Irish Bioeconomy Day 2018

Friday 19th Oct 2018:  

The First Bioeconomy Ireland Day was OCtober 19th 2018 and it witnessed the launch of the €22.2 million BEACON SFI’s Bioeconomy Research Centre* (http://www.bioeconomybeacon.ie/) and the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation* (IBF -http://bioeconomyfoundation.com/) which will be hosted at the National Bioeconomy Campus at the former zinc mine at Lisheen, Co. Tipperary. 

Bioeconomy covers the use of biological resources and their conversion into food, feed, bio-based products and biofuels through a range of technologies such as the biorefinery. Development of these technologies is essential for a carbon-neutral future and vibrant rural communities. Bioeconomy already accounts for 8% of the EU’s workforce and bio-based industries could create up to 1 million green jobs by 2030, especially in rural and coastal areas. 

During the opening of the event Minister Michael Creed (Agriculture, Food and the Marine) highlighted how bioeconomy will play a crucial role on supporting future economic development and employment, as well as providing a path towards reducing carbon emissions and dependence on fossil resources.  

Prof Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government of Ireland highlighted the role of SFI Research Centres such as BEACON in continuing to deliver significant economic and societal impact to Ireland with transformative innovation. 

Trinity College Dublin and Bioeconomy 

Trinity College Dublin has a significant contribution to the Irish Bioeconomy, through its involvement in founding the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation (IBF) and research contribution to the BEACON Research Centre. In addition, Trinity College is a lead partner on AgriChemWhey (www.agrichemwhey.com) which is a major EU funded project under the Bio-Based Industry Public – Private Partnership and largest funded to date (€ 22 million) by EU to Ireland.  AgriChemWhey is a new state-of-the-art bio-refinery located in the same National Bioeconomy campus and will be the world-first process for converting by-products from the dairy industry into high value bio-based products including biodegradable plastics. 

Trinity College Dublin and BEACON 

Through BEACON Trinity College will continue to study how biomass generated from the Agri-Food & Marine sectors can be converted to valuable products such as bio chemicals, biopolymers and other biomaterials that can be used in different consumer goods such as biofuels, textiles, packaging, manufacturing components.  

Trinity’s contribution to BEACON will include the development of new generation membranes for the recovery and purification of various products produced by biorefinery process from various sustainable resources. Also trinity taking a leading role in developing the sustainable and environmentally engineering plastics that can replace existing fossil based placed plastics in number of applications and life-cycle costing and natural capital accounting.