The aim of ROBIN is to empower Europe’s regions to adapt their governance models and structures in ways that accelerate the achievement of their circular bioeconomy targets. Attendees were given an overview of the Project and an update of Project activities carried out to date by the Irish partners.
A validation workshop followed where participants were broken out into groups to discuss and critique questions posed by the workshop moderator into aspects of two tools developed by the Project – the Circular Bioeconomy Model Canvas and the Policy Monitoring System. Collective feedback was presented at the end of each session by each group and separately, participants individually were presented with an opportunity to complete a questionnaire on various elements of each of the tools.
Overall, the day was a great success. The quality of the presentations and the ensuing discussion and ROBIN tool validation workshop were of immense benefit to those in attendance based on feedback received, and a great many new contacts were made through informal networking. The importance of such events as Bioeconomy Ireland Week, now in its sixth year, to bring together stakeholders to tease out how we can raise further awareness of the bioeconomy and create greater cohesion its governance cannot be underestimated.