Beatriz Palomo is Project Head and coordinator of the health working groups in the Spanish Biotechnology Association (AseBio). She holds a degree in Biology and two Masters in “Integrated Management Systems for Quality, Environment and Risk prevention” and in ”Pharmacoeconomics and Market Access”.

She worked as a chemical laboratory technician at the University Alfonso X and in a consultant Medina, Terron and Associates, now called Biolty. Nowdays she is working as a project head in AseBio coordinating several projects at national and international level and health Commission.

She also organizes and runs the projects for “Spanish Biotech Platform” including the planning and execution of conferences, networking and educational events to establish communication channels, efficient and multilateral agreements between the different players in the science-technology-business-society.

Helena Viera is currently Director General of Maritime Policy under the Minister of the Sea, Portugal. She has over 20 years of professional experience in academic, industry and political roles, as a lecturer (U. Lisbon and U. Angola), expert (UN, EU - BBI-JU, IPO, EIC & EASME), manager and coordinator in the fields of life and ocean sciences and bioeconomy. With a PhD in Biomedicine (Imperial College of London) and an Executive Post Graduation in Leadership and Strategy in Biotech & Pharma from Harvard Business School, she has founded a few start-ups and was co-founder and CEO (2005-13) of BIOALVO SA, a Portuguese biotech company. Helena was also Executive Director of BLUEBIO ALLIANCE (2014-19), the Portuguese network for marine bioresources sector and Full Associated Professor of FCUL, in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology Transfer (2008-20). She was also a PI at BioISI centre, coordinating the blue biotechnology unit at M&B lab. She speaks 5 languages and loves to travel!

David Chiaramonti, PhD, is full professor of Energy Systems and Energy Economics at the Polytechnic of Turin and chairs the Renewable Energy COnsortium for R&D. He authored >180 publications and participated to >27 EU R&D projects. Member of EUBCE, ISAF, and ICAE Int.Conferences, he represented Italy at IEA-Bioenergy, Task 34 (Biomass Pyrolysis) and Task 39 (Liquid Biofuel), and today at UN-ICAO task force on Alternative Fuels for aviation.

He participated to the IT/EU Biofuel platforms, the Leaders for Sustainable Biofuels, and coordinated the DG Energy Alternative and Renewable Transport Fuel Forum. He manages the H2020 projects BIO4A (on Sust.Aviation fuels) and BIKE (on low ILUC feedstock biofuels), and is member of the Board of Cluster SPRING.

He was awarded the Linneborn Prize for outstanding merits in biomass at EUBCE 2017 in Stockholm, and included in the Stanford University list of 2% most cited scientist (https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918).

Peter Wehrheim is Head of Unit for “Bioeconomy and Food System” in Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission in Brussels. Prior to this assignment, he worked in the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Agriculture, Phil Hogan. From 2010 to 2018, he was Head of Unit for Land Use and Climate Finance in DG Climate Action. After joining the European Commission in 2004, he worked in DG Agriculture on rural development policies. Between 1994 and 2004, Peter worked on economic analyses of food and agricultural policies in the EU, transition and developing countries at the Universities of Bonn/DE, Maryland/US (with a Heisenberg scholarship of the German Research Foundation) and Kiel/DE. In 1994, he received his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Giessen. His dissertation assessed the agricultural sector effects of the EU accession of the former EFTA Member states. He did his vocational training on various farms and comes from a vinery in Rhineland-Palatinate.

After a career in the chemicals industry, Nelo Emerencia established himself as an independent consultant in the chemical, biochemical and education fields. Since April 2015 he fulfils the responsibilities of Director Programming at the Bio-based Industries Consortium.
Nelo studied Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. During his career, Nelo was seconded to PlasticsEurope in Brussels as Communications and Public Affairs Director. Later he was also seconded to the Dutch Chemical Industry Association as Education & Innovation Manager and Secretary of the Dutch Chemistry Board, leading the bio-based economy activities for the chemical industry in the Netherlands.

Christian Patermann was born in Gliwice, Upper Silesia, in 1942. Following his High School years, he studied Law, Economics and Languages in Germany (Freiburg, Munich, Bonn), Switzerland (Lausanne, Geneva) and Spain (Santander) and completed his Doctoral Thesis in Law at the University of Bonn in 1969.

He entered the German public service in 1971 by joining the Federal Ministry of Science and Education, Bonn. From 1974-1978 he became Science Counsellor at the German Embassy in Washington D.C., USA. He then returned to the Ministry of Research and Technology where he held many positions in Germany and International Organisations, like ESA, ESO, EMBL. In 1988 he became Director of Cabinet of the German Federal Minister of Research and Technology, Dr. H. Riesenhuber. This comprised also the position of the spokesperson of the Ministry. In 1993 he was appointed Deputy Director General of the Ministry.

