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Learning Communities for the transformation to the bioeconomy:
innovation by dialogue between partners
To be held on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 November 2025
at the Irish College Leuven, Janseniusstraat 1, Leuven, 3000 Belgium
A Workshop focus
At the EU level it is recognised that to support the ongoing transformations to the bioeconomy it is necessary to build successful interchanges between knowledge institutions (universities, research institutes and advisory services), industry, policy makers and civil society at different organisational levels.
However, many ideas and realisations for supporting the necessary transformations toward the bioeconomy are hampered by unclear channels to access the knowledge providers, unclear requirement profiles from industry, and hurdles due to local, national and European political interests.
More critically, development is held back through a simple lack of fora in which an exchange is possible on identified specific action for transformation(s) to the bioeconomy. An intense cooperation between knowledge institutions, companies, civil society and governments is necessary, to overcome these hurdles.
Bringing together such functional bodies under the umbrella heading of "learning community" for a specific needed action can facilitate such interchange and lead to successful transformations for the bioeconomy. A specific learning community may include all the functional groups or a subset – referred to as a double, triple or quadruple helix learning community. Such learning communities can operate at a local level, regional level within a country or at a national level.
In summary a learning communities will have:
- stakeholder representatives from two or more of the following functional groups: government, industry, knowledge providers, and civil society, and at least a strong connection to the other groups
- an identified need for a shared vision on trans-functional stakeholder collaborations (with co-leadership) to address a clearly defined transformational goal(s)
- clear roles identified for each stakeholder in addressing the goal(s).
The key objective of the Workshop is to explore concepts of how to initiate and build successful learning communities. In the previous two webinars we have reviewed a variety of learning communities at different levels of organisation (Webinar No1 and Webinar No2). The Workshop also builds from the submission made to the Commission’s 2025 Call for evidence "Towards a circular, regenerative and competitive bioeconomy"
In particular the workshop will explore the benefits for universities of being involved in such learning communities for their research, innovation, and education programmes as a result of their direct engagement with industry, policy makers and civil society.
B Expected Outcomes
Develop an understanding, based on best practice examples models, of
- how triple/quadruple helix learning communities can be created and function to develop successful transformation paths towards the development of the bioeconomy.
- how universities, as knowledge providers, can best contribute to the successful outcomes of learning communities in which they are a partner
C Target Audience
Degree programme coordinators, lecturers, members of committees responsible for the (strategic) development of curricula. Politicians and governmental actors interested in life-long learning in bioeconomy. National education advisors are also invited to contribute to the discussion. It is also intended to invite students and EU Bioeconomy Ambassadors.
D Programme focus
- Session 1 Case studies of learning communities for transformation to the Bioeconomy: what worked well and what did not? What have we learnt from these case studies to ensure a learning community delivers positive outcomes for the transformation to the Bioeconomy?
- Session 2 Why do we need Learning Communities, the perspectives of different partners: knowledge providers, industry, government and civils society: What to expect from learning communities? How can universities engage?
- Session 3 How can the outcomes of learning communities provide policy makers with new and relevant insights in the transformation towards the bioeconomy? What is needed in policy at local, national, regional and EU-level to facilitate effective learning communities ?
- Session 4 Discussion: Role of life science universities involvement in Learning Communities - what have we learnt and how can life science universities best contribute to the future development of learning communities for the transformation towards the bioeconomy?