Then and Now: 120 Bioeconomy Pioneers look at yesterday, today, inspirations and challenges

Jose Vitor Bomtempo

Then:  I was working on our first reports on biofuels and innovation at UFRJ, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Now: We have been working on the biofuels and innovation topic since 2007. Reports and papers were written, new courses were developed, dissertations and thesis were done by our MSc and DSc students. And, the most important change, we have created a new research group – Bioeconomy Study Group, at UFRJ, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro which focus is no more only biofuels but the bioeconomy as an innovation process.

Inspirations: Personal opportunities are great but I’d like to see in the next years Brazil, my country, having a more relevant role in the bioeconomy

Challenges:  Challenges change as the industry evolves. Now probably scale up is a very challenging problem. But the very challenge is still to combine in a viable and innovative way the four key dimensions: feedstock, technology, product and business model.