Making a positive impact on the speed of the biobased transition, that is the highest goal of the Biobased Transitions research group. But how do you do that? What do you conduct practice-oriented research on and how can you then help entrepreneurs and organisations with the knowledge you gain? These are the questions Philippa Roots and Maddalena Logrieco, brand-new colleagues at MNEXT, are currently working on. ‘We are going to push and pull, but in a very positive way!’
Learning from past successes and failures. Identifying frameworks and barriers, as well as incentives and other outside influences. This should yield insights, for instance into how companies and sectors can increase their chances of success in the biobased economy. Or in which instruments governments can deploy to create a favourable climate for entrepreneurs. ‘That all sounds very theoretical,’ Philippa says, ’but with that knowledge gained we can then write scenarios for projects and entrepreneurs, and make recommendations on how they can best develop. So with that, we can apply the knowledge in practical cases, as you would expect from practice-based research.’
Giant task
Maddalena continues: ‘The above could be described as pushing, or supporting, existing and new initiatives and companies towards a biobased future. In addition, we also want to work in the other direction, we are going to pull everyone needed to speed things up.’ The research team does this by putting themselves and their surroundings in a future where fossil feedstocks have been phased out and biobased is the new norm. After all, in December 2023, at the UN climate summit in Dubai, nearly 200 countries agreed for the first time to phase out the use of fossil resources. Maddalena: ‘Just imagine it is 2054 or 2074 and fossil raw materials have completely disappeared from society, while we are still addicted to them today. Companies, production chains, entire industries may have to go through radical changes to achieve that goal. We examine what needs to be set in motion now to achieve such a gigantic transition in that short period of 30 to 50 years. Which actors need to start moving now, in order to speed up future developments.’
Thinking in terms of opportunities and possibilities
The synonym ‘pushing and pulling’ may have a negative connotation, but that is not how the MNEXT researchers themselves see it. Philippa explains that the point is to provide as much clarity as possible in the transition underway, so that entrepreneurs can manage their risks and act on them optimally. ‘As scientists, we ensure that organisations can make well-informed decisions and work out scenarios for them. Moreover, we include students in our research, who can also use their knowledge later in their careers. They are our multipliers.’