In 1996 he went to Brussels to become the Programme Director for “Environment” Research at the Research Directorate-General of the European Commission at Brussels.

Since January 2004 he was Programme Director for “Biotechnology, Agriculture & Food” Research at the Research Directorate-General of the European Commission, which from 2007 also comprised Aquaculture and Fisheries as well as Forestry. During these years he was responsible for the elaboration of the new concept of the Knowledge Based Bioeconomy ( KBBE ), which today is known as biobased Economy or more simply Bioeconomy in Europe.
In August 2007 Christian Patermann retired. He now lives in Bonn and advises public and private institutions and companies, among them the largest German Land NorthRhine-Westphalia , the Fraunhofer Society, the Swiss Agricultural Research Council etc.

Since beginning of 2009 he has been appointed member of the first Research and Technology Council “ BioEconomy “ of the Federal German Government.
The University of Bonn awarded Christian Patermann in November 2011 an honorary doctor’s degree because of his merits to promote European Agricultural
Research .In April 2012 Christian Patermann was appointed member in the Georgofili Academy in Florence, the oldest Science Academy in the area of agrosciences in the world. In 2018 he was appointed Fellow of the International Society of Horticultural Societies in Louvain, the largest international Assembly in Horticulture worldwide.

Full Professor of Algebra at the University of Trieste, Italy, Maria Cristina Pedicchio has great experience in managing of public and private Research Institutions.
She has been (2011-2019) President of the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS), National Research Institution (appointment of the Minister for Education University and Research), and has been President of the AREA Science Park of Trieste.

She is also President of the Technical Scientific Committee of the National Agency for the Promotion of European Research (APRE).

Recently, Maria Cristina has been appointed by the European Commission as a member of the “Oceans and Seas” Mission (missions represent one of the main aspects of the new Horizon Europe strategy).
She is President of the “Marevivo” Friuli Venezia Giulia Delegation.

Commander, Order "of Merit of the Italian Republic"

Piergiuseppe Morone is Full Professor of Economic Policy at UnitelmaSapienza conducting his research at the interface between innovation economics and sustainability transitions. His work regularly appears in prestigious innovation and environmental economics journals. He is the coordinator of the Bioeconomy in Transition Research Group (BiT-RG) and the director of the School of Sustainability Studies and Circular Economy (SUSTAIN) at UnitelmaSapienza. Moreover, he was Scientific Coordinator of the H2020 project STAR-ProBio, vice-chair of the COST Action TD1203 on Food waste valorisation for sustainable chemicals, materials & fuels, and acted as WP Leader in various European and national research projects. He is now Local Unit Scientific Coordinator in the LIFE EBP project (2020-2024), Scientific Committee member of BIOVOICES and Biobridges projects (BBI JU CSAs), and Economic advisor to the Italian Minister of the Environment, Land and Sea Protection.

Christin Boldt started her professional career as a research associate at the Secretariat of the German Bioeconomy Council, hosted by BIOCOM AG. From June 2015 to January 2020 she was responsible for carrying out studies, analyses and policy recommendations of the Council. From January to December 2020 she co-led the Secretariat of the Global Bioeconomy Summit 2020 (GBS2020) where she coordinated the work of the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB) and was responsible for developing signature products and outputs of the GBS2020. Accompanying her work, she started a doctorate degree in 2019 on the topic "Transformative change towards a sustainable bioeconomy: participatory pathways to sustainable living environments modeled on bio-principled cities" at the University of Leipzig. Christin holds a MA in “International Relations” from University of Dresden and a BA in “Political Science” and “Intercultural Business Communication” from Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena.

David Newman lived in Europe and the Middle East until 2016 when he returned to the UK.
He was the Executive Director of Greenpeace Italy 1994-1997 after many years as a volunteer; from 1999 until 2014 he led the Italian composting and biogas association CIC and he led the Italian Bioplastics Association from 2011 to 2015.

From 2012 to 2016 he was President of the International Solid Waste Association in Vienna and initiated the 2015 Global Waste Management Outlook report written by ISWA and UNEP. During this time (2012-13) he was personal advisor to the Italian Minister of Environment, Andrea Orlando.

David founded and leads the Bio Based and Biodegradable Industries Association UK since 2015 which works to promote the bioeconomy in the UK.

He is President of the World Biogas Association since November 2016, co-author of the report Global Food Waste Management, an Implementation Guide for Cities, published in May 2018 by the WBA with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. He also worked on the 2019 report published by WBA “The Global Potential of Biogas”.

