Canadian Biomass Innovation Network (CBIN)

The Canadian Biomass Innovation Network (CBIN) is a network of federal researchers, program managers, policy makers, and expert advisors partnered with industry, academia, non-governmental organizations, other government levels and the international community. The Network’s goal is to continually ensure the availability of knowledge, technology and enabling policy required to support the development of a sustainable Canadian bioeconomy. CBIN is supported by a federal interdepartmental committee which coordinates and networks on activities related to the development of the bioeconomy.

A sub-set of the CBIN interdepartmental committee, the Science and Technology (S&T) Portfolio Committee, focuses on developing and advancing next generation technologies for bioenergy, biofuels and industrial bioproducts. The S&T Portfolio Committee coordinates, plans and manages bioenergy, bioproducts and sustainability energy-related Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) across the Federal Government.

Natural Resources Canada's Office of Energy Research and Development (NRCan-OERD) is the Government of Canada's coordinator of energy RD&D activities, which include managing and funding CBIN.

The following federal funding programs managed by OERD are supporting CBIN and overseen by the S&T Portfolio Committee:

• The Program of Energy Research and Development (PERD) has been in operation for over 30 years. It is the most enduring interdepartmental horizontally managed Science and Technology (S&T) program in the federal government.
• The ecoENERGY Technology Initiative (ecoETI), announced in January 2007, funds RD&D to support the next generation energy technologies needed to break through to emissions-free fossil fuel production and use, as well as develop technologies for producing and using energy from other clean sources, such as renewables and bioenergy. This program will end in March 2011.

The S&T Portfolio Committee will manage bioenergy projects under the  Renewable Energy and Clean Energy Systems Demonstration Projects of NRCan’s Clean Energy Fund.

CBIN’s S&T Portfolio Committee currently oversees four areas of S&T activity:

• Sustainable Feedstocks
• Biomass Conversion
• Bioplexes and Biorefineries
• Governance, Sustainability and Performance Measurement Tools

Visit CBIN's Key Documents page to view the list of funded projects.

To learn more about the Network, please read our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) or feel free to Contact Us.