Promoting stakeholder engagement and public awareness for a participative governance of the European bioeconomy

The bioeconomy holds potential solutions to important challenges of the future. The social, economic and environmental impacts associated with its products and processes, however, will require extensive dialogue processes on the future development of the bioeconomy. For this purpose, BioSTEP will apply a three-tier approach which aims at reaching all relevant actors in the bioeconomy domain, particularly policy makers, various stakeholder groups (scientists, business, non-governmental organisations, etc.), and citizens. Tailored communication tools, including workshops, conferences and exhibitions, will be developed for each target group in order to maximize outreach and to facilitate active engagement in public debates on the bioeconomy. At a regional level, a ‘living lab’ approach will be applied and tested, which facilitates the involvement of public-private networks of stakeholders in bioeconomy-based innovation and business model development processes.