Project Summary

The Biofarms Cluster (BFC) is a 36-month collaborative project involving nine partners across four European Union (EU) countries (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece), three countries participating in the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) program (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania), and 12 associated partners. The main objective of BFC is to establish a transnational cluster capable of enhancing the development and implementation of jointly developed approaches based on transnational Smart Specialization Strategies in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sectors, while facilitating technology transfer and capacity building at the Adrion level. BFC will implement virtuous technology transfer processes for the efficient and effective exploitation of agri-food by-products and wild plant species to produce vegetable extracts with innovative applications for the nutraceutical and biopharmaceutical market. By creating joint solutions, the technology transfer process will cover the entire value chain. To streamline this process, monitoring and standardization of processes will be implemented, and new business models will be developed to enhance market access for 35 SMEs and improve their resilience. Seven local Nodes, acting as contact points in each country, will facilitate networking, support Cluster members, carry out marketing functions, and attract new public and private members. The project targets vital sectors essential for the transition to a sustainable economy, such as agriculture, food production, Life & Food Science sectors, Green Chemistry, and Circular economy. These sectors play a pivotal role in driving innovation within industries and fostering social innovation. In this way, the project results aim to offer competitive advantages to the involved companies and regions, contributing to their sustainable growth and development. The BFC Cluster will also operate as living labs, providing 'real-world' platforms for landscape ecological studies to inform the development and testing of methods and tools, the design of incentives to encourage biodiversity management by farmers, and the sharing of information and data for systems analysis. Target groups include local, regional, and national public authorities, sectoral and regional development agencies, universities, research facilities, business support organizations (such as chambers of commerce, business innovation centers, and technology information centers), SMEs, and industrial hubs and parks.