FOEBE+ - FOstering Entrepreneurship for a sustainable and innovative BioEconomy

The bioeconomy sector is a priority for the European Union. This systemic approach, encompassing various economic sectors and rooted in circularity and sustainability principles, requires a paradigm shift in both educational pathways and teaching practices to equip young professionals with appropriate entrepreneurial skills. Indeed, innovative, sustainable, and economically viable solutions must be identified to fully deploy the bioeconomy.

Currently, entrepreneurship training programmes do not meet the sector’s needs, holding back its development potential. Furthermore, no harmonised European approach exists on this topic, despite the bioeconomy being designated as a key sector. Nevertheless, developing innovative educational content at the European level enables students, as future entrepreneurs, to gain a global perspective on all dimensions of the bioeconomy.

The overall project approach focused on a blended learning format, combining e-learning and face-to-face sessions, with an emphasis on innovative teaching practices. FOEBE+ thus enabled Master’s, engineering, and PhD students, as well as lifelong learning participants, to complete modules and courses that enriched their educational paths.

The project encompassed a wide range of activities and outputs:

• A survey of bioeconomy stakeholders to precisely define expected qualifications and skill profiles;
• Sharing of innovative practices (hackathons, competitions, non-formal education, contextual learning);
• Creation of a digital platform (courses and training materials);
  Development of a guide on innovative training to encourage entrepreneurship through education;
• Creation, dissemination, and sharing of new educational resources, additional courses, and innovative training practices at the core of the project;
• Production of a public report presenting recommendations on how to equip bioeconomy students with the appropriate set of skills, position them as innovators, and bring their ideas to market.

Thanks to its flexible and optimal approach to bioeconomy entrepreneurship education, FOEBE+ enhanced the potential of over 200 students to innovate and bring their ideas to fruition and market implementation. Several project alumni have since launched their own start-ups, won the the Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe (BISC-E), or become EU Bioeconomy Youth Ambassadors.

The programme was based on blended learning methods, both synchronous and asynchronous, remote and in-person. Requiring approximately three hours of personal workload per week, the FOEBE+ curriculum fitted into students’ schedules and offered a course composed of eight modules, taught in English:

• Introduction to bioeconomy;
• Accelerated sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Creative design and idea generation;
• Intellectual property;
• Business management and corporate finance;
• Leadership and execution;
• Marketing;
• Digitalisation in bioeconomy.

These eight modules were followed by a face-to-face week, the “Bioeconomy Challenge”, hosted by each partner university from 2025 onwards, during which students developed entrepreneurial projects in small groups to apply the concepts learned in the online courses.

At the end of the programme, students reported a significant improvement in their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.

Across three cohorts delivered by seven partner universities:

• 206 students from master’s and PhD programmes took part.
• The participants represented 39 countries and had a mean age of 26.9 years.

Across the four dimensions assessed:

• entrepreneurial knowledge increased from 2.66 to 3.88 out of 5 (+1.22 points),
• topic-related knowledge from 2.84 to 3.91 (+1.07),
• entrepreneurial abilities from 3.11 to 3.86 (+0.75),
• and soft skills from 3.94 to 4.34 (+0.40).

Overall, the level of competence reached 4 out of 5, with a mean improvement of 0.87 points across all dimensions between entry and exit. Satisfaction with the modules was also high: videos and materials received an average rating of 4.12 out of 5, quizzes 3.82, classes 3.98, resources 4.08, and evaluations 4.04.

FOEBE+ highlights: student participation, skills development and module satisfaction.