About BERST catalogue of Instruments & Measures

This Catalogue of Instruments & Measures is an integral part of the European FP7-KBBE Framework Programme 7 - Knowledge Based BioEonomy project BERST ‘Bioeconomy regional strategy toolkit’. The project aims to support regionsA region is any geographically meaningful entity (not necessarily a political or administrative), as a combination of biological, social and geographic criteria. Preferably based on NUTS2/NUTS3 (Eurostat), but can be other as well in Europe to develop smart bioeconomyThe bioeconomy encompasses the production of renewable biological resources and the conversion of these resources and waste streams into value added products, such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy. strategies.

The Catalogue provides detailed information on Instruments and MeasuresAn Instrument or measure can be broadly interpreted as a policy, law, method, mechanism, tool or action, used by governments, the profit or non-profit sector or society as a whole to boost the development of biobased economies.
Instruments and Measures can address e.g.;
i. information and education (e.g. awareness campaigns, training, skill building,…)
ii. economic and financial instruments (e.g. support schemes, subsidies,…)
iii. research, development and deployment activities (e.g. research clusters, research agenda’s,…)
iv. regulatory (binding) instruments (e.g. legislation, policy,…)
v. voluntary (non-binding) initiatives (e.g. position papers, strategies,…) facilitating bioeconomy development in regions throughout Europe. The Catalogue can be useful for a wide variety of stakeholders from regional policy makers over local entrepreneurs to profit and non-profit organisations.

For each Instrument & Measure information is provided on:

•  A set of descriptive Criteria such as; the targeted region(s), the goal, a short discription, contact information, the sector targeted,...
• To which extent the Instrument & Measures helps realising (one or more of) the ObjectivesA list of 12 objectives has been defined.
  1. Address the (multilevel) cooperations needed to start biobased businesses
  2. Availability of financial resources
  3. Building a strong research, development and innovation base
  4. Building competitive biobased industries
  5. Creating a reliable and enabling policy setting
  6. Creating an attractive environment including infrastructure
  7. Enable a reliable and constant availability of biomass feedstock
  8. Enhancing the creation of jobs and ensuring availability of required skills (education/training)
  9. Fostering effective governance and involvement of the society
  10. Fostering the development of strong biobased markets
  11. Learning from the strategies/actions of other regions, clusters,... relevant for the deployment of a regional bioeconomy.

How can you use the Catalogue?

• The following video explains the catalogues main functionalities

                             Webinar – Biobased Instruments & Measures Catalogue from VITObelgium on Vimeo.

• You can search the Catalogue by:

  1. Filtering the Instruments & Measures using the descriptive Criteria of your preference (e.g. the type of measure, the targeted region, the type of feedstock or the sector targeted by the Instrument & Measures. To do so click Search by Criteria.
  2. Filtering the Instruments & Measures in function of the specific Objectives they realise. To do so click Search by Objective

• You can add new Instruments & Measures to the catalogue. To do so click Add Instruments & Measures.

• You can update/review existing Instruments & Measures in the catalogue. To do so click (under development)

• You can comment on existing Instruments & Measures in the catalogue. To do so 'log in' and use the Comment Box available at bottem of each Instrument & Measure description page.

Who can I contact?

biobased@vito.be (Ruben Guisson - VITO)

Note: This catalogue of Instruments & Measures is an integral part (WP2) of the BERST project. See the image below for a project overview and brief description. 

WP1: Develop Criteria describing Regional Bioeconomy Potential
Objective: develop criteria to describe the regions in terms of their bioeconomy potential (e.g. based on geographical location, climate, predominance of bioeconomy sectors, bioclusters, job situation, existing skills, resources and technologies, etc.)

WP2: Develop a Catalogue of Instruments and Measures
Objective: compile a catalogue of instruments and measures (ranging from education, research and innovation to infrastructure, including advisory and support services to SMEs) that can be correlated against the criteria and will foster the development of regional bioeconomies

WP3: Develop a Catalogue of Good Practices and Case Studies
Objective: create a catalogue of good practices and case-studies on bioeconomy that can be used as inspiration for the development of regional smart specialisation strategies

WP4: Create and Elaborate Regional Profiles
Objective: prepare regional profiles based on the developed criteria that will describe the state-of-play of the bioeconomy in the selected regions and propose instruments and measures to improve the exploitation of this potential

WP5: Establish Emulation through Networking and Dissemination
Objective: The project liaise with local, regional and national authorities and relevant stakeholders (e.g. bioclusters) to establish the regional profiles. It creates a network structure that will encourage the exchange of best practices and the creation of synergies between regions. The project also contributes to the development of smart specialisation strategies of regions in accordance with the new European cohesion policy, notably by making data available in a form suitable for insertion in existing catalogues such as the European Cluster Observatory, the Regional Innovation Monitor or the Smart Specialisation Platform.