#1 Fifteen years of CLIB – fifteen years of transformation
CLIB celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Our network has now been active for 15 years – something that hardly anyone expected at the beginning. This was also reflected in the name CLIB2021 chosen at that time. While in 2008 this still seemed to be a long way in the future, today this date is already 2 years in the past and CLIB has more members than ever before (currently 110). The number 2021 was of course not chosen at random, it was borrowed from the BMBF’s BioIndustry 2021 funding programme, which at the time was the trigger for the first cluster concept and the founding of the association.
Those involved and familiar with the process at that time will of course rightly object that the actual founding of the association already took place in 2007. Strictly speaking, we are already in our 16th year since the founding. However, the establishment of the office and the start of work in the initial project “Cluster Management of the Industrial Biotechnology Cluster CLIB 2021” began in 2008 – and with it the actual activity as a network.
The then CEO and cluster manager Manfred Kircher (then Degussa, now Evonik Industries) received the funding decision for this project in April 2008, the reward of about one and a half years of work that went into the applications in the two-stage BioIndustry 2021 competition and into the preparation of more than 30 project outlines that were to show the cluster’s announced project portfolio. It provided the basis for the 26 collaborative projects carried out in the following years, which included a funding volume of more than 20 million euros. These projects and actors then in turn formed the cluster core, from which further projects and activities emerged over the years. In the weeks leading up to our CLIB Networking Day on 23 October at Covestro in Leverkusen, we would like to look back with you on some of these activities and projects and review important events in the history of the cluster. Be excited!
Let’s look back together on a manifold 15-year development that is far from over. Like our members, CLIB has constantly evolved during this time and will continue to do so. In 2007, 37 organisations joined forces to form an association with the idea of “making an important contribution to the transformation of the chemical industry” through industrial biotechnology (BioIndustrie 2021 application). An ambition that has lost none of its relevance 15 years later, and is perhaps even more urgent today than ever before.
Let us continue to work together towards this goal!
#2 The CLIB brochure
The CLIB brochure has always been part of the public representation of our cluster, and we keep it around at all internal and external events through the year. Published at the beginning of each year, the CLIB International Conference is always a good opportunity to get your hands on a copy.
Loyal readers of our brochure will quickly find the familiar sections:
The joint greeting by our chairman and our cluster manager, the presentation of our activities in numerous projects and, of course, the portfolios our member companies. Besides that, the brochure features and overview of our motivated team in the CLIB office and you can have a look at the current composition of our board and advisory board.
The CLIB brochure also reflects the changes that the Cluster Industrial Biotechnology has undergone over the years. First and foremost, it is the place where CLIB explains the current strategic focus of its activities and transparently presents the foundation on which our work rests.
Although CLIB remains active along and across a broad spectrum of value chains, sectors, and disciplines, there have been some changes over the years, as you will learn in detail at some other point during our anniversary campaign. In addition to strategic realignments, our focus on bioeconomy topics can increasingly be seen in our corporate design, where rather technical-looking representations have been replaced by organic forms over time.
Our team always has a busy time designing the brochure each year, and all the effort and creative energy peaks in the moments of completion and commissioning of printing. Less frequent on-site events and our commitment to sustainability have led us to reduce the size of the annual print run over time. Nevertheless, we like to have the CLIB brochure at hand as a comprehensive presentation of CLIB and are happy to share it with our members and the participants of our events.
Would you like to browse through our CLIB brochure? Then feel free to pick up a copy at one of our upcoming events or take a look digitally here.
#3 Technologies at CLIB
The technology-driven approach
CLIB has always striven to put technology, not ideology, at the forefront of its work. Over the years, the CLIB team has closely analysed new technology trends and upcoming ideas in the biotech community and, in the process, witnessed some serious setbacks as well as some true triumphs of biotechnology. From our point of view, a decisive factor for our continued success has been that we have always evaluated and supported technologies based on their application potential.