He is a member of the Stakeholder Advisory Group at DEFRA and a chartered member of the CIWM.

His book “Everything is Connected, understanding a complicated world“ has been published in September 2020.

Since 2013 I have been involved in designing and implementing projects, organizing events and public relations for the Raul Gardini Foundation, sponsoring cultural and training/education/research projects in the field of environmental sustainability and bioeconomy. In 2013 the Foundation, member of Cluster Spring, organized the “Green Chemistry” conference in Ravenna and set up a scholarship for young researchers in collaboration with Novamont, and since 2020 it offers an annual grant for Masterbiocirce. Since 2018 the Foundation is main sponsor of “Riccardo Muti Italian Opera Academy" for the training of young conductors. In 2018 I developed the educational project "Darsena in Blue" with the participation of the Blue Economy theorist Gunter Pauli. From 1992 to 1997, I was in the board of Venini Spa. In the 1980s, with Ferruzzi Group, I followed the launch of the "Ethanol" project and the inauguration of a bioethanol plant in the USA.

Dr. Fedra Francocci, Researcher at the Institute Institue of Anthropic Impacts and Sustainability in the marine environment (IAS) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). Fedra got a degree in Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology and a double PhD in Botanical Sciences (Sapienza University of Rome) and Plant Biotechnology (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid). She has turned her scientific interest on Bioeconomy since her PhD experience in the frame of FUEL-PATH Project (ERC) at Sapienza University of Rome, while she was studying biomass molecular traits associated with bioconversion potential for biofuel production.

In the last few years she focused her activity on the study of Bioeconomy development on contaminated areas, addressing both terrestrial and marine environment, by promoting innovative value chains through co-creation and collaborative approach at the local scale. This approach merged into the BioGoal project funded by the Italian Ministry of Environment (MATTM) for the implementation of the National Strategy of Sustainable Development in Sicily and that is coordinated by CNR-IAS.

Fedra is also dedicating efforts to the Mediterranean Blue Growth by supporting the implementation of the “BLUEMD Pilot: Plastic-free healthy Mediterranean Sea” - in the contest of the BlueMed CSA - and by promoting potentials of innovation in the Blue Economy in the frame of the Interreg MED MISTRAL Project.

Iain has a Masters degree in Environmental Management and Technology, is a Chartered Environmentalist, an Accredited Packaging Professional, and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
Iain has worked for the UK Co-op for 32 years, and is one of retail packaging’s most respected members. His remit is to ensure that the Co-op is "doing the right thing" when it comes to sustainability - encompassing everything from food packaging to food waste. Under his stewardship, the Co-op has made a number of radical changes to the way in which it packages food and produce (below).
In May 2018, UK retail bible, The Grocer, named him as one of the “Ten Most Powerful People in Packaging”, which was followed by him collecting a prestigious Grocer Gold award for The Green Initiative of the Year in June 2018.
Among his career milestones is introducing certified compostable carrier bags to the UK market. This work involved setting best practice for labelling these bags to make the end-use as clear as possible to consumers. This work has been recognised with being awarded industry awards – Green Apple Award and AFOR Award.

Other key career milestones include:
Consistently improving the recyclability of Co-op brand packaging to an extent that the current target is to have 100% of Co-op brand packaging being easy to recycle.
Increasing the recycled content of Co-op brand packaging, including 100% rPET for bottles water and carbonated drinks.
In 2005 Iain's extensive work on tissue boxes saw the Co-op change plastic diaphragms to paper ones – Co-op tissues are still the only product with this feature in the UK.
In 2006 Iain worked tirelessly to replace plastic stems in Co-op’s cotton buds to paper ones – it has taken 11 years for this to be adopted by other retailers.
In 2011 Iain became part of the team that wrote the original BRC-IOP Global Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials.
The Co-op was the first retailer to Graduate from WWF’s Global Forestry and Trade Network in 2011 – Iain led the Co-op on moving to FSC and achieving this significant accolade.
In 2017?under Iain's recommendation, the Co-op?replaced hard-to-recycle polystyrene pizza boards with cardboard ones?saving 200 tonnes of plastic going to landfill or incineration.
In July 2018, his design thinking led to the introduction of fully recyclable sushi packaging with no black plastic, but still with great shelf impact.
November 2018 saw the roll-out of compostable carrier bags to over 1,000 Co-op food stores in communities across the UK – the first UK retailer to make compostable bags widely available in a move which alone saved an estimated 60M single use plastic bags in its first year.

