Since September 2022, ROBIN has been paving the way to deploy regional bioeconomies in 5 European regions. The region of Central Macedonia in Greece, the region of Zilina in Slovakia, the Southern Region of Ireland, the region of Andalusia in Spain, and Baden-Württemberg in Germany have already achieved milestones and significant progress. Let’s see what ROBIN has achieved!
Each region brought actors together and established the Multi-Actor Regional Constellations (MARCs) where diverse actors from regional governments, academia & research, the business community, cooperatives, primary biomass producers and civil society actively participate. After mapping best practices for bioeconomy uptake in other EU regions, interviewing key actors in each regional constellation and having identified the key barriers and opportunities for bioeconomy uptake in each ROBIN regional node, the team has prepared for the realization of ROBIN’s co-creation workshops.
ROBIN’s co-creation workshops (M8) aimed to actively engage the MARC members, and other relevant regional stakeholders, in the co-creation of specific governance models and practices that overcome barriers and seize opportunities for circular bioeconomy in the ROBIN regions. To facilitate the deployment of circular bioeconomies, along with the co-creation phase, 3 tools were being prepared. A Policy Monitoring Tool, an Environmental Protection Planning Tool and a Circular Governance Model Tool/Canvas which will be thoroughly presented in the next months.
During the co-creation workshops participants i) discussed the validation and prioritization of key barriers, potentialities and opportunities to be pursued; ii) defined improvement areas for current governance model(s) and co-creation of new one(s) and collected everything under the Circular Bioeconomy Governance Model Tool/Canvas (Picture 1).
Picture 1
During the workshops, each region identified different Regional Value Propositions as presented below:
Picture 2
Moving forward, the 5 regional nodes will capitalize on the regional bioeconomy governance model canvases and within the framework of cross-fertilization workshops will design Regional bioeconomy Action Plans for circular bioeconomy deployment practices at each region.
ROBIN project proudly enters the 2nd year of its lifetime (!!) and the team is ready to hit the ground running and create regional governance models that will pave the way for bioeconomy development with a territorial approach.
Next on the agenda are the development of the Regional Action Plans and the creation of a Digital Toolbox including all ROBIN tools and practices, planned to be integrated into ROBIN’s website and Knowledge Platform.
Stay tuned for further ROBIN updates!