Accordingly, it has been very important for us to stay in close exchange with both researchers and industry from our membership. Only in doing so, we can meet these challenging tasks and structure our respective initiatives. It has also been very important to facilitate this exchange with well-placed topics at our CIC, forum events for specific technologies, and Think Tanks such as our well-known C1 ThinkTank.
An early prominent example of this technology-driven approach was the collaboration of several academic members in four technology platforms (ExpressO, RedoxCell, PolyOmics, and Downstream Processing). In 2018, this cooperation was continued in the CKB – CLIB Kompetenzzentrum Biotechnologie. In CKB, more than 30 working groups addressed challenges for the three megatrends resource efficiency, raw materials, and health to develop innovations into applications. We are very pleased that these projects have also laid a long-term foundation for collaboration not only between academic partners but also with industry.
As the transformation to a circular bioeconomy requires numerous new technologies, it goes without saying that CLIB continues accelerate the technology development and transfer as described in our respective strategic pillar.
#4 Minds of the future
Innovations, implementation, and maintaining of new processes and products in industrial biotechnology and bioeconomy depend on young people and the next generation of biotech experts. CLIB and its members realised this early on and acted in one of the first projects at CLIB: the CLIB Graduate Cluster Industrial Biotechnology started in 2009. This doctoral programme of three CLIB member universities Bielefeld University, TU Dortmund University, and HHU Düsseldorf, also expanded to the Research Centre Jülich, saw 135 students receive scholarships and extra training to become the next generation of interdisciplinary industrial biotechnology experts. In its scope, it was the largest such interdisciplinary graduate cluster, spanning . Its alumni nowadays work in a variety of functions and industries and we are still proud to see them progress in their careers.
For CLIB, the benefit was clear: the students become young experts with additional competences and the ability to drive new innovations in the field. They are also valuable new employees for the cluster’s members and beyond. In coordinating the programme, the cluster was also able to remain at the pulse of current scientific advances.
Over the years, CLIB has accompanied several other education projects, and broadened its own scope of activities and competences. We helped develop a massive open online course (MOOC), which was elaborated by scientists from Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium, and had a global attendance of 8000 students, 700 of which came from Germany. In several modules, they learned about “Biobased Products for a Sustainable (Bio)economy”. In the MSC-ITNs ConCO2rde and BiodeCCodiNNg, CLIB is responsible for developing and providing trainings for the PhD students in career development and entrepreneurship. We want to continue to use our competences to support our members in training young experts in the vast field of bioeconomy – from biology to engineering and from chemistry to computer science, not forgetting research on technology evaluation and social and economic impacts of circular and bioeconomy innovation.
While we have mainly focused on graduate and post-graduate education, following our members in this area, we recognise that the circular bioeconomy not only needs the basic researchers and innovators able to advance the field, but also practitioners who are able to run the processes in industry. This is reflected in our new strategy developed in 2022.
#5 Material streams in the region
During the last 15 years, CLIB established a strong network of partners and members in the Netherlands and the Flanders region. Located in Düsseldorf, most of the early members of CLIB also were located in North-Rhine Westphalia. One of the first connections to the Netherlands was made to the agriculture sector, but many more should follow. With time the number of partners in the Netherlands grew, a fact also represented by experts (like Prof. Luke van der Wielen) in CLIBs advisory board. As today CLIB counts 10 active members from the Netherlands and several more partners connected via projects and initiatives.
One topic has always been in focus of our connection to the Netherlands is the sustainable use of biomass and biogenic side streams. Besides activities in international clusters like BIG-C and early partake in projects like Bio Base NWE, CLIB took leading position in a series of consecutive projects. In 2014 the so-called regional innovation network “Model Region for Innovative and Sustainable Material Flow” (RIN Stoffströme) was set up to identify biomass resource potentials, connect practitioners along value chains, and promote social acceptance. The Project, funded by NRW, focussed on the local resource potentials at first. Within the project, however, it became eminent that more innovative value can be gained by an international perspective concluding in a biomass potential analysis of the German-Netherlands region.
