One of Bio4Circularity (B4C) Network’s key missions is to contribute to a circular economy with innovative approaches, through conducting research projects, organising professional events and producing scientific publications to support a smooth transition to circularity across the bio-based value chain. As such, we had dedicated a considerable amount of time during the Kick-off meeting to foster partnerships and joint collaborations among the network members.
The B4C Network aims to create and nurture professional interactions and personal connections and that is why we also shared opportunities to attend and create joint events. Earlier this year, Dr. Jelena Barbir from the B4C Network had attended the BIC Matchmaking Event 2025 in Brussels, where she joined more than 300 participants for a day of workshops, discussions, networking and 1-to-1 meetings. Two of our premium members – Food Scale Hub and Mekreo Engineering – were also in attendance at the BIC event. On the 2nd of April, we had also organized the “Reducing Plastic, Enhancing Sustainability: Smart Solutions for Every Business” event in Hamburg, where our premium member Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) hosted an insightful presentation on sustainability regulations and provided businesses with practical advice on compliance. Against this background, the possibilities to attend and create more events were also discussed during the Kick-off meeting.
Another major focus of the network is to foster knowledge exchange through publishing scientific papers. Three major research papers were already published through collaboration between B4C Premium Members – the first focusing on sustainable production of plastics, the second addressing the issue of packaging waste in Baltic states and the third about sustainable food packaging. These were successfully published in Sustainability, an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal on environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings, published semi monthly online by MDPI. Additionally, an eBook about innovative approaches to handle plastic waste and foster bio-based plastics production was also published recently, in collaboration with HAW Hamburg, B4C premium members Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and University of Bologna (UNIBO), and ITENE research centre. During the kick-off meeting, several discussions were held to further continue with these collaborations and to publish more scientific papers.
Finally, considering that the B4C Network constitutes of members with many different backgrounds, ranging from research institutions to universities to industry members, the possibilities to collaborate on innovative projects, such as EU Horizon project BIO-PLASTICS EUROPE, were also discussed. During the Kick-off, Dr. Barbir gave a presentation about the different types of project proposals, namely Horizon, Interreg, and more, as well as examples of ongoing projects such as BALTIPLAST, CheMatSustain and BioRADAR. Based on this, the members held a lively discussion identifying the potential areas for collaboration.
To sum up, it can be rightly said that the Kick-off meeting was a very productive and successful one, with several major topics addressed and some important agreements reached. We are sure that we can continue to post more updates about the outcomes of the Kick-off meeting in the near future!
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