BioRural D3.5 - Guidelines for future Bioeconomy research and policy

The transition to a sustainable, circular, and inclusive bioeconomy is a cornerstone of the European Union’sGreen Deal, Bioeconomy Strategy, and long-term rural development goals. Yet despite strong politicalmomentum and increasing innovation across sectors, rural communities — which are central to thebioeconomy — continue to face systemic barriers that prevent them from fully engaging with andbenefiting from this transition.The BioRural project, funded under Horizon Europe, aimed to close this gap by promoting the widespreaduptake of innovative, small-scale, and locally embedded bio-based solutions in rural areas. Through acombination of multi-actor engagement, success stories, surveys, national grassroots workshops,innovation challenges, knowledge exchange initiatives and the creation of the European Rural BioeconomyNetwork (ERBN), BioRural has identified both the structural challenges and the most promising pathwaysto support rural bioeconomy development across Europe.This deliverable synthesises the project’s main policy insights and offers targeted policy briefs on over 20key topics. These include enabling frameworks for smart farming, circular business models, modularbiorefineries, bioenergy villages, and urban-rural resource loops, as well as system-wide recommendationsto align funding, governance, and regulatory instruments such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),Waste Directive, and Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).Each policy brief is structured around:• A clearly defined challenge, grounded in real-world barriers and rural stakeholder input;• Supporting evidence from EU-funded projects, regional case studies, and stakeholderconsultations;• Specific and actionable policy recommendations at both EU and Member State levels;• Expected environmental, economic, and social impacts;• Key future research needs to strengthen the evidence base and support policy innovation. The findings demonstrate that rural bioeconomy development is not constrained by a lack of innovationand can be supported by the right policies, governance and effective communication of solutions.Addressing these issues requires not only increased investment and coordination but a shift in perspective:from top-down industrial bioeconomy growth to territorially embedded, community-driventransformation.By supporting cross-sector collaboration, reducing regulatory and administrative barriers, and aligningfunding mechanisms with circular and inclusive innovation models, policymakers can unlock the fullpotential of rural Europe to lead the bioeconomy transition. BioRural presents a practical and coherent setof policy briefs in this deliverable to do just that — ensuring that the benefits of the green transition arenot only technologically feasible but also socially and geographically equitable.Based on the extensive evidence gathered through stakeholder surveys, expert interviews, nationalworkshops, and the development of 23 targeted policy briefs outlined in this deliverable, the BioRuralconsortium also prepared a formal contribution to the European Commission’s public consultation on therevision of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy. This submission reflects the project’s core findings andrecommendations to support a more coherent, inclusive, and innovation-driven rural bioeconomy acrossEurope. The contribution was submitted to the Commission’s “Have Your Say” portal. The full text of thesubmitted contribution is presented in Annex I of this report.