BIO-BASED INNovation
student challenge ​europe

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 and monitoring country participation through national BISC-E competions. BIC does so by nominating BISC-E National Coordinators in each country in Europe, who are organising and implementing the national BISC-Es. The Association for European Life Science Universities (ICA) will assist BIC during BISC-E 2024 to connect countries so far absent in BISC-E.

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 that have announced their participation in BISC-E 2024 are shown below and there you can find the coordinates of the respective National Coordinators. New participating countries will appear soon. The national student team winners from the national BISC-Es will participate in the European final of BISC-E 2024 in September 2024.

European final

The European final will proceed in two rounds during September 2024. 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 determine the ultimate winners of BISC-E 2024.

All student teams going into the first round will receive professional training on making an effective pitch. The top-5 student teams proceeding to the final round will receive in addition professional training on making a video to present their innovative proposal. All videos will be uploaded on the BIC website and are accessible for everybody.

Great prizes for the european winners!

All national winners represent their country in the European final, organised by Bio-based Industries Consortium. The Bio-based Industries Consortium has made some great prizes available for the winners 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.

Second place

€ 2500

Third place

€ 1000

Countries participating in BISC-E2024

The countries that have announced their participation so far with their National Coordinator and contact persons are:

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. These websites are currently being updated to show information on BISC-E 2024.