The Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe (BISC-E) is a Europe-wide student competition to stimulate entrepreneurship and award excellence. The programme offers student teams opportunities to practice entrepreneurship by addressing relevant technological, environmental, or societal challenges with innovative bio-based solutions.

BISC-E seeks to raise awareness and involve students in the transition towards a bio-based economy. A key objective of the BISC-E programme is to stimulate and support entrepreneurship in curricula at universities. In the near future we plan to extend this programme to include vocational education level students.

The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) has adopted BISC-E and provides a central role in mobilising country participation. BIC does so by nominating BISC-E National Coordinators in each country in Europe, and coordinates the national BISC-Es, assisted by a European Coordinator. For 2023 this Coordinator is the Association for European Life Science Universities (ICA).

Is your team up to it?

Are you ready to develop an innovative bio-based solution to help overcome hurdles standing in the way of a climate-neutral Europe? BISC-E invites students to design solutions in a multidisciplinary team and compete at national and international levels.

Are you up to the challenge? Register with the National Coordinator in your country now!The countries participating in BISC-E2023 are shown below. The national student team winners from the national BISC-Es can participate in the European final.

Get Inspired

Get inspired and watch the videos of BISC-E teams that participated in previous editions.

Indicative DATES

31 March: Registration of student teams with the National Coordinator
April - mid-May: Student teams prepare their case for the national BISC-E
15 May latest: Submission of business case and supporting documents to the National Coordinator
31 May latest: National BISC-E round to determine the national winner
14 July latest: Submission of the national winners and their business cases to the European Coordinator and BIC

The actual deadlines will be set by the national coordinator in each country.

European final

The European final will proceed in two rounds during September 2023. In the first round, all national student team winners present their business case to a panel of international experts. The panel judges the proposals, focusing on technological excellence. The top-5 student teams proceed to the final round to pitch their case to industry experts who judge the proposals focusing on scalability and economic feasibility. The combined scores from the panel of experts and industry determines the ultimate winners of BISC-E.

Great prizes for the european winners!

All national winners represent their country in the European final, organised by Bio-based Industry Consortium. The European final is scheduled for the autumn of 2023. The Bio-based Industry Consortium has made some great prizes available for the winner of the European final.

First place

€ 5000

and:

1 year free BIC ‘Full Member’ membership for the winning student team; this offers access to the full network of industry members, and involvement in the content planning for the partnership between BIC and the European Commission (Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking – CBE JU).
1 year free BIC ‘Associate Member’ membership for the supporting/host university of the winning student team; this offers networking opportunities with all universities, RTOs, associations who are BIC member.
Winning team and its project taken up in BIC’s newsletter and on BIC’s website; this offers the opportunity to update progress of the project and attract further attention.
Articles on the winning team and its project in international magazines that BIC works with. This will provide exposure to the broad bio-based sector and the European Commission.
Guided support by BIC staff during membership.

The top-5 student teams will receive training on pitching and making of a video to present their innovative proposal. All videos will be uploaded on the BIC website and are accessible for everybody.

Second place

€ 2500

Third place

€ 1000

Countries participating in BISC-E2023

The 19 countries that participate this year with their National Coordinator and contact persons are:

Belgium: University of Ghent – Nathan De Geyter; Nathalie De Coensel
Bulgaria: Agriculture University Plodiv – Dean Dimo Atanasov
Croatia: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek – Sanja Jelić Milković
Czech Republic: MendelUniversity – Pawan Kumar Mishra
France: Bioeconomy for Change – Valerie Valet
Germany: University of Hohenheim – Andreas Kiesel; Juliane Stoye
Greece: National Technical University of Athens; School of Chemical Engineering – Antonis Kokossis
Hungary: Debrecen University – László Zsombik
Iceland: Agricultural university of Iceland – Ragnheidur Þórarinsdóttir
Ireland: Munster Technology University – Zoe Rush; Helen McMahon
Italy: University of Verona – Salvatore Fusco
Latvia: Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry – Ugis Cabuli
Lithuania: Lithuanian Biotechnology Association – Inga Matijošytė
Netherlands: TKI Green Chemistry & Circularity – Bert van Rees; Kees de Gooijer
Poland: Łukasiewicz Research Network, Automotive Industry Institute – Piotr Wieczorek; Krzysztof Biernat
Portugal: University of Minho – José Teixeira
Romania: University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca – Andrei Mihalca
Slovenia: Chamber Of Commerce/Industry + University of Ljubljana – Nina Meglič
Spain: University of Almería - Francisco Javier Egea Gonzalez
Sweden: University of Borås - Mohammad Taherzadeh

For information on the national BISC-E in your country, click on the flag/name of the country to lead you to the national BISC-E website.

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