Internationalization Ecosystem of North Karelian Forestbioeconomy and Unique Food - BIOSYS JAPAN

The aim of the BIOSYS-project is to create and strengthen already existing international Ecosystem, to grow new collaboration and growth in research-development-innovation and company activities of the North Karelian forest bioeconomy and Food sectors together with partnernetworks in Japan and South Korea. This Ecosystem creates a working model and two way bridge also in RDI- and business- cooperation and enhances the competitiveness of North Karelia as an attractive and viable region for different actors: companies, connects operators, regional partners and stakeholders in to more deep and long lasting cooperation with Japan’s regions and builds new connections and scan the potential for collaboration with potential South Korean regions. The project strengthens the close connection that has already been built between the Nagano Prefeture Administration of North Karelia and Japan, the City of Ina, and the actors involved in the forest and circular bioeconomy in the Hokkaido and Tokyo areas. This Ecosystem also provides a bridge for operators in Japanese regions to enable cooperation between RDI and business operations from Japan directly to North Karelia.
The key themes of the project are; Building and strengthening the ecosystem cooperation and interregional cooperation and operating models. Enhancing together concrete new openings in RDI and testing novel sustainability assessment schemes of forest bioeconomy technologies, supporting international growth pathways of forest bioeconomy companies, cooperation on platforms and pilots for wood construction, wood procurement and wood allocation. Increasing new co-creation initiatives between regions, including testing of new solutions of enhancing wellbeing and focusing on health impacts of wood, forest based products and living environment in housing and service environments – and their applications/demos. North Karealian food sector and SME’s are now included into Ecosystem to promote regions unique food solutions but to also provide sparring for company clusters to open new market opportunities in Japan and South Korea.