The European Bioeconomy Week took place in Brussels on 14-17 November, featuring the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 (SC2) Info Day, the Bioeconomy Policy Day and several high-level events. The SC2 Info Day was dedicated to the presentation of the new Horizon 2020 work programme for 2018-2020 on the topic of Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy. During the Bioeconomy Policy Day, the Commission presented its review on the Bioeconomy Strategy, which shows that Europe has made relevant progress towards becoming a more innovative, resource efficient and competitive society. The revision of the strategy is expected at the end of 2018.

The role of chemicals for enabling the circular economy has been well recognized with a session dedicated to “the bioeconomy role in advancing circular economy”, moderated by DG GROW Head of Unit for Chemicals, Mrs Luisa Prista. Fertilizers regulation, Plastics strategy, Standardization, Long term legal stability, Life-cycle assessment were broadly discussed by the moderator and the speakers, with the involvement of the public. The conference was also the occasion to highlight the great role that regions can play for making the bioeconomy initiatives work on the ground with a session on “Bioeconomy and Smart specialisation in regions”.