„ScaleUp4Sustainability (S4S)“ combines two important demands called by European policy: 1) To address green entrepreneurship in higher education, this will contribute to the modernization of Europe’s higher education systems, and 2) to strengthen Europe’s capacity to innovate. S4S will increase innovation capacity by introducing new forms of student-business collaboration in developing, implementing and scaling-up eco-innovations and starting new green businesses. We refer to this activity as „green venturing“. With “green” we refer to the concept of a Green Economy and the notion of a triple bottom line.The project will focus on the collaboration of student teams and business partners in green venturing. This form of collaborative green venturing is embedded in Bachelor and Master programmes of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and is organized and coached by professors and teaching staff. Collaborative green venturing constitutes an innovative form of multidisciplinary, real problem-based interactive learning and entrepreneurship education. S4S will make use of existing initiatives and schemes for collaborative green venturing of involved universities from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.The objectives of the proposed project are: 1) To evaluate the outputs and outcomes of collaborative green venturing,2) to develop new, innovative approaches and tools to teaching and learning sustainable entrepreneurship and collaborative green venturing,3) to stimulate sustainable entrepreneurship and green venturing skills of students, teaching staff as well as company staff,4) to scale up and diffuse innovative approaches in collaborative green venturing at the involved HEIs and regions as well as across Europe, 5) to facilitate and boost the transnational exchange of knowledge with university-business collaboration in green venturing, and, 6) to disseminate good practices and knowledge in collaborative green venturing to provide a European added value.

Climate change is the most significant challenge for humanity today. For this reason, fossil fuels must be replaced utilising renewables, improved energy efficiency and more flexible energy systems. An optimal combination of several renewable sources is needed to satisfy human energy needs. Bioenergy, in combination with hydrogen, can take the role as secure and plannable source for power and heat complementing intermittent renewable sources such as wind and sun. BIO-FlexGen will increase the efficiency and flexibility of renewable energy-based combined heat and power (CHP), playing a key role in energy system integration, and make a significant contribution to the decarbonisation of the energy system. In particular, to overcome these challenges, Bio-FlexGen brings to the table a unique combination of gasification and gas turbine technology that allows the plant to utilise hydrogen for fast dispatch and biomass for low operating costs over time. Due to the high efficiency, three times more power can be generated from biomass for the same heat load, and the plant can quickly achieve full load by starting and operating on 100% hydrogen. To meet fluctuations in seasonal demands and prices, a variant of the plant can provide climate-positive hydrogen production during long periods of low electricity prices or heat demand. To do so, Bio-FlexGen consortium gathers the necessary experience, knowledge and resources through a multi-stakeholder approach that covers the whole value chain of the project. It consists of a multidisciplinary team of 14 entities from 5 different EU countries (Spain, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary), among which, 4 universities, 2 RTD organisations, 1 NGO, and 4 SMEs to ensure market exploitation (2 industrial companies and 1 District heat company).