ROLE OF YOUTH IN PROMOTING BIOECONOMY : YOUTH PERSPECTIVE IN EUROPEAN BIOECONOMY SCIENTIFIC FORUM 2023
Attending the European Bioeconomy Scientific Forum (EBSF) 2023 “Moving Towards the Transformation” on 6 – 9 September 2023 in Austria, Vienna was my very first-time event related to bioeconomy. The Forum is an essential biannual meeting for The European Bioeconomy University Alliance (EBU) which brings together scientists, experts, policymakers, youth, and other stakeholders from across Europe to share experiences and identify any opportunities to lead the bioeconomy transformation to support Sustainable Development Goals. The forum offered various agenda from thematic sessions, seminar, poster presentation, networking dinner, and side events conducted by International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences (IAAS) and IFSA. The youth side events were organized by IAAS and IFSA aimed to broaden knowledge of delegates in diving to bioeconomy and entrepreneurship. Moreover, these events will strengthen the cooperation and create other opportunities for both organizations in initiating other projects.
On Wednesday, September 6 2023, the delegates from IFSA and IAAS had a chance to share their perspective of bioeconomy. Bioeconomy is a sustainable and circular economy that relies on renewable biological resources (e.g., plants, animals, microorganism) to produce services, goods, and material, and support sustainability and circularity. During the session, Gremary Aza as a PhD candidate researching Bioeconomy in Costa Rica from University of Passau and she is part of Food Agriculture Youth Institute, she delivered an intriguing presentation about Youth and Bioeconomy. She mentioned:
“There is a huge international effort to introduce the topic of bioeconomy and there are enough challenges that diversifying it towards young people specifically has not been considered. At least in Latin America, bioeconomy development is still in its early stage where there is no specific strategy to include youth (yet). Furthermore, the access to spaces for dialogue is limited between stakeholder and scientist to the youth”.
The role of youth in bioeconomy becomes essential since the youth can go hand in hand with the stakeholders to fill the gap for promoting intergenerational equity. Furthermore, by involving youth means letting them to transform ideas and create innovations in seeking solutions and producing new technologies and products. However, as Gremary mentioned, there are some challenges and opportunities that youth are facing in bioeconomy development:
- Limited Educational Access for young people to the education and training bioeconomy. To overcome these challenges, government and educational institutions should include and invest in bioeconomy and circular economy education, provide scholarships and online resources to make education more accessible.
- Scale up innovation. By encouraging youth to have a strong motivation of entrepreneurship and providing funding for incubator programs, it can help address the challenge.
- Lack of awareness and lack of success story. Youth may not be well-informed about the potential and success story of bioeconomy. Efforts should be made to raise awareness by giving numbers and facts to them.
During the panel discussion, Thomas Westhoff from IAAS World and Agustion Rosello, a former IFSA President, had a chance to deliver their speech about youth has power on driving force of change towards bioeconomy. Many young people are highly aware of environmental issues and are motivated to address climate change. Various projects have been carried out by these two organizations in mainstreaming the bioeconomy development.
In conclusion, the role of youth in bioeconomy transformation is not just a matter of preference but it is a necessity. Their commitment and creativity in promoting bioeconomy make them invaluable contributors. By harnessing their energy and providing equal space together with stakeholders can lead to significant advancement in bioeconomy transformation.
Erlita Savitri
Member of IFSA LC Copenhagen
