Commission creates bioeconomy observatory
The European Commission will create a special project to track the developments of the EU’s bioeconomy industry.
The three-year project will start next month and will provide data on the size of the bioeconomy and its constituent sectors. The observatory will also track a number of performance measures, including economic and employment indicators, innovation indicators, and measures of productivity, social wellbeing and environmental quality and will deliver a “technology watch” and “policy watch” in order to follow the development of science and technology, as well as policies related to the bioeconomy.
Making the announcement at a bioeconomy conference attended by PEN in Dublin, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said: “We are now seeing member states seize the opportunity offered by the transition to a post-petroleum economy based on smart use of resources from land and sea. It’s essential that they do because it will be good for our environment, our food and energy security, and for Europe’s competitiveness in the future. This observatory will help keep the momentum going.”
The observatory will be co-ordinated by the Joint Research Centre and will make its findings available through a web portal from 2014.
The bioeconomy is estimated to be worth €2 trillion in Europe whilst supporting 22 million jobs. The sector will receive part of a projected €4.7m budget under the ‘Food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research and the bioeconomy’ priority of the Societal Challenges pillar of Horizon 2020.