With the groundwork done, the Interreg project CIRCULAR-BIO followed up on the findings of RIN. Starting 2019, the project supported the creation of new, innovative, and cross border value chains and business models in the bioeconomy sector. SMEs could make use of an innovation voucher system, that applied funding to German-Dutch cooperative projects. A total of eight voucher projects showed the innovative potential of the region and offered a new perspective on how to establish value chains across the border.
In our new Interreg VI Deutschland Netherland project, called Realise-Bio, we again make excellent use of the collective competence of our DE/NL consortium. With partners in North-Rhine Westphalia, Lower Saxony and several provinces in the Netherlands, Realise-Bio will support start-ups and SMEs in the programme region to bring their sustainable products to the market. Again model projects between Dutch and German companies can be funded in the project framework to kickstart products and processes using residual biomass and create additional value for the program region.
At CLIB we are proud and happy about the network of trustworthy partners we were able to establish in Germany, the Netherlands and beyond. These networks and projects enable us to broaden our reach and enable us to connect relevant actors and support efficient tech transfer for the transformation to a circular bioeconomy.
We are excited to see what the future holds for the sustainable utilisation of biogenic resources, side streams, and of course for our cross-border collaborations.
#6 Starting each year with a bang – the CIC
CLIB Is Cool – The CIC!
If you wondered what CIC stands for, it is obviously not a medium quality advertising slogan but THE event of the CLIB year: The CLIB International Conference. Since 2010, CLIB is gathering together the brightest minds, best ideas for innovations and the most progressive R&D departments from industry once a year. At the CIC, CLIB not only welcomes its longest family members, but also opens up to industry, academia, investors, and policy makers outside the network. This 2-day get-together and exchange has driven key developments in the field of biotechnology, bioeconomy, circular economy, and green thinking over the last decade. And it will continue to do so in future, providing a platform for the participants to exchange with other stakeholders and decision makers. Register directly for the next CIC, 21 to 22 February 2024, in Düsseldorf, Germany: CLIB International Conference CIC2024. But for now, lean and look back on 15 years of talks, discussions, and memories of CIC!
#7 Trilateral cooperation
Trilateral Cooperation – Transforming the biggest chemical cluster in Europe
Even though we as CLIB are an international cluster bringing together stakeholders from all over the world, collaboration with our neighbours next door was and is still of particular importance.
It is no coincidence that the CLIB office is located within the biggest chemical cluster in Europe – the Antwerp-Rotterdam-Rhine-Ruhr-Area, which covers Flanders, the Netherlands and NRW. Together with other clusters of the trilateral region CLIB has established the initiative BIG-Cluster in 2013 to support the transition of the chemical industry towards biobased feedstocks, circularity, and sustainability. As one of the leading partners, we were not only able to establish longstanding and trusting connections to other clusters in the region, to network our members and extended network with relevant partners across the borders, but also to start joint research and innovation projects on several topics. Want to know more about these projects….read our next post on Monday.
The connections we have build during the last 10 years of collaboration with partners from across the border continue to enrich our network. The clusters we are connected to via BIG-Cluster are relevant partners and friends working towards the same goal and extending the network our members can access; the academic institutes and industrial partners add further topics, raw materials, technologies, and products to the colourful CLIB bouquet, each reflecting how bioeconomy is defined and implemented in their specific.
CLIB’s work on supporting the chemical industry in its transformation continues – regionally, nationally, as well as with our neighbours next door and abroad.
#8 Filling the trilateral cooperation with life
Proof your expertise! The interactive ABC quiz on CLIB’s trilateral strategy
As mentioned last week, the BIG Cluster Initiative has led to the formation of three CLIB-coordinated projects that have addressed different aspects of trilateral collaboration. Under the acronym ABC Projects, these three projects have worked on innovative technical practices, interactive learning formats, and the integration of entrepreneurship in education to accelerate the creation of a sustainable and circular bioeconomy in the trilateral region.
How familiar are you with CLIB’s activities in the BIG Cluster Initiative and ABC projects? Are you a newcomer to trilateral cooperation or an expert?
