Five UK research centres form alliance to develop bioeconomy

Five established research centres across the UK have formed a new alliance seeking to position Britain as a global leader in biorefining technology development and bio-based product manufacture.

The founding centres of the BioPilotsUK projects are BEACON (Wales), the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC – York), the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI – Redcar), IBioIC (Scotland), and The Biorefinery Centre (Norwich).

BioPilotsUK brings together the nation’s leading expertise and facilities to help innovative ideas to navigate the so-called “valley of death” by demonstrating new bio-based processes and products at a commercially-relevant scale, in turn helping clients invest in the right technologies to grow their businesses.

“What we are all about is supporting the transition away from fossil resources by making the best use of biorenewable materials and unavoidable wastes,” said Adam Charlton, BEACON project manager from the BioComposites Centre, Bangor University.

“As an alliance, we can significantly de-risk the innovation process for anyone exploring a bio-based idea.”

By working collaboratively, the alliance seeks to significantly speed up the commercialisation of new green processes and products from biomass, including plants, algae, and wastes.

Due to the varied nature of these raw materials, or feedstocks, there is no “one size fits all” approach to biorefining, rather a series of technologies that must be trialled and combined.

The bioeconomy offers a multi-billion-pound, global business opportunity, as it is worth around €2 trillion in Europe alone and is growing rapidly worldwide.

Offering the potential to deliver greater business value through social, environmental, and financial benefits, it is estimated that the UK bioeconomy is already worth £153 billion (€170.9bn) in gross value-added (GVA) terms, generating over four million jobs.

“BioPilotsUK will enable Britain to realise the potential to tap both bioresources and biotechnology to create novel industrial products and processes necessary for an economically and environmentally sustainable nation,” said Keith Waldron, director at the Biorefinery Centre.

The announcement comes at the opening of annual market-leading conference, the European Forum in Industrial Biotechnology and the Bioeconomy (EFIB) 2016, which is being held in Glasgow this year.