With an ever expanding Bioeconomy, decision-makers need up-to-date knowledge to develop strategies to manage this growth. Environmental scientists, policy experts and scientific leaders are invited to work together in a meeting of minds to understand the implications of the growing Bioeconomy from social, environmental and economic/policy perspectives.
The 2009 OECD Report, the Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda provides an overview of the major challenges, and opportunities, associated with the expected growth of the Bioeconomy sector over the next two decades. The report documents that agriculture could account for about one third of the growth in this sector, however, most of the current investment is in health.
Growing the Bioeconomy – Social, Environmental and Economic Implications, 2 to 5 October 2012, Banff, Alberta, Canada
Conference Focus
With an ever expanding Bioeconomy, decision-makers need up-to-date knowledge to develop strategies to manage this growth. Environmental scientists, policy experts and scientific leaders are invited to work together in a meeting of minds to understand the implications of the growing Bioeconomy from social, environmental and economic/policy perspectives.
The 2009 OECD Report, the Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda provides an overview of the major challenges, and opportunities, associated with the expected growth of the Bioeconomy sector over the next two decades. The report documents that agriculture could account for about one third of the growth in this sector, however, most of the current investment is in health.
Three leading academic international associations working in the life sciences in Europe and North America invite you to attend and contribute to a shared understanding of the challenges and opportunities relating to Growing the Bioeconomy from social, environmental and economic/policy perspectives.
Outline Programme
During four half-day sessions, Growing the Bioeconomy will address the environmental, social and economic implications of the growth in this sector, following an initial overview of the latest technical developments to set the scene for our discussions. The final day of the conference will be devoted to examining what our next steps should be.
For each of the session focusing on the environmental, social and economic implications there are two keynote speakers, and there will be two or three contributed papers.
Call for Contributed Papers
The session leads for each of the conference sessions, social, environmental and economic implications, invite submission of abstracts for contributed papers and posters until May 15, 2012. The scope of each session is outlined on the website. Abstracts will be reviewed by the programme committee. Selected articles, posters and abstracts will be included in the conference proceedings and will be submitted to a special edition of the journal.
Graduate Student Contribution
Active graduate student participation in this conference will be encouraged through posters and selected lunchtime presentations. Graduate students are invited to submit an abstract to address the issues resulting from the growing Bioeconomy. The program committee representatives for each of the session categories will select the best abstracts and invite those students to share their posters at the conference. The conference registration costs for all student presenters accepted will be waived. In addition some graduate students will be selected to present their posters as a presentation during the conference.
Expected outcomes
The conference will develop a shared understanding of the issues of growing the Bioeconomy in Europe and North America, and the shared viewpoints of natural and social scientists, economists, environmentalists.
More information about the conference.