Bioeconomy is seen as a means and an end to achieving sustainability encompassing the social, environmental, and economic spheres, with a scientific framework based on technological innovations that increase social well-being through promoting and disseminating knowledge. In this context, this research aimed to examine African higher education students' understanding and level of knowledge about