#9 Start-up support
From university to the market: Founding made easy(er)
Supporting entrepreneurs in starting a business and scaling their innovation has been one of CLIB strategic focusses for more than half a decade now. In 2017 our first international business plan competition, the G-BiB, was launched with partners from the Netherlands and Brazil. CLIB hosted four editions of the competition with various partners in six countries with more than 30 teams participating. In 2022 the last edition of the G-BiB reached a conclusion during the CIC, but fostering entrepreneurship continued to be an important part of our work.
In the EU-project MPowerBIO, we were able to support more than 280 SMEs in increasing their investment readiness level, and the number is rising as you can still benefit from the online courses developed in this project. Take a look at them: https://courses.mpowerbio.eu/. A new event series that started within the MPowerBIO project persists even after the end of the project: The SME & Start-up Pitching Event @ CLIB. The last edition in August this year brought together 12 SMEs and more than 30 experts from industry and investors. But not only through the event, also through information on funding opportunities and our strong investor and support network, we help start-ups and SMEs grow and make an impact.
#10 CLIB design over time
Always in sight and yet rarely in focus: The CLIB design
Today, it is time to take a look at the background and take a closer look at the colors and shapes there. In the past 15 years, CLIB has constantly evolved and, accordingly, the design has not stood still. But what is good design anyway, if it literally works in the background?
Well, of course it should look chic and contemporary, offer recognition value “at a glance”, emphasize the actual message, but never disturb or irritate… no easy task! So here are a few insights into the evolution of CLIB design.
#11 In the heart of Europe
CLIB in the heart of Europe
With our headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany, we are located in the midst of Europe – and from its beginning, CLIB has connected with stakeholders in bioeconomy across the EU. We partner with clusters across Europe, we are a founding member of the Bio-based Industries Consortium, and we are actively involved in EU-funded projects.
Neither feedstock streams, nor research and innovation, nor products or markets stop at borders. Several of our founding cluster members are international corporations or internationally renowned academic institutes and were clear in their goal to make CLIB an international open innovation cluster. . And this means connecting beyond Germany’s borders, to our neighbours and partners across the EU.
We have good relations with partner initiatives for example from the Netherlands and Flanders/Belgium (we wrote about this in #7 Trilateral Cooperation), with Austria, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, the UK, and France. With some of them we have signed MoUs, with others we are in the 3Bi initiative, and with many we co-organise events. By reaching out to them, we can enrich our network with new ideas and partnerships. We also reach out to each other when our members need a partner beyond our direct network.
We are proud to be a founding member of the Bio-Based Industries Consortium, BIC. This association was founded to help organise the PPP Bio-Based Industries, which became the first EU-wide funding mechanism on industrial-led bio-based projects. It is now in its second phase, as Circular Bio-based Europe, CBE JU, again with the European Commission as the public partner. As a cluster member, we represent our SMEs in this PPP and keep their interests in industrial biotech as a key element of bioeconomy in focus – and in the annual work programmes.
Another way we are present in Europe is via EU-funded projects. We help to initiate these and support consortia to find the right partners and words in a proposal. We also join as a project partner in innovation projects or supporting actions of strategic importance for CLIB and our members. These projects are excellent opportunities to accompany innovations or to help build a supportive ecosystem for bioeconomy innovation and financing.
Examples are the flagship project FARMŸNG, the innovation demo projects FuturEnzyme and COUNTLESS, or the coordinating and support actions BIOPEN, MPowerBIO, BIOTRANSFORM, and BioeconomyVentures.
#12 CLIB anchored in NRW
From NRW out into the world
CLIB’s cluster core is located in the German federal state with the largest economic output – North-Rhine Westphalia. Fifty percent of our members are located here. The cluster management is also closely linked to the important players in NRW – be it academic, economic, supportive, or political stakeholders. Over the last 15 years numerous projects and collaborations have been coordinated, supported, and accompanied by CLIB to promote the local ecosystem in growing, expanding, and making a difference on a larger scale.
