Observations on biosciences, diversity and bioeconomy

The contents of this third issue of the Newsletter, and of the two previous ones, reflect only part of the activities related to biosciences that are taking place in the Basque Country. Although it gives an incomplete vision, it does however allow us to see the key features of this emerging sector. To understand the sector, indeed any sector, and the way it works is essential when providing the best framework for development, especially in the context of a change in the productive system.

We should perhaps remember first that backing for biosciences in the Basque Country has grown out of a desire to diversify our industrial fabric, and thus contribute to social and economic welfare in the coming decades.

From this perspective, the diversity of organisations with their different characteristics and objective and, in particular, the relationships they forge between each other, is a focal point because it correctly reflects the complexity of a system which is diametrically opposed to any linear concepts of value creation.

Both in this newsletter and in the previous issues, we show examples of new companies and technological transfer (including patent licensing) as a result of knowledge generation. We look at the results of companies that are new and companies that were set up many years ago, business projects carried out in collaboration with scientific and technological agents and with the health system, the relationships between companies at different points on the value chain (developers of new products or services, suppliers and users) and the results of R&D and innovation activity coming out of the research substratum of the Basque Country.

The diversity of R&D in the Basque BioRegion is precisely another focal point. It ranges from the search for answers and fundamental questions about the nature of biological mechanisms or the way that living creatures function, through developments applied to specific needs, to concrete examples of technological convergence and joint ventures between diverse industries, including the potential users.

This diversity (enterprise, research, etc.), far from being gratuitous, is the wealth and force that allows for growth in the short, medium and long term, and is the panorama to be seen in developed regions and countries that have invested in the bioeconomy. The OECD itself recognises in "The Bioeconomy to 2030. Designing a policy agenda" that "the bioeconomy holds at least some of the cards to ensure long term economic and environmental sustainability. But that potential will not become reality without attentive and active support from governments and the public at large".