Conference Programme

Tuesday 26 March

18:00 - Informal get together, The Bishops Arms (Elite Stadshotell Karlstad)

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Day 1 - Wednesday 27 March 

Location: Innovation Park

08:30-09:00 - Registration


09:00-09:15 - Welcome and opening of conference

• Tomas Blom, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Karlstad University, Sweden
   
• Stina Höök, Regional Councillor, Region Värmland, Sweden
   
• Maria Hollander, CEO of the cluster organisation Paper Province, Sweden

09:15-10:30 - Keynote speakers

Keynote 1: Regions, natural resources and social development

Olav Wicken, professor at the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture at University of Oslo, Norway

Keynote 2: Driving a green transition in big bio clusters: the culture that we seek, and how global investments meets local ownership, knowledge and resources with an impact

Thea Lyng Thomsen, development consultant at GreenLab Skive in Region Midtjylland, Denmark
 

10:30-10:50 - Coffee and tea break - Help yourself to coffee or tea and go to four parallel workshops.

10:50-12:00 - Parallel workshops

Workshop A: "Land-use conflicts, and management solutions to unlock the transition to a biobased economy"

Land is a finite resource different interests and agendas compete over. The protection of land through regulations and law has always caused controversy and conflict. With varying interests and objectives, come also different means and modes of power. With a shift to a more enhanced biobased economy the competition over the use of land will become even more intense. In this session we welcome participants that contribute to a broadening of the understanding of land use conflicts and solutions in the Nordic countries.
Meet among others: Runa Skyrud, project leader, Tretorget AS, Bjørn Egil Flø, Research Scientist, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research and Therese Bennich, doctoral student, Stockholm University and trainee at Stockholm Environment Institute.

Chair: Elin Slätmo, Senior Research Fellow, Nordregio

Workshop B: "Local innovation networks as drivers of the bioeconomy transition"

The transition from a fossil fuel-based to a bio-based economy and the development of innovations that can facilitate this transition, require a strong collaboration among different stakeholders. This session focuses on local innovation networks, as important transition drivers. In this session we will seek to illustrate how local innovation networks work in practice. This will be combined with a more scientific focus on the local dimension discussing how we can study and analyze such networks including what are the new opportunities and challenges.
Meet among others: Dr. Kirsi Mononen, Business Development Manager, Apila Group Ltd, Diana Morales, post doc at The Centre for Regional Studies (CRS), Karlstad University and Sofia Nibblén Berndtsson, project leader, The Bioeconomy Region.​

Chair: Julia Szulecka, Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo 
 

Workshop C: “Power pitfalls in the Sustainable Bioeconomy Transition: a Governance perspective”

The Bioeconomy Transition involves different, multi-level, conflicting but interrelated interests. The questions of ‘how’ and ‘who’ can mobilize key resources are crucial to understand how power dynamics shape the transition pathway and its sustainable outcomes. In this parallel session, we would like to address ‘Governance’ as a process to manage, steer & coordinate activities of public and private bodies and their interaction. Therefore, in this session we will discuss on how governance can help foster collaboration and partnerships among different stakeholders, and social and environmental innovation in the Bioeconomy.
Meet among others: Silvia Nanni, Senior Policy Analyst, Institute for European Environmental Policy and Anna Berlina, Research Fellow, Nordregio.

Chair: Bianca Cavicchi, PhD Fellow, Department of Economics and Society, NIBIO Norway
 

Workshop D: "Bioeconomy in Nordic countries: Smart and innovative development opportunities or empty promises for communities and regions?"

The session will discuss socioeconomic impacts and processes related to bioeconomy-framed developments in Nordic countries or elsewhere. Presentations will include, for example, industrial developments and their role for local and regional  development, innovative business models and different types of entrepreneurship associated with the bioeconomy.
Meet among others: Moritz Albrecht, University of Eastern Finland, UEF and Magnus Persson, project manager, Paper Province.

Chair: Olli Lehtonen, Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, Luke, Natural Resources Institute Finland

12:00-13:00 - Lunch at Nova - Mat & möten
 

13:00-17:00 - Case: Värmland – the large scale demonstrator of forest based bioeconomy

Location: Innovation Park and Karlstad University
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13:00-14:30 - Plenary presentations
 

• Forest based bioeconomy - the highest prioritised specialisation of Värmland’s Regional Smart Specialisation Strategy.
  Anders Olsson, Manager of  Research and Innovation, Region Värmland
   
• The Academy for Smart Specialisation - the research and innovation collaboration between Region Värmland and Karlstad University 2016-2020. Erica Åkerberg, Research advisor, External Relations, Grants and Innovation Office, Karlstad University
   
• We bring the forest in to the future.
  Maria Hollander, CEO of the cluster organisation Paper Province.
   
• The new effluent water treatment in Rottneros Mill – recovering the energy in the waste water
  Nils Hauri, Chief Innovation Officer, Rottneros.

14:30-15:00 - Coffee and tea break
 

15:00-17:00 - Parallel sessions

Workshop 1. ”New ways of engaging with civil society”

The ERDF funded project “Climate smart innovation”: examples of activities at municipal level of broad engagement in relation to a transition to sustainable development. How can bioeconomy transition be inspired by other types of broad civil-society collaboration and what tools to use in user-driver innovation involving citizens and customers?
Meet among others: Peter Edberg, project manager at Paper Province, Consultant Anna Blomquist, Marie Nordfeldt, professor in Social work, and Margareta Dahlström, professor in Human Geography at Karlstad University.

Workshop 2.”Testbeds in Värmland as meeting places for researchers and regional firms”

Meet researchers at Karlstad University’s research group “Pro2BE – Processes and Products for a Circular Bioeconomy” and representatives from firms and projects. Demonstrations of some of the test beds at Karlstad University.
Meet among others: Per Myhrén, project manager at Paper Province, Stefan Frodeson, Maria Sandberg and Jonas Berghel, Pro2BE, Karlstad University and Per Emilsson, UMV Coating.

Workshop 3. ”Supporting innovation in practice – regional innovation processes for the forest based bioeconomy”

This session focuses on innovation support particularly in relation to start-ups - from idea to commercialisation.
Meet among others: Victor Isaksen CEO of STING Bioeconomy incubator, Patrik Bångerius innovation advisor at Karlstad University, Gunnar Hellerström, project manager at Paper Province, Christer Gustavsson, PhD, CEO & Founder of Bioshare AB and Tobias Söderbom Olsson, Senior student Industrial Engineering & Management at Karlstad University.

18:45 - Dinner at Karlstad CCC.

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Day 2 - Thursday 28 March 

Location: Karlstad University, The pedagogical workshop, 21A 258 in building 21.
 

09:00-09:30 - Keynote 3: Rural RDI milieus in transition towards smart bioeconomy clusters and innovation ecosystems

Runa Skyrud, project leader, Tretorget AS.

09:30-10:30 - The four parallel workshops (A-D) from the morning of 27 March continues:

Focus on producing policy recommendations and presentations for plenum. This block is 1 hour workshop in the same groups as day 1.

10:30-10:45 - Coffee and tea break

10:45-12:00 - Plenary session: The Future of the Bioeconomy in Norden and beyond

Results from the workshop discussions including policy recommendation. The session pulls together input from key notes, the parallel sessions and the Värmland Case.

12:00-13:00 - Lunch at Karlstad University

13:00-13:45 - Keynote 4: Transition towards circular bioeconomy – the role of forests

Pekka Leskinen, Head of Bioeconomy Programme, European Forest Institute
 

13:45-14:00 - Close of conference