On 20/21 November 2023, the BioBeo consortium has met in Warsaw, Poland. Partners have presented their work, and the Advisory Board also provided supportive insight to help the development process. Parents International is in charge of ensuring parental engagement and also child participation at every step of the process of introducing a new and very relevant topic in school curricula: bioeconomy education.

Topics like education for sustainable development, inclusion, and the whole school approach / open schooling are very high on the EU’s education policy agenda. BioBeo is providing an education programme for all school levels as well as support for new governance and policy approaches involving all main stakeholders.

In the meeting, we presented what we have been developing on supporting and advocating for parental engagement and child participation in the governance and policy work package. Our work is based on research done on existing inspiring practices that are – as we expected – are scarce. We are aiming at shared leadership and decision-making to become a reality at all levels of policy making and governance from classroom to European level. We are also offering a training that will be available in the form of a manual by the end of 2023.

Subsequently, we have volunteered to develop parental engagement and child participation elements for the education programme, too. This is ready and available, and will be also part of the joint training of teachers held in Maynooth for partners implementing the programme in Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium, and will also be provided to German colleagues in a training organised collaboratively by the German partner, the University of Hohenheim and one of Germany’s most prestigious teacher training institutions, Ludwigsburg University.

The event also provided opportinities for discussing the organisation of the BioBeo Festival to be held on 15 March 2024 in Brussels, and the planned BioBeo Awards.