On 16-20 January 2018 the kick-off meeting of a new EU-funded ERASMUS PLUS BioEcoNet took place at the Faculty of Forest and Environment in Eberswalde, Germany. BioEcoN is short for European-Vietnamese Higher Education Network for Sustainable Forest- and Bio-Economy. Six partner universities from four countries work together in the project coordinated by the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE). In addition to HNEE, Europe is represented by the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Ltd. (XAMK) in Mikkeli, Finland and the University of Valladolid (UVa) in Palencia, Spain. Three partners are from Vietnam: the VNU University of Science (VNU-HUS) in Hanoi, the Vietnam National University of Forestry (VNUF) in Hanoi, and the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry (TUAF) in Thai Nguyen City.
The aim of the project is to develop curricula for a new Masters course in the field of bio-economy over the next three years. The new teaching content is intended to enable graduates to manage sustainable use of bio-based materials and their value chains.
At the four-day kick-off meeting in January, the university representatives from Spain, Finland, Vietnam and Germany met to exchange country experiences and plan the course of the project in detail for the next three years.