EU Just Transition Fund: Bioeconomy Demonstration Initiative (Ireland)

Deadline: 13-Oct-23
The Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine (DAFM) is inviting applications for funding under EU Just Transition Fund and its call for proposals for Bioeconomy Demonstration Initiatives-co-financed by the Government of Ireland and the European Union through the EU Just Transition Fund Programme 2021-27.

‘Bioeconomy Demonstration Initiative’ funding opportunity is designed to pilot and demonstrate the bioeconomy in action within the Just Transition Fund Territory.

The funding will offer the opportunity to support close collaboration between stakeholders along the entire bio-based value chain, including SMEs, research performing organisations, universities, local authorities, clusters, primary producers, bioprocessing industries, and consumer brands.

It will support bioeconomy innovation at the Just Transition Fund territorial level and will seek the active involvement of local actors (e.g., NGOs, local and regional authorities, community, and local action groups) alongside the bio-based industries.

Strategic objectives and Guiding Principles

• Accelerate the innovation process and development of bio-based innovative solutions:
  • Increase cross-disciplinary research and innovation (R&I) activities, reaping its benefits for the development and demonstration of sustainable and circular bio-based solutions.
  • Unlock bioeconomy potential in Just Transition Fund Territory.
  • Increase the development and demonstration of sustainable bio-based innovations, by ensuring that sustainability issues and environmental performance are integrated throughout the whole innovation chain.
• Accelerate market deployment of innovative bio-based solutions:
  • Reinforce the integration of bio-based research and innovation in bio-based industries and increase the involvement of R&I actors, including feedstock providers, in bio-based value chains and business models
  • Reduce the risk for research and innovation investment in bio-based SMEs, companies and projects.
  • Enhance industrial competitiveness through introducing product or process innovation and/or introducing marketing or organisational innovation for bio-based value chains in the Just Transition Fund Territory.
• Ensure a high level of environmental and climate performance of bio-based industrial systems:
  • Ensure that circularity and environmental considerations, including contributions to climate neutrality, circularity and zero pollution objectives, are considered in the development and implementation of R&I bio-based projects and facilitate societal acceptance.

Bioeconomy Demonstration Initiatives – Topics

• Optimised and integrated industrial bio-based systems based on agriculture and/or forestry-based value chains:
  • Expected outcomes
    • Deployment of competitive, replicable, territorial/local, circular, and inclusive bio-based business models in industry and the agri and/or forest-based sector encompassing all segments of the value chain.
    • Improved circularity and resource efficiency of agri- and/or forest-based resources via practical applications of the circular (bio)economy concept to reduce the consumption of primary biomass.
    • Significant improvement in environmental sustainability across the value chain against specified fossil-based and/or bio-based benchmarks
    • Reduction in the dependency on imported feedstock and products if applicable
    • Social acceptance of circular bio-based solutions and products
    • Availability of a broader range of competitive circular bio-based products meeting consumer and market requirements
    • Industrial competitiveness through introducing product or process innovation, introducing marketing or organisational innovation, strategic autonomy, and resource independence of biobased value chains in the Just Transition Fund Territory.
    • New skilled job opportunities and investments in the bio-based sectors, in the Just Transition Fund territory including development of capacities.
    • Enterprises supported including through grant funding, cooperation with Research Performing Organisations
  • Scope
    • Agriculture and forest-based value chains could be further optimised by introducing innovative processing technologies, e.g., upcycling residual flows to higher value applications and exploiting industrial symbiosis concepts (within the same industrial sector but also with other industrial sectors when applicable) to maximise the value extracted from main and side streams of agri and/or forest biomass. Moreover, there are bioresources, both primary and secondary, not yet efficiently managed, and valorised.
    • This topic aims to considerably increase resource efficiency by promoting cooperation of companies of different scales and other actors and move towards “zero waste, zero pollution” operations. The feedstock in scope of the topic is primary and secondary agriculture and/or forest-based biomass and industry side streams and residues.
• Processing and co-processing of bio-based waste and mixed bio-based waste:
  • Expected outcomes
    • Increased processing shares of bio-waste, and waste from bio-based products and processes, as well as their higher priority uses in the waste hierarchy including the food waste hierarchy.
    • Expanded opportunities for the valorisation of bio-waste in all stages and across all sectors – from bio-based industries including the food and forest processing industries to municipal biowaste – exploiting chances of industrial symbiosis.
    • Public awareness and acceptance of bio-based innovation and solutions.
    • Support market uptake growth and acceptance of scalable bio-based innovation and solutions.
    • Industrial competitiveness through introducing product or process innovation, introducing marketing or organisational innovation, strategic autonomy, and resource independence of biobased value chains in the Just Transition Fund Territory.
    • New skilled job opportunities and investments in the bio-based sectors, in the Just Transition Fund territory including development of capacities.
    • Enterprises supported including through grant funding, cooperation with Research Performing Organisations
  • Scope
    • This call topic scope includes a variety of bio-based waste and side streams from different sectors: e.g., residual streams from agri-food processing including from aquatic food processing; feed processing waste; bio-waste other than food waste from production processes, e.g., textiles, wood, etc., including post-consumer waste; sewage and wastewater sludge; used cooking oil; biobased construction and demolition waste such as the wood-based component. These streams may contain impurities as well as polymers and mineral components (also naturally occurring in bio-based feedstock).

Funding Information

Indicative total budget of the 2023 call: €10 million and it is estimated that a contribution of up to €5 million per project would allow for the requested outcomes to be addressed appropriately.

Who can Apply?

• Stakeholders of the bio-based industries ecosystem are invited to apply for funding in a balanced and integrated consortium, i.e., all partners must be integral to the project and make a real and substantive contribution to the outcome. Proposals should demonstrate the potential to develop and deploy novel practices and technologies.
• Calls for project proposals are open to legal entities, be it private or public, for-profit, or not-for-profit organisation, considering the following collaborative approach:
  • Proposals can be co-led by
    • SMEs.
    • Research Performing Organisations10 including Technological Universities and Universities and e.g., Teagasc, Marine Institute etc.
    • Local Authorities.
  • Proposals can be supported by the active funded involvement of local actors developing a competitive bio-based innovation and skills ecosystem including technological infrastructures (e.g., pilot lines, testing facilities, innovation hubs, open innovation testbeds, Key Enabling Technologies Centres, demonstration sites or living labs) and nonprofit legal entities such as clusters, NGOs, local and regional authorities, Education and Training Boards, community, and local action groups.

For more information, visit Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.