Michael O’Donohue: leading the way to a circular and sustainable bioeconomy

Since gaining his doctorate in protein biochemistry, Michael O’Donohue’s extensive scientific experience has encompassed enzyme engineering, biotechnologies and the bioeconomy. He has coupled this expertise with a strong international outlook and a firm commitment to collaboration and the common good. 

From biotech to the bioeconomy

2010 saw an important step change in Michael O’Donohue’s career. Already an established Research Director and manager at INRA, he embarked that year on the coordination of his first major European project. 

As coordinator of the European Biocore project (biocommodity refinery), Michael O’Donohue was able to integrate his own research programme into a wider scientific context: the still-emerging use of biotechnologies as part of the bioeconomy. Biocore was designed to test out a biorefinery concept involving the transformation of agricultural and forestry biomass into a wide spectrum of products (biofuels, chemical products and materials). Not only did it give Michael O’Donohue the opportunity to exercise his management and budgeting skills, he was also able to witness at first hand the benefits of European cooperation for the advancement of a major emerging scientific topic. 

An international outlook

Building on this experience, from 2015, Michael O’Donohue took on the creation of the IBISBA pan-European research community (Industrial Biotechnology Innovation and Synthetic Biology Accelerator). The goal was to federate relevant European expertise to support research on biotechnologies, creating a lever that could accelerate the development of industrial bioproduction. The initiative has featured on the European Strategic Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) roadmap since 2018. One of a kind, IBISBA’s distributed research infrastructure currently brings together research institutions located in 11 European countries. It is preparing to become a fully operational research infrastructure (by 2028) and is a key element in Europe’s strategy on the bioeconomy and biomanufacturing. At national scale, the IBISBA_FR research infrastructure has formed part of the French National Plan since 2016 and, coordinated by INRAE and its partners, is currently shaping the French industrial biotech community while ensuring its visibility and influence at European level.

Michael O’Donohue’s strong commitment to European actions has also led him to coordinate other projects to structure European development in the field of industrial biotechnology. Among these are the BIOINDUSTRY 4.0 project, working since 2023 to develop advanced digital technologies to revolutionise industrial biotechnology, and the IBISBA-DIALS (Delivering the Infrastructure as a Legal Structure) project, which will complete the preparatory work on IBISBA, creating and launching it as a fully-fledged European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). 

Serving the INRAE community

Michael O’Donohue has long demonstrated his commitment to the collective good of the Institute. In 2008 he took on the duties of Deputy Division Head of CEPIA (Science for Food and Bioproduct Engineering) at INRA, supporting Monique Axelos in her work as Division Head before succeeding her in 2016.

When INRA and IRSTEA combined forces in 2020 to create INRAE, the CEPIA Division became TRANSFORM (Science for Food, Bioproducts and Waste Engineering), a metamorphosis that allowed it to renew its goals. The division now seeks, on the one hand, to support the transition to more sustainable food and environmental systems founded on the optimisation of biomass use and resource saving and, on the other, to position INRAE as a major international actor in the circular bioeconomy.

Guided by Michael O’Donohue (2020-2024) and his colleagues, the TRANSFORM division now focuses on the concepts, technologies and innovations that are needed to build a response to current global challenges based on the orchestration of multiple but strongly interdependent transitions in the realms of climate, energy, industry and society.

Seeking out disruptive research and innovations

In 2024 a national strategy shift enabled the major French scientific institutions to launch fresh calls for high-risk, high-impact projects under the presidential France 2030 investment programme. Their focus was the earliest possible detection of research ideas that could lead to disruptive scientific and technical innovations. 

Michael O’Donohue coordinated INRAE’s contribution to this national ‘risky research’ initiative, setting up the EXPLOR’AE programme in the Institute’s areas of expertise: agriculture, food, the environment and the bioeconomy. This original and agile framework is characterised by its fostering of talent and bold ideas, built around the three interconnected pillars of acculturation, exploration and transformation. 

The bioeconomy has now fully assumed its rightful place alongside INRAE’s established areas of expertise: food, agriculture and the environment. This significant step reflects the huge importance of the transition towards a circular bioeconomy, now a priority in some 50 countries around the world, and signals INRAE’s ambition to be at the forefront of its implementation in France and in Europe.

Michael O'Donohue

Investigating effective and efficient uses for biomass and biotechnologies, developing renewable energy sources in the agricultural and forestry sectors, informing economic and social actions for a biobased economy. These challenges and research activities, on which Michael O’Donohue has built his career, now fall, since January 2026, within his mandate as INRAE’s Scientific Director for Bioeconomy.