The transition to a sustainable circular biobased economy depends on both, new technological solutions and experts to implement it in industrial practice. Therefore, education plays an important role in turning the bioeconomy into reality. In the BIG-Cluster region of Flanders, the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia, various and diverse technical, academic and post-academic training activities are running on a regional level. The region covered by BIG-Cluster has an excellent academic track record in all underlying fields needed for bioeconomy development, including biotechnology, fermentation technology, microbiology, bio-process engineering, biocatalysts, sustainable design, etc. The specific combinations of these disciplines, coupled with entrepreneurship are required to implement a sustainable bioeconomy. In order to foster this research field, joint efforts of various experts are strongly needed, both for education as well as for stimulating entrepreneurship. Therefore, BIG-Cluster aims at building a coordinated education and training initiative with focus on academic education in a cross-border approach with partners from the BIG-Cluster region – the Cross-border BioEconomy Education CROSSBEE.