Dr. Judith Feichtinger is an expert on environmental governance, environmental policy integration and participation. She conducted research within the environmental areas of water policy, climate change and adaptation, bioeconomy and the implementation of the Local Agenda 21. Ms. Feichtinger received her PhD (Dr.rer.soc.oec.) within the framework of the Doctoral School for Sustainable Development at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU, 2007-2010). 2010-2016 she continued as university assistant at the BOKU at the Institute of Forest, Environmental and Natural Resource Policy. Since 2016 she is at the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) engaged in several projects. She was coordinating BLOOM (2017-2020), a H2020 project raising the awareness of bioeconomy. BLOOM was one of the first projects in which bioeconomy school resources for primary and secondary education were co-created with STEM teachers throughout Europe and implemented. She was also coordinating a pilot action within the Danube-INCO.NET, which was supporting the development of an RTI bioeconomy strategy in the Danube Region. Beside that she is working as a lecturer at the BOKU.

Katarina Blicklingova is a Director of Slovak Bioeconomy Cluster. Since 2015, she has been networking stakeholders in agri-food and bio-based sectors, facilitating exchange of knowledge between science and practice, and incentivising bottom-up innovative projects. She is representing the Cluster at national and international level and she has broad experience with organisation and animation of bioeconomy-related events. With PhD in agricultural economics, she is well acquainted with implementation of international projects, development of socio-economic studies, analyses, strategies related to different policies mainly in bioeconomy area. In the past she worked as a project manager at the Union of Slovak Clusters and as an analyst and financial manager of the National Rural Network - Nitra Region Office. As a mother of two boys, she is always trying to apply bioeconomy principles in real life by teaching them how to use natural resources in a sustainable way.

Katrien Molders is Communication Manager at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (Ghent, Belgium), a pilot facility for process development, scale-up and custom manufacturing of biobased products and processes. She takes care of all communication related issues for BBEPP and actively supports the communication actions for the Pilots4U database and network (EU) and the North-CCU-Hub (Ghent, Belgium). Being convinced that a shift to a sustainable bio-based economy will attract sustainable investments, create sustainable jobs and address the societal challenges Europe is facing, Mrs. Molders actively engages in communicating the role and the impact of pilot facilities in enabling such a transition by i.a. reaching out to regional, national and European policy makers as well as EU citizens.
Katrien Molders received a Master of Science degree in BioSciences at Ghent University. After working for a few years as a commercial profile in private companies, she understood her true passion is all about supporting and communicating the implementation of scientific innovations for the creation of a more sustainable society. Prior to her position at BBEPP, she worked for the Institute for Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries (now called International Plant Biotechnology Outreach), The European Plant Science Organisation and the MELISSA project run by the European Space Agency.

Maria Teresa Borzacchiello, PhD in Engineering for Hydraulics, Land Use and Transportation Systems, works in the Coordination Team of the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy, consolidating the most relevant explicit knowledge about Bioeconomy; facilitating researchers, policymakers and other experts in sharing their expertise with dedicated events of a Community of Practice; analysing, synthesising and communicating the available evidence with briefs, video and visualisations, to support the European Bioeconomy policy. She has been working at the EC-Joint Research Centre since 2009, firstly looking at the digital transition, with research about the impact of public sector investment in e-infrastructures increasing access to public sector information, and about interoperability of location information across European public administrations. Previous research interests include information management for sustainable land use and transportation planning.

Philippe Mengal is the Executive Director of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) since 1st of October 2015. His mission is to further consolidate the role and responsibilities of the BBI JU. The Executive Director is the legal representative of the BBI JU. He is the chief executive responsible for the day-to-day management of the BBI JU in accordance with the decisions of the Governing Board. Mr. Mengal trained as an engineer in Chemistry and Bio-industry at the Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech University and later on in Strategic Innovation Management at INSEAD - Fontainebleau in France.

He started his career in 1990 in France as R&D engineer in the field of biomass fractionation and purification. In 1995 he became Technical Director of a research centre dedicated to biomass valorisation and between 1990 and 1997 he taught in a Master programme on chemical engineering in Rennes, France. He has published a number of scientific papers and awarded 5 patented license agreements. In his 25 years of professional experience before joining BBI JU, Mr. Mengal held strategic managerial positions in France and Belgium such as CEO of three companies, Global R&D Director of a multinational and Senior Consultant in food ingredient, engineering and life science industries.

