EPSRC-funded Research Fellowship project Resilient and Sustainable Biorenewable Systems Engineering Model (EP/N034740/1)

Driven by a range of environmental challenges, e.g. climate change, energy and resource insecurity, a transition from the current fossil-based to a future sustainable bio-based economy is expected to evolve progressively in the coming decades. In the UK, the whole bioeconomy including all activities for sustainable conversion of biomass into bio-products, in total injected £220 billion added gross value and supported 5.2 million jobs in 2014. And its growth is expected to increase in coming decades. However, the bioeconomy transition cannot be achieved by partial system solutions or operation beyond multiple environmental boundaries. As advanced bioeconomy components, biorenewables are complex systems with considerable number of potential interconnections between resources, technologies and bioproducts and are multi-disciplinary. A range of conflicting and interacting issues are involved, such as resource-competition, trade-offs between economic & environmental targets, and the interaction of bio-renewables with energy, water and waste sectors under future changes. Therefore, the future biorenewable deployment calls for a systems engineering model for tackling resilience and sustainability challenges around bio-sector development. This EPSRC funded Research Fellowship project tackles such challenges the system complexity around UK biorenewables. This project aims to develop a cutting-edge integrated model from stakeholder perspectives and use the model to generate new knowledge on sustainable design of UK biorenewable value chains, which can best adapt to and mitigate future changes and contribute to the UK bioeconomy evolution.

See also, RCUK Gateway to Research page