On November 27, 2025, the European Commission published its new Strategic Framework for a Competitive and Sustainable EU Bioeconomy.

In reference to this, we – the European Ocean Research and Education alliance (EOREA) – wish to highlight the urgent need for a transdisciplinary and integrated approach to developing Europe’s bioeconomy. Importantly, integrating the blue and green sectors is vital to secure sustainable resource utilization and build a competitive and circular European bioeconomy. To promote industrial symbiosis and circular business models, the blue bioeconomy cannot grow in a silo but must be integrated into a holistic bioeconomy framework. This integration requires coordinated governance, shared innovation platforms, and skills development across marine, terrestrial, and social systems to ensure sustainable and scalable growth.

The EU Bioeconomy Strategy aims to position Europe as a global leader in a competitive and sustainable bioeconomy, reducing reliance on fossil resources while fostering innovation, circularity, and resilience. The bioeconomy is of great economic importance for the EU, contributing up to €2.6 trillion, 17.2 million jobs (8% of EU employment), and 5% of EU GDP. Beyond its economic footprint, a well functioning bioeconomy also plays an important environmental role in that it supports climate neutrality, biodiversity, and resource security.

While bioeconomy covers all economic activities based on the sustainable use of biological resources, the EU strategy remains largely focused on industrial biotechnologies, biobased chemicals, novel biopolymers, microbial and fermentation-based production systems, and waste- and residue derived value chains. Furthermore, it centers mainly on production of biomass from agriculture and forestry. This is only natural, as biomass production as well as employment rates are much higher within these sectors than in fisheries and aquaculture.

A truly environmentally friendly, sustainable, and secure bioeconomy must, however, utilize biomass streams that do not compete with primary food production. In this regard, marine systems offer important, though not unlimited opportunities. Seaweed and kelp cultivation, for example, can expand biomass production without using arable land, while contributing to new value chains and supporting emerging sectors highlighted in recent EU initiatives. Similarly, low trophic aquaculture such as oysters, mussels and algae could support Europe’s targets of closing parts of the loop in the nitrogen cycle, hereby reducing the pressures caused by agricultural run-off on marine environments.

The EU strategy furthermore stresses the need to promote new value chains and valorize untapped biomass streams, and for this, it is vital to look to the emerging blue sectors. Scaling innovation in bio-based plastics and polymers, fibres, chemicals, construction materials, biofertilisers, and biopesticides will depend on diversified and sustainable biomass inputs. In several of these areas, marine resources offer promising opportunities, particularly through algae-based production systems, novel marine enzymes, and high value bioactive compounds.

So far, the blue bioeconomy remains a very minor part of the total European bioeconomy, and materials and chemicals made from marine organisms still make out an insignificant part of the total production. Still, it is attracting a steeply growing interest in the form of investments in research and innovation, and EU policies express a strong faith in the future potential.

At the same time, there are considerable risks and hurdles on the path towards an industrial scaling of a sustainable blue bioeconomy. Scientists, environmental organizations, and political authorities are all cautious when it comes to pushing towards large-scale cultivation, out of fear of repeating the history from industrial land-based agriculture in the form of rampant ecological damage and social conflicts. On the basis of these general concerns, specific ecological and operational risks must be acknowledged. Large-scale marine cultivation can affect benthic habitats, alter nutrient dynamics, facilitate the spread of non-native species, and generate pollution, including from aquaculture plastics. It may also trigger spatial conflicts with existing maritime activities such as fisheries, energy production, shipping, and tourism. Addressing these challenges requires governance frameworks that are capable of managing cumulative impacts, ensuring traceability, and guiding sustainable expansion across Europe’s marine regions.

Building a sustainable and resilient bioeconomy will require new skills, interdisciplinary training, and stronger links between higher education and innovation ecosystems. Sustainable upscaling of the blue bioeconomy depends on scientific knowledge and technological innovation, but it also depends on social innovation in the form of a more inclusive and future-oriented governance of natural resources. Universities and research
alliances such as EOREA have a key role to play in developing the new generation of talent and transdisciplinary capacities needed to support responsible growth across marine and terrestrial sectors.

The EU bioeconomy strategy represents an ambitious initiative to deploy sustainable bioeconomy solutions, to mobilize capital, and to strengthen industrial ecosystems. To achieve these ambitions, it is vital to bridge the blue-green divide – within and between sectors as well as disciplines – that is still apparent in the new EU strategy. By 2027, as part of the EU Ocean Pact, a Blue Bioeconomy Innovation Initiative will be launched. 

This is a golden opportunity to address how to bridge the blue-green gap and promote a holistic and healthy, “teal bioeconomy” – for nature, people, and societies.