Alessandra Della Ceca is a science explainer born in Frascati (RM), on January 29th, 1983. In 2011 she obtained the Biology degree (specialization: Evolution & Ecology) at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata". In 2009 she founded "G.Eco" (www-gecologia.it) an association for scientific communication and environmental education, in particular dedicated to children and teens. Since its foundation she has worked for the association as science explainer, projects creator and PR. Since 2010 she has taken part in "European Researchers' Night" organized by the association Frascati Scienza (www.frascatiscienza.it), both as science explainer and staff support in the organization of the event. Since 2016 she is the head of scientific events organized by Frascati Scienza and since 2017 she is also part of the board of directors of the association. Since 2019, thanks to the collaboration between G.Eco and DeA Scuola, she has been taken care of teacher and students training on sustainable development and Agenda 2030.

Mr Barna Kovacs is currently working as counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU. He has been appointed as the Secretary General of the BIOEAST Initiative, as vice-chair of the FACCE JPI, and as SCAR member on behalf of Hungary. His responsibilities covers the follow up of the Council discussion with regard to the research and innovation in the field of bioeconomy.

Between 2009-2017 he worked as scientific and policy officer in the European Commission's Directorate General Research and Innovation, Bioeconomy Strategy unit, in 2016 Mr. Kovacs was appointed as Secretary for the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research. Barna Kovacs was a focal point for relations with the EU Member States and civil society, coordinated foresight exercises in the field of agriculture, forestry and fisheries within bioeconomy, responsible for the developments of the Bioeconomy Observatory. In the period of 2004-2009 he worked in Brussels in the European Parliament.

Upon obtaining his PhD degree and teaching at the Budapest University of Economic Science and Public Administration, between 1999-2004 he worked at the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Hungarian Statistical Office.

Nikolai is a Senior Officer in ICLEI Europe’s Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience team, working on issues related to circular economy, climate and energy planning and bio-economy. Being part of ICLEI’s European Secretariat, Nikolai works to support local governments in Europe in sustainable urban development through addressing these issues.
Prior to joining ICLEI, Nikolai worked as a Junior Researcher at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna working on Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and circular economy. Nikolai began his career as an Intern at the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), where he went on to work as a Consultant for several years.
Nikolai has an international background, having lived and worked in 4 countries. He obtained his MSc in Social Ecology and his BA with distinction in International Development and side-curricula in International Law and Economics.

Sofia Mannelli, biologist by training, joined the Casaccia research center of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development ENEA in the 80s. She worked in ENEA it the laboratory of soil microbiology for about 10 years, first as a university student then as researcher with ENEA scholarship. She then moved to the field of negotiated programming in agriculture. In the last 20 years she dealt with bioenergy and green chemistry. Since 2012 Sofia Mannelli is president of Chimica Verde Bionet, thee Italian Association for the promotion, development and application of green chemistry. She was coordinator of the working group "legislation and regulatory simplification" and editor of the Internal Sector Plan at the national bioenergy table promoted by Italian Agricolture Ministery. She acted as adviser on bioenergy and green chemistry to several agriculture ministers. She participated in numerous working groups, Scientific Technical Committees (Bionet Green Chemistry, Spring Technology Cluster, Chemtech, Legambiente) and Strategic Government Concertation Tables.

Full Professor in Agricultural Economics and Rural Appraisal. Working since almost 30 years in the field, with research interests focused on agricultural policy evaluation, bioeconomy, economics of water use in agriculture, environmental evaluation, economics of agri-environmental schemes, farm management. He was the coordinator of the FP7 projects CAP-IRE and CLAIM, of the H2020 project PROVIDE and is now coordinating the H2020 project CONSOLE, all of which related to the role of the CAP in rural areas and the provision of environmental and climate public goods. He also participated in several other EU projects in this field, including many closely connected to the measurement of CAP impact on the environment (e.g. LIFT, SPARD, BIOBIO). Davide was editor-in-chief of the journal “Bio-based and applied economics” and published in 2018 the book “The Bioeconomy. Delivering sustainable green growth”, CABI.

Born in Piraeus Greece, studied Biology at the Faculty of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and graduated in 1980. Post graduate research at NCSR Demokritos. PhD obtained from Karls Rupercht University Heidelberg, Germany. Worked at European Molecular Biology Laboratory Heidelberg and Hamburg. Funded from the European Community BIOTECH program numerous times. Since 1996 he is faculty Professor at the Biology Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Member of the Greek Bioeconomy Forum and the National Research Council. Organizer of various Summer Schools. He has edited 10 books in Bioeconomy, Biotechnology etc. Author of over 130 scientific publications and 200 presentations. Co-Founder of the Community of Practice for Bioeocnomy Education in Europe. He talks to several relevant Masters in Greece and abroad. Previously his group was awarded by the BBI Challenge for the management of urban biomass and a spin-off company CITRIUS was founded.