Regional Hub of North-East selects food, water and nutrients key value chain for the mission of circular industry transformation
Led by Impact Hub Budapest, the SoTecIn Factory Regional Hub for the North-East ( Hungary, including Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) has selected the food, water and nutrients key value chain as the basis of future SoTecIn Factory circularity missions to enable it’s radical and systemic change through technological and social innovations.
Having a vast network in the food, water and nutrients value chain , IH Budapest, as the coordinator of the Regional Hub, has conducted the assessment by contacting many of the experts related to the topic including universities & RTD , SMEs, startups, NGOs and governmental organisations. In the meantime, a qualitative questionnaire was created and sent to various partners working in the value chain containing questions to collect information about the sector, the sector’s financial and technological background, circular economy aspects, innovations and challenges in the Food, water and nutrients sector and existing partnerships in the field.
The value chain selection is based on the circular value chain principles and the relevance of the sector in the whole region backed by different real examples and EU-related findings and statistics that shows that in all of the target countries food, water and nutrients value chain has key importance. The technology component of the sector is an added value to the justification, being one of the most innovative sectors in the whole planet and with pioneer innovations in the North-East region.
The choice is also backed by IH Budapest’s long-term commitment and experience in supporting business development and circular innovation in rural areas, backed by Agri-food related female entrepreneurship programs such as The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE), and EIT Food Empowering Women in Agriculture program.
What’s next?
As previously mentioned, SoTecIn Factory aims to support its community of diverse stakeholders from European industry, NGOs, academia and public sector in formulating at least 7 key value chain-based missions (at least one mission per each region and its selected value chain).
But what are these Missions exactly?
They are essentially broad but bounded aspirational objective(s) that capture the general circular challenge(s) in the domain of selected value chain(s), which the industry strives to solve with the use of social innovation-based tech solutions.
Once formulated, the missions will serve as the basis of the Open Call for Challenge Owners designed to help industry leaders in identifying and providing specific ,mission-based sustainability challenges relevant for their organisation which social entrepreneurs will strive to solve via two SoTecIn Factory Open Calls for social innovators in 2023 and 2024.
How can I join the action?
So, what could this mission be in the context of food, water and nutrients in the region of North-East?
While conducting the assessment of regional needs, The Regional Hub of Hungary has noticed some prime examples of challenges which the North-East has been facing. Could the final mission be about the improved management of waste rich in nutrients through sustainable and circular use of waste fertilizers? Or reuse and recycling of wastewater in Lithuania? Perhaps reducing the high pollution loads of sewage treatment plants is a crucial focus of this region.
The final answer, however comes within the industry itself while SoTecIn Factory helps in bringing it to the surface by supporting its Community divided into 7 regional fractions (Regional Communities) , led by local Impact Hubs, in voicing circular needs and goals of its members per respective regional value chain.
To help you learn more about SoTecIn Factory, as well as on how to join the Regional Community of North-East, the Regional Hub will organise a workshop on 29 November 2022. Click on the button down below to register.
