The Irish Bioeconomy Foundation (IBF) (Growing the Irish Bioeconomy Together) is Ireland’s national bioeconomy association and innovation cluster. IBF was founded in mid-2017 to establish a fora of industry, academia and policy leaders around Ireland’s emerging bioeconomy.

The Irish Bioeconomy Foundation (IBF) is Ireland’s national bioeconomy association and innovation cluster. IBF was founded in mid-2017 to establish a fora of industry, academia and policy leaders around Ireland’s emerging bioeconomy.

Our mission is to promote the conversion of Ireland’s natural land & sea resources to high value products for the development of a sustainable bioeconomy that is globally competitive and creates local development.

IBF will help its members by:

• Facilitating relations among innovative agribusiness, forestry, marine, energy and bioeconomy champions;

• Generating synergies between different sustainable initiatives;

• Enabling innovative projects to reach their next level;

• Creating an integrated ecosystem of converging assets and ambitions.

IBF is now building, in the hearth of Ireland, a new centre of gravity, for agribusiness, marine, renewable energy, and bioeconomy players, featuring:

INNOVATION CLUSTER: the National Bioeconomy Campus (NBC), where our members and partners can aggregate to build new initiatives, converge interests and receive trainings;

DEMONSTRATION PLANT: the Irish Bioprocess Demonstrator (IBD), where our clients can pilot and demonstrate their innovative biotech and green chemistry solutions with the latest technologies and know how;

EUROPEAN LAUNCH-PAD: connecting the Irish Bioeconomy Public-Private Network (IBPPN) to European funding, non-Irish businesses and international talents.

Main activities:

The IBF focuses on assisting companies and organisations in transitioning from wasteful production practices and embrace more environmentally friendly ones. We do this by facilitating the establishment of mutually beneficial business relationships with businesses that have overlapping production schemes. We are also involved in assessing individual businesses and identifying scale-up opportunities.

Research and innovation activities:

The IBF analyses the production processes of other companies through the creation of value chains and promotes mutually beneficial relationships between those with overlapping chains. We also highlight new opportunities in the area of technology development.

Future ambitions and specific interest in BBI JU:

The IBF will promote the development of the Irish bioeconomy by liaising with businesses and other organisations to encourage them to adopt environmentally sustainable practices. We will also endeavour to facilitate the scaling-up of individual companies and the transfer of relevant knowledge as it becomes available.