Envirocentrum joined the call for Transformation and Innovation Consortia as a partner of the project called BioInnoVa. This call is funded through the Recovery Plan and is implemented by the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic through its unit called the Research and Innovation Authority. The total allocation of funds in the project is € 107 928 000, the maximum amount of support per project is € 15 000 000.
The aim of the call is to strengthen the research and innovation environment in Slovakia by supporting a small number of clearly thematically defined Transformation and Innovation Consortia (TICs), which will link public and private actors from Slovakia with leading institutions from abroad and which will generate new research and innovation activities and projects along the innovation chain. The aim is thus to support the transformation of key sectors of the economy with high innovation potential, which will be defined by the applicants themselves in their applications. A total of 38 applications were received under the Transformation and Innovation Consortia call for a total amount of € 559,654,480.93.
The overall idea of the BioInnoVa project, of which Envirocentrum is also a partner, is to transform the bioeconomy sector by unifying and concentrating regional initiatives and involving relevant partners within the Innovation Valley in the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region into a sector with effective innovation potential in the field of the green economy. The main objective of the project is to transform the region into an innovation valley in the field of bioeconomy and water cycle management by developing innovation and research potential in the Banská Bystrica region with the intention of efficient reuse of sediments, biomass and water. The intention of the project is to set up, link and sustain the bioeconomy life cycle from the research of raw materials with the design of their efficient use and application in remediation and processing processes, up to the overall energy and material recovery with high added value in the framework of circular bioeconomy. Through innovation transfer, the project strengthens the region’s research potential in key areas of the bioeconomy, such as circular economy, renewable energy, sustainable development and nature conservation, but also environment, pollution and climate, with implications for economic development and the development of innovation at regional, national and international level.
The project follows two main lines.
1. Research on sediments as a raw material that has significant potential for further processing. Sediment as such is, from today’s perspective, a material of the nature of waste, and its further use is precisely a typical example of the circular economy and circular economy.
2. Second line is research on the efficient recovery of biomass from different sources (water, forest, agricultural and municipal waste management) in the circular economy process and the development of biological and thermal processes for the production of bio-based products with high added value, including renewable gases (biomethane).
The BioInnoVa project consortium actively connects important players of the whole knowledge triangle, it is formed by representatives of the public sector (Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region, Slovak Environmental Agency), universities (Matej Bel University, Technical University of Zvolen), research institutions (Slovak Academy of Sciences, National Forestry Centre), non-profit organisations (Envirocentrum, BioPark), but also representatives of the private sector (Veolia, Esprit), excellent foreign institutions (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Laboratório Colaborativo para as Biorrefinarias, Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, I. P.), including a representative of a foreign university (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto).
