Science is the knowledge of consequences and dependence of one fact upon another.

Thomas Hobbes

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Knowledge is power

Education has always been influenced by business. Globally, companies with different economic activities are contributing to education in diverse manners.

Companies are becoming partners to Universities tackling important issues of education and shaping their strategies; hence, they are shaping the future work-power with graduate employability skills, vital in the industry endurance in an increasingly competitive world market.

Education, on its turn, has penetrated the business world in multiple and various forms. Higher education is offering to business work-based learning – the most common practice aiming, in a long-term prospect, to create a new era for businesses. Recently, there is a huge change in businesses – the digitalization of the systems and the strategies resulted in innovations implementation and production and services speed up. Logically, a huge change in operations is registered that demands young employees and potential entrepreneurs and business owners to possess digital skills and competencies.

The long-term policy of the EU to promote innovation capacity of higher education and business, is aimed at facilitating the circular economy to achieve sustainable growth and climate solutions.

However, there is a continuous mismatch between teaching in the academy and the requirements of the job market with respect to:

• The distance between the knowledge gained in the biotech educational programmes and the skills expected by the labour market in biotech sector related to climate change prevention, which the EU recognizes as the prerequisite for growth and job creation.
• The lack of entrepreneurial and strategic skills in modern biotechnology that is behind the need to implement a sustainable EU climate strategy for economic and societal development.
• The gaps in addressing the socio-economic challenges linked to climate changes and education in biotechnology to reduce the harmful effects on the ecosystems and the environment.

This mismatch can be filled by the work-based learning. focused on enhancing digital skills and competencies. In this way, young employees will have the opportunity to receive training within their work environment, and the older ones will learn how to use modern, digital systems that pave the route to the modern age. Meanwhile, young graduates, especially apprentices can master their skills and competencies, widen their horizons, and choose their own career.BIO-Save generates business ideas

BIO-Save is creating the tools needed in order its targets to be able to learn and acquire new skills and competencies in an easy and a pleasant way. It takes on business ideas and translates them into:

• Training content in suitable learning format for HE graduates on how to develop ideas and training for academic professionals, and how to support them with mentoring;
• Real opportunities for developing individual/joint business ideas and sharing them with the commercial community;
• Prospects for HE graduates to join entrepreneurs’ community providing them an insight into the future of the economy.

BIO Save supports education in business

BIO Save is focused on sharing best practices and developing new strategies about the management of education and creative enterprises sectors. It fosters closer engagements by promoting a better understanding of the:

• Role of the different professionals involved in BIO-Save implementation;
• Practices implemented to strengthen cooperation between tutors and trainees to improve the quality of HE, its responsiveness to the labor market needs and assurance of high-quality learning experiences;
• Practices implemented to empower trainees in HE & Business.

BIO-Save is facing climate change

Biosafety is a major issue of global security which relates to various fields such as health, agriculture, security, science and technology, and education. Biosecurity is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a strategic and integrated approach that encompasses the policy and regulatory frameworks (including instruments and activities) for analysing and managing relevant risks to human, animal and plant life and health, and associated risks to the environment.

The analysis of the state-of-the-art in biotechnology applied to climate challenges revealed that technologies employed are based on basic knowledge in genomics, genetics, and molecular biology. However, there is a shortage of high-level skills and advanced knowledge in the field, and incompleteness ofnational and sector-specific scientific data.

Further study of the competences of the BIO-Save target groups showed that higher education organisations needed specialized biotech knowledge and skills in many advanced domains which additionally highlighted a gap in the labour market. It was estimated that about 80% of the biotech companies and environmental organisations would need much more higher educated professionals in the near future.