Taking place on 20 – 21 February in Brussels, the BIOEAST high-level conference "BIOEAST as a driving force in the context of the European Green Deal" aimed to deploy sustainable and circular bioeconomies in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of food, agriculture, natural resources and bioeconomy related policies.

On the first day, the conference gathered key political figures, ministry officials, policymakers, researchers, academia and other stakeholders involved in different parts of the BIOEAST environment to inform them about emerging policy developments and to discuss key priorities at the European level.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to parallel meetings of BIOEAST Thematic Working Groups. Discussions focused on the ongoing challenges, policies and priority settings.

Johan Elvnert, Managing Director of FTP presented the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SIRA) 2030 of the European forest-based sector, which identifies targets, challenges and research and innovation needs to maximise the contribution of the forest-bioeconomy to the EU Green Deal’s objectives.

In the meeting of the forest and forest value chain thematic working group, which is chaired by FTPs Slovakian National Support Group Chair Prof. Tomas Bucha, representatives from some 11 countries met together with the European Commission, FTP, European Forest Institute and the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR). The outcome of the meeting was positive and the presentation of the FTP SIRA 2030 was welcomed as a timely and very important input to the efforts of the BIOEAST countries to develop an own Bioeconomy Research and Innovation Agenda to support the activities of the central and eastern European member states. FTP and BIOEAST will continue the cooperation to ensure synergies and alignment of strategies and activities.