Engage4BIO.Regional bioeconomy engagement and skills development
Multi-stakeholder engagement to strengthen regional bioeconomy value chains — through design thinking, co-creation, training and skills development across five European regions.
Why Engage4BIO?
Engage4BIO strengthened circular, sustainable bioeconomy and sustainable regional development through design thinking, co-creation, (re)training and skills development. The project ran from October 2022 to September 2025.
The project worked across five major regional value chains: circular and bio-based textiles (NL), agriculture and agro-food industries (HU), wood and interior (AT), bio-based and sustainable packaging (FI) and blue bioeconomy (IT).
By embedding art and design in the activities, Engage4BIO boosted the uptake of bio-based systems — strengthening local governance feedback loops, co-creating training and mentoring formats, and building communication and awareness campaigns. The framework was designed to be transferable across different European regions.
- How can regional bioeconomy value chains be strengthened?
- How do design thinking and co-creation drive engagement?
- How are skills and competences built and transferred?
- How can the framework transfer across EU regions?
Engage4BIO in numbers
Three years of co-creation across Europe — and a Finnish hub that turned workshops into campaigns, tools and lasting partnerships.
CLIC's role: leading the Finnish bioeconomy hub
CLIC Innovation led the Finnish bioeconomy hub in the Uusimaa region, focused on bringing new, sustainable and bio-based materials and recycling solutions to retail packaging — with Metropolia UAS as partner for training and education and Flanders' Food as replication partner.
Results and key activities
From co-creation workshops to public awareness campaigns, the Finnish hub delivered concrete outputs that supported the shift toward sustainable packaging.
Co-creation workshops
A series of workshops in 2023 brought together companies, research institutes, universities, SMEs and industry associations to build vision, governance models, training concepts and awareness campaigns for sustainable packaging by 2030.
Awareness campaign
The Finnish hub's influencer campaign on sustainable packaging and sorting reached almost half a million views across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook — making the shift to sustainable packaging more understandable and desirable to consumers.
Training & skills
Metropolia UAS developed and piloted a course on sustainability in the packaging life cycle, while CLIC and Metropolia used LEGO® Serious Play® to engage design students and stakeholders in co-creating future packaging concepts.
Sustainable packaging criteria
A pre-study and roadmap synthesised the current state of definitions and regulations, outlining next steps for a credible, widely adopted criteria framework that moves beyond climate metrics to include biodiversity, circularity and social aspects.
Citizen science & engagement
At the 4R Annual Forum in January 2025, CLIC hosted a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop on citizen science and consumer engagement, developed together with Engage4BIO, Value4Pack and TREASoURcE.
Cross-fertilization & final meeting
The Finnish hub shared results at the Budapest cross-fertilization workshop in March 2025 and hosted the final consortium meeting in Helsinki in September 2025, consolidating guidelines and recommendations for future replicators.
Making sustainable packaging visible
The Finnish hub brought sustainable packaging choices into everyday conversations through engaging social media content created with Design Company.
Engage4BIO in pictures
Snapshots from co-creation workshops, the final meeting in Helsinki and cross-fertilization activities across the consortium.
Photos: Nina Hurme · Kaisa Simola, CLIC Innovation · Máté Lakos, MOME Budapest
4R open-innovation ecosystem
A supportive knowledge-sharing and innovation platform connecting cluster programmes, large companies, SMEs and academia.
Innovation ecosystem for bio-based materials and recycling solutions for retail packaging
Helsinki-Uusimaa region, Finland
Packaging materials & manufacturers, design, food industry, logistics & retail, waste & end-of-life services
Finnish national bioeconomy strategy, Plastics Roadmap for Finland and Uusimaa regional circular economy plans
Five regional bioeconomy hubs
Each hub focused on a major regional value chain, applying the shared Engage4BIO engagement framework.