Pathways for a sustainable biomanufacturing future
A new University of Manchester Research Institute (UMRI)-funded project, 鈥減athways for sustainable biomanufacturing futures鈥� will offer thought-leadership and strategies for addressing the barriers and challenges faced by the biomanufacturing industry. It will also build partnerships between higher education and industry to increase collaboration and drive forward research and industry initiatives. The project will be focused on the north-west of England and will complement the work carried out by the IBIC.
Three core themes make up the project, each a challenge area the biomanufacturing community must address 鈥� with support from educational institutions, government and policymakers, and industry 鈥� if the sector is to grow and support the UK鈥檚 sustainability goals.
The three themes are:
For each theme, a group of sector leaders came together in a series of foresight workshops to identify opportunities and address the challenges. The first workshop (held on 14 Feb 2024) focused on people, capabilities, and infrastructure. The second workshop (held on 21 February 2024) centred on future feedstocks, and the third workshop (held on 28 February 2024) tackled skills, training, and diversity. The outcomes of these workshops can be found by following the links.
To help assess the landscape of biomanufacturing in the north-west, an analysis of the north-west鈥檚 capabilities was carried out, alongside building a database of all the biobased companies, chemical companies, users, manufacturers, breweries, producers, and waste processors. Through this analysis and cohort of interdisciplinary stakeholders, potential pathways to sustainability, circularity, and resource management can be found. In addition, connections between each group can be identified and assessed.
Regional scope and definition
To ensure the project has a clear remit and boundaries to operate within, the 鈥渞egion鈥� and 鈥渂iomanufacturing鈥� are defined as such:
The north-west: the north-west (NW) of England encompasses the counties Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater 91直播, Lancashire and Merseyside. A major distinction from previous analyses of the future biomanufacturing sector is that the required workforce is more closely aligned to plant operators or industrial fermentation engineers, such as those working in traditional bio-based sectors like brewing or waste processing by anaerobic digestion, where there is significant activity in the north-west.
Sustainable biomanufacturing: sustainable biomanufacturing refers to the process of producing biological molecules and materials using living systems, such as microorganisms and/or cell culture, on a commercial scale in such a way that it provides environmental and/or ecological benefit relative to the status quo. The end-use sectors include the chemical and polymer industries, medicines, food and beverage and energy production. For this project the entire ecosystem and linked supply chains are considered to be in scope including:
- feedstock supply and provision from biomass sources such as agriculture and forestry and organic waste from industry processes and municipal sources
- use of naturally occurring and genetically engineered cells and biocatalysts
- down steam processing and formulation
- technoeconomic and life-cycle assessment analysis
- public engagement and acceptance
The project is run by Neil Dixon, Philip Shapira, Rosalind Le Feuvre, Aline Miller, Sabina Hawthornthwaite, Jennifer Carlson, and Ling-Li Boon.