Bioeconomics, biotechnologies, soils: three priorities central to the collaboration between Inra and IFPEN

On 2 April 2019, Philippe Mauguin, Chairman and CEO of Inra, and Didier Houssin, Chairman of IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN) renewed the partnership agreement between the two organizations for a period of five years.  The priority themes for this collaboration relate to the mobilization of biomass for bioeconomics, biotechnologies and the contribution of soils to the mitigation of climate change. 

 
Following on from a first framework agreement providing a platform for numerous collaborative initiatives with a considerable impact on the world of research and industry, Inra and IFPEN are renewing their commitment to carry out projects aimed at reinforcing knowledge and skills and supporting innovation processes in their three agreed priority fields: 

> Bioeconomics 

Inra has recognized expertise and know-how relating to the production of agricultural and forestry biomass and its conversion for non-food uses, employing biotech processes, in particular.  IFPEN is a leading player in the fields of bioenergies, bio-based chemistry and raw material conversion processes. Together, the teams at Inra and IFPEN will be joining forces to work on two themes: 

• The modeling of the economic and environmental issues surrounding energy biomass, in order to anticipate the impacts of evolving bioeconomic systems on various scales. 
• Evaluation of biomass supplies for future biorefineries, in order to analyze the supplies available to production units manufacturing bio-based products at regional level. 

> Biotechnologies 

IFPEN is a member of the Toulouse White Biotechnology (TWB) consortium coordinated by Inra.  TWB covers the field of industrial biotechnologies known as “white biotech” and was set up to contribute to the development of bio-based products and biological catalysts. 

> Soils 

Storing carbon underground to combat climate change is a major innovation challenge and one in which scientists at IFPEN and Inra can make a contribution, within the framework of underground carbon storage demonstrator projects, for example.  The aim is to answer questions relating to the characterization and understanding of the dynamics of the organic matter contained in soils (the role of microbiological activity on the biotransformations of organic matter, evaluation of the carbon storage capacity of underground environments, the role of the physical properties of soils on organic matter dynamics, etc.). 

CONTACT :
Inra : presse@inra.fr – 01 42 75 91 86
IFPEN : presse@ifpen.fr – 01 47 52 62 07