BISC-E competition
The Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe (BISC-E), organized by the End-of-Waste/RE-SOURCE.BIO and GREEN-CHEM networks from AUGent, encourages students to explore innovation and business development in the emerging bioeconomy while developing a new biobased product or process. The challenge is open for all Bachelor and Master students (+ PhDs as coaches).
What is the BISC-E Competition?
The Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge Europe (BISC-E) is a Europe-wide student competition to stimulate entrepreneurship and award excellence. The programme offers student teams opportunities to practice entrepreneurship by addressing relevant technological, environmental, or societal challenges with innovative bio-based solutions.
BISC-E seeks to raise awareness and involve students in the transition towards a bio-based economy. A key objective of the BISC-E programme is to stimulate and support entrepreneurship in curricula at universities.
All student (Ba/Ma) teams develop a bio-based innovation (product or process) and present their ideas via a 15' live presentation to a jury of experts from industry and science during the Belgian final. The presentation has to be accompanied by a participation file with a few supporting documents explaining sustainability, technical feasibility and economic viability of your innovation.
The jury will first assess all applications via an online preselection based on a recorded presentation and the supporting documents. The 3 best teams will be selected for the Belgian finals to actually present for the live jury, followed by some Q & A. The winning team will receive personal coaching and will compete in the EU finals in Autumn.
All rules can be found in this regulation document.
What's in it for the students?
The competition offers valuable experience to kick-start your career or business idea, the option to network with some of the biggest players in the industrial and academic sector and multiple prizes:
Everybody wins
Participating in BISC-E will give you a valuable entrepreneurial experience in the emerging bio-economy, in developing a new product or process with all its aspects and in presenting innovative ideas for a panel of experts. On top of that there are great prizes to be won.
How to apply
To register for the BISC-E, participants need to fill out this form with your presentation.
To be eligible for the competition you need:
- A team name
- A team manager (one of the student team members)
- A supervisor
- Fill out the participation form
- Personal details of the team members
What
The student teams are asked to develop a bio-based product or bio-based process that could be integrated in the current (or near future) economy.
A bio-based product is a product composed in whole, or for a significant part, of biological material derived from renewable biological sources, including plant, animal or marine materials. Where product is defined as: substance, mixture of substances, material or object resulting from a production process, this can be an intermediate, material, semi-finished or final product.
Two tracks can be followed.
1. For innovation concerning a bio-based product.
2. For innovations leading to a bio-based process or bio-based improvements of a process step. Also services or other innovations strongly advancing the bio-economy not leading to a touchable prototype product that can be presented fall in this category.
Tech Tour Circular event
This dynamic event will showcase around 40 groundbreaking companies, each driving change in the circular economy and design sector, presenting to a group of active investors in Ghent, Belgium. The Belgian BISC-E final is embedded in this TechTour event.
🎯 Who is this Tech Tour Circular event for?
Companies aiming to scale up their technology/innovation with applications in areas such as
Biomanufacturing & Circular Construction Materials
Biorefining & Biomolecules
Circular Plastics & Bio-based Polymers
Alternative Food Systems & Circular Agriculture
and
Water Reuse & Resource Recovery
This program is dedicated to assisting companies in the circular economy sector in forming valuable connections, securing growth, and attracting investment.
UGent and Stad Gent are host of this event and are co-organisers.
Supporting partners for UGent
B2BE facilitator Crelan Chair Astrobio
Previous winners of the Belgian BISC-E
Let's transform ideas into action and make a lasting impact on the circular landscape!
Team AquaNutrix and AllioNova
In 2025, team AquaNutrix won the Belgian competition, but team AllioNova defended Belgium in the EU-competition.
In 2025, team AllioNova from Ghent University won second place in the European BISC-E finals. Their innovative bioreactor converts leek waste into sustainable raw materials for bioethanol and a natural rejuvenating cream called On Fleek. By combining local agriculture, green chemistry, and circular economy principles, the students impressed the jury with both scientific and commercial potential.
Team Charbrick
In 2024, team Charbrick won the Belgian competition by integrating biochar production with cement manufacturing. Biochar from pyrolysis of spent coffee grounds is mixed in the cement, rendering a better concrete. Coupling the liberated green energy from pyrolysis moreover reduces the fuel requirement for cement by 50%.
They deserved a third place at the European finals in September 2024.
Team Vsycle
In 2023, team VSycle won the Belgian edition! They clearly impressed the jury with their greener alternative to fire pots, i.e. a sprayable antifreeze product based on antifreeze proteins to protect blossoms against (spring) frost. The team got some scientific and business advice from the coaches and went on to win second place at the European finals.
Team Valorised Carbon
The Belgian team Valorised Carbon presented their idea to produce activated carbon from residual flows from the fruit industry. The team managed to win the second prize (€2500) at EU-level. With their idea to upgrade food waste to activated carbon, they can offer a local solution to a global problem since these components are now often incinerated. Currently, the majority of activated carbon still originates from coal and lignite. To guarantee a sustainable future, waste products from the food industry such as fruit kernels can serve as raw materials for the production of activated carbon.
Team Loaf Foam
Would it not be great to turn bread waste into a useful product? That was what a team of HoGent students (Marte Vandenbroucke, Niels Soen, Bjarne Roelens, Jeroen Luyckx and Laurens Bodart) thought when they started Loaf Foam. They want to convert this waste into a useful biobased packing peanut to replace the plastics, such as Expanded PolyStyrene (EPS), that are conventionally used as packaging protection.
The HOGENT team ended on the third place at the European final. Loaf Foam had to let the Dutch (Waterskins) and Irish (PhytoTowel) team lead the way.
"The BISC-E Competition was a stepping stone towards our start-up! You really learn how to tackle multiple aspects of a business case." - Team Loaf Foam (2021 winner from HoGent)
Team Haircycle
Did you ever wonder what happens to your hair once the hairdresser is done with giving you a fancy cut? It gets incinerated, just as any other non-recyclable waste. Haircycle wants to convert this waste into a useful bio-based fertiliser to grow plants.
Team Sauveur
The first BISC-E final in Berlin was won by a Belgian team of two students from Ghent University for their innovative project named ‘Sauveur’. They impressed the jury with their ingenious concept, which will use fruit waste to create various sustainable biobased solutions, such as savory lemonades.
