BEACON - A Biorefining Centre of Excellence for Wales

BEACON is a biorefining initiative funded from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). BEACON is a partnership between three Welsh Universities at Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea. The partnership has led to the creation of a Welsh Centre of Excellence in biorefining with a primary focus of developing systems for converting plant biomass into products.

BEACON aims ‘to make North/West Wales a vibrant, entrepreneurial region at the cutting edge of sustainable development’ by building a knowledge based bio-economy, improving business competitiveness, and creating sustainable business environments through collaborative partnerships with industry.

BEACON has:

• Established collaborative links between the business community and academia within Wales, by engaging with over 200 companies across a wide range of sectors
• Developed new products and processes that will support economic growth, from platform chemicals and plant extracts for the chemical industry, to biofuels to support the energy sector and new materials for the packaging and construction industry
• Created highly skilled jobs in the area of green biotechnology
• Created a multidisciplinary team of 80 scientists and support staff
• Developed the R&D infrastructure of Welsh Universities in the area of low carbon technologies
• Supported inward investment and generated new intellectual property
• Promoted science excellence from Wales with Europe and collaborated with world leading research organisations across the globe

BEACON received the prestigious European Commission’s (EC) top award for innovative regional development at the Regio Stars Awards in March 2014 and won the ‘Sustainable Growth’ category.

BEACON are interested in collaboration with Industry do develop new products and processes from a range of plant biomass.

Country: United Kingdom

Organization Type: University

Email: gao4@aber.ac.uk

City: Aberystwyth ,IBERS Google map

Areas of Activities