The main objective of the project is to organize the international conference “Bratislava Bioeconomy Conference 2016” during the presidency of the Slovak Republic in the second half of 2016, disseminate its outcomes and to prepare the discussions for the Agriculture and Competitiveness Council meetings based on the outcomes of the conference. The aim of the conference is to discuss with national and regional stakeholders the new bioeconomy context for the agriculture, forestry and fisheries, the role of research and innovation to overcome the big societal challenges ahead of us and also to identify the barriers in the regions in adapting the bioeconomy strategy. The proposed Slovak Presidency “2016 Bratislava Bioeconomy conference” will provide an occasion to have high-level discussions on sustainable bioeconomy, strategies and actions. The aim is to create a programme that will provide a forum for stakeholder across the whole bioeconomy value chain to discuss the progress of the bioeconomy. The conference will not provide just a summary of the current state of matters, but will be forward looking by creating new policy ideas, catalysing joint initiatives and research and searching synergies among existing actions, projects and initiatives. The programme will be carried by top-level speakers from various fields, academia, and business and the concept and first draft of the conference programme was created by group of national and international experts, representatives of stakeholders and representatives of public institutions. Attention will be paid to post conference activities including policy seminars and policy briefings in order to achieve better implementation of the bioeconomy strategy in European regions.

"Globalization and global environmental issues, as well as unification of scientific investigation and teaching on EU level necessitate the harmonization and correlation of technical languages, such as the terminology used by soil scientists. Despite the passage of years and the unification of many European laws, the system of soil description it is still not unified on a satisfactory level among teaching staff of European universities. The consortium brought together the experts from 9 Institutions from 8 countries (Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) all having experience in soil classification of different regions of Central Europe. Each partner has advanced knowledge on soils of particular region. Individual members of the consortium also participated in numerous activities related to the adaptation of the WRB on a regional (national) scale, translations of this system into national languages, international correlation and testing of WRB, and its use in the context of learning and teaching at higher education level. Such experience was essential to reach the project objectives. Cooperation during project lifetime proved, that it was the optimal choice of partners. All involved have worked in a timely and effective manner, which enabled all of the objectives to be achieved and even expanded. Among the project activities were the meetings (7) dedicated to management of project and collection of soil data necessary to prepare the teaching materials. Soil samples were collected to carry necessary laboratory analysis. On this basis Freely Accessible Central European Soil (FACES) project consortium created numerous products: student fieldwork manual, course curriculum, 3 volumes of Soil Sequences Atlases and soil database for Central Europe, covering Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. International system of soil description by UN-FAO was used for the presentation of the data. Interpretation of the origin and systematic position of soils is based on the international soil classification WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources), those recent edition was published in 2014/2015. Development of extensive database applying the new version is thus essential from educational point of view. State of the art teaching resources were elaborated during FACES lifetime (2015-2018). Produced materials are and will be up-to-date educational tools for many years.Project partners encourage for wide use of unified methods for soil diagnosis and description (FAO Guidelines, 2006). Therefore introduction of this system in students’ training is very important. Publication of Students’ version Guidelines, where both activities are integrated, e.g. soil diagnosis and WRB classification, offers a better opportunity for the non-professional users to better understand these systems, and to see its contiguity.Two 5 days long Intensive Courses in Kaunas, Lithuania (2017) and Toruń, Poland, (2018) were attended by 79 students taught by 10 professors. The main objectives of these activities was testing and evaluation of the pilot educational module and accompanying educational tools. An equally important goal was to educate groups of students from partner countries in the field of soil description and classification. Students rated the workshops very highly in terms of education (95% of students were very satisfied/satisfied) and organization.The obtained product, due to its modern form, is a powerful tool in teaching at universities. It also improves cooperation between European institutions dealing with soil science, environmental issues, geoinformation systems etc. The use of developed product results in raising of theoretical and practical qualifications and skills of students and soil science professionals, which will last also many years after end of founding period of FACES. The ""Soil Education and Classification"" dissemination conference took place on 18th-20th May in Toruń and was great success. The event gathered nearly 90 soil experts and students from more than 20 countries from 4 continents. FACES products are easily accessible from various websites (NCU depository, Academia.edu, ResearchGate) and its popularity extended our expectations. In 4,5 months Guidelines was downloaded 315 times from Academia.edu and 239 times from NCU repository, got 3120 views on ResearchGate. Soil Sequences Atlas II was downloaded more than one thousand times from NCU repository and ResearchGate.Good reception of FACES products encourages consortium members to further cooperation to change soil education and introduce gamization approach in next project."

The project focuses on a highly actual problem of productivity and quality of livestock production. Livestock production is essential for a sustainable and self-sufficient manufacturing of wide range of products in food industry. One of the key strategies how to enhance competitiveness in the area of food industry is to increase the efficiency of stock raising. Nutritional deficiencies are key factors reducing the efficiency of stock raising, due to high prevalence of serious diseases. Maintaining optimal health of cattle is a key factor for increasing the efficiency of livestock. NanoFEED responds to this factors by nano/microencapsulation approach to advanced core/shell particles with pH sensitive properties.The proposed technology enables encapsulation of diverse active molecules and simplify the protection against degradation in rumen for wide range of active molecules. Nevertheless, due to encapsulation and improved delivery to small intestine, novel active molecules may be used to treat nutritional deficiencies. The process of encapsulation is based on green and biobased methods with minimal carbon footprint helping in development of sustainable bioeconomy. The results of NanoFEED will improve the cattle life expectation, quality of food and will promote more competitive livestock production. In order to achieve project goals, training network enabling efficient short term secondments of ER and ESR between academia and industry will be established. The cooperation between stakeholders helps in closing the gap between them and joint innovation to foster the current state of the art. NanoFEED will mediate it via networking, research, training, workshop, innovation and dissemination actions in form of short term secondments. The project fulfils the aim of RISE project and delivers significant social impact, increases knowledge based economy and creates long lasting cooperation strengthening the European research area.

The BIOSKOH project will pave the way for a Second Generation European Circular Bioeconomy by showcasing how a number Innovation Stepping Stones can realise a breakthrough in techno-economic viability of lignocellulosic biorefineries. It will do so through a two stage investment process and development path to realise the largest (110 kton) second generation (2G) biorefinery in Europe. It starts from a brownfield industrial site in the eastern part of the Slovak Republic to realise the 1st stage Flagship plant to produce 55 kton of cellulosic ethanol per year for EU bio-fuel mandates. Partners include the full value chain starting from land owners and feedstock producers, supply chain experts and an agronomical research partner to set-up a new biomass value chain exploiting large amounts of currently unused crop residues (kton/year), and developing newly grown dedicated crops on marginal land (total circa 320 kton/year), as such revitalising the regional economy. Technology providers (Biochemtex, Novozymes and Lesaffre) developed, tested and demonstrated in the only available semi-industrial scale 2G biorefinery research plant, an innovative integrated pre-treatment, hydrolyses and fermentation package, with higher yield and lower CAPEX which will now be upscaled to the 1st of a kind commercial scale Flagship, to be built by Energochemica. Aim is to showcase techno-economic viability based on a sound business plan and 4 stepping stones (yield, biomass cost, brownfield and industrial symbiosis). Dedicated innovation actions by expert partners include assessing increased cascading potential through lignin valorisation and 2G bio-chemicals, LCA, Socio-economic impact analyses, business plan for a 2nd investment round, exploitation, dissemination and replication actions to various bio-economy clusters in Europe, thus giving both a short term and a long term contribution to the European Industrial Renaissance and bio-economy.