The CLIB-Graduate Cluster trained more than 140 PhDs at 4 academic institutions in NRW, and the CLIB-Competence Centre Biotechnology (CKB) built an integrated infrastructure for the bioeconomy between those four institutions a few years later. Both projects received funding from the Ministry of research in NRW.
The HiPerIn projects and since January 2023 also the Triple-S project, all funded by the Ministry for economics in NRW, extended our network to new sectors over the course of several years and allowed us to support innovations. CLIB wants to build a strong bioeconomy in NRW and transfer the learnings from a local to a global perspective. This is also why we are strongly engaged in the structural change programme in the Rhenish lignite mining area here in NRW.
#13 The CLIB team over time
The CLIB-team over time
The CLIB journey began 15 years ago with a small team around the then cluster manager Manfred Kircher. He was initially supported by Sylvia Hannig and Uwe Wäckers, who were seconded by VCI NRW to set up the cluster. BIO.NRW also supported the cluster early on by seconding Jens Klabunde to CLIB. Tatjana Schwabe-Marković became the first full CLIB employee, joining the cluster as project manager in the second year after the association was founded. She was followed by Dennis Herzberg (initially as an intern) and Sabine Dues. This team formed the CLIB office for some time, before the team began to expand when the initial BMBF funding ended and the clusters increasingly diversified.
In the meantime, several much appreciated people have supported CLIB for longer or shorter periods of time, and have since moved on to other stations in their careers:
Jens Klabunde, Sabine Dues, Ellen Knorr, Xiao Chen, Uwe Wäckers, Carolin Lange, Anna Schmidt, Anna Hagemann, Freedanz Ferdinanz, Sabine Piontek, Juri Bach, Cornelia Bähr, Vera Haye, Lena Kröninger, Sylvia Hannig, and Annika Thamm.
Many thanks for this! We are happy that we stayed in touch with so many of you!
#14 Meeting the CLIB family
Meeting the CLIB family: CLIB Networking Day
When you enter the CLIB network, you might feel like participating at “Married at First Sight”. You enter a completely new family that you do not know yet very well and vice versa. To get and keep you connected to other members, ongoing activities and new developments, we organise an annual family meeting since 2019, the CLIB Networking Day. Being organised often at one of our member’s sites, the event provides the possibility for new members to shortly present their activities and their need for cooperation partners. In extended networking breaks, we provide you the possibility to exchange directly and face-to-face with old friends and new, promising business contacts. Beside the CLIB International Conference, the CLIB Networking Day is the second largest fixed point in the course of the CLIB year. Lean back and check out how the CND developed over the last years!
And the best thing is: The next CND will be in no time! We warmly welcome you at the upcoming CND on 23 October 2023 at Covestro in Leverkusen!
#15 Here’s to the next 15 years!
Here’s to the next 15 years!
This post marks the digital end of the current campaign before it has its final act at our general meeting. Looking at the pictures from the past posts, the past 15 years seem like a long time. Looking at the topics which have lost little of their relevance, they tend not to be. So, what could we say about the next 15 years? If one is honest, most forecasts about the future are rather embarrassing for the maker once future has become the present.
Therefore, we would like to keep it with Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.”
In view of the current news, many people find it difficult to maintain or even to develop a positive vision of the future. Sometimes this worry is so deep-seated that no future at all is seen. But inevitably, there will be a future. It is therefore up to us not only to explore, invent, and realise a path to a tomorrow worth living but also to show this path. We advocate seeing biotechnology not purely as a problem solver for impending disasters, but as a key tool to enable a better future. In the next 15 years, biotechnology will make products better, people healthier, and our economy more circular. Properly envisioned, circular bioeconomy is not a band-aid for past generations’ mistakes, but a hopeful promise to future generations.
Of course, we should always keep in mind that this more hopeful future will not happen on its own: every individual is needed, but also political will and cooperative collaboration. Consequently – although we cannot predict the future – we are convinced the central CLIB values will still be important in 15 years: trustworthy partners, a lot of innovative spirit, and the necessary courage to change!
Here’s to the next 15 years!
