Equipping Europe’s Workforce for the Bio-Based Future | ESEIA’s Role in Building Green Skills

Europe’s bioeconomy is expanding rapidly, creating new opportunities for innovation and sustainability. Yet industries face a serious skills gap: demand for green and bio-based expertise is growing almost twice as fast as supply. According to the European Commission, new job profiles in the bioeconomy will increase significantly by 2030, while a survey[1] by the European Investment Bank revealed that 69% of municipalities lack experts with environmental and climate assessment skills.

Without urgent investment in training, the shortage of skilled professionals risks slowing down Europe’s green transition.

Why skills matter for Europe’s bioeconomy: Technological innovation in the bio-based sector requires years of development before achieving tangible results. To deliver impact, Europe needs a workforce that can transform research into industrial applications and societal benefits.

Within the ESEIA network, members have identified three key priorities:

  • Interdisciplinary training that treats the bioeconomy as a system, breaking down traditional silos.
  • Closer collaboration between education and industry, offering students and professionals hands-on projects, internships, and mobility opportunities.
  • Soft skills development — systems thinking, teamwork, adaptability, and communication — essential in fast-changing innovation ecosystems.

ESEIA’s Experience in Building Green Skills

Over the past decade, ESEIA has coordinated major EU-funded projects that directly addressed Europe’s skills gap in the bioeconomy by linking education, research, and industry. Two flagship examples are Phoenix and BioEnergyTrain (BET).

Phoenix – People for the European Bio-Energy Mix (Horizon 2020, 2015–2019)
Phoenix united academia, business, and the public sector to develop innovative solutions for a European bioeconomy based on non-conventional bio-resources. Through research collaboration and targeted staff exchanges, the project bridged knowledge gaps, strengthened links between industrial innovation and education, and accelerated the market uptake of solutions supporting SET-Plan measures. Phoenix also laid the groundwork for a network of integrated research and industrial infrastructures, with programmes for collaborative postgraduate training.

BioEnergyTrain (BET, Horizon 2020, 2015–2019)
Building on this foundation, BET brought together 15 partners from six EU countries to address the shortage of skilled professionals across the bioenergy value chain. The project created two European Master’s programmes — Biorefinery Engineering (TU Graz, AT) and Bioresource Value Chain Management (University of Twente, NL) — developed with Aalborg University (DK), FH Joanneum (AT), Aalto University (FI), and industrial partners.

A perspective from ESEIA leadership

“Europe’s bio-based future depends on how well we prepare our workforce today. Training must address not only technical expertise, but also the entrepreneurial and collaborative skills required to translate innovation into real impact. ESEIA’s role is to connect academia, industry, and policymakers to make this transformation possible.”
— Brigitte Hasewend, ESEIA Director

Together, Phoenix and BET demonstrate ESEIA’s unique role in advancing education, research, and innovation ecosystems for the bioeconomy. They show how collaborative postgraduate programmes, mobility schemes, and cross-sector partnerships can prepare a highly skilled workforce to drive Europe’s transition to a climate-neutral and circular economy.

[1] https://www.eib.org/en/press/all/2023-255-eib-unveils-2022-municipality-survey-findings-skills-shortage-is-delaying-the-green-transition?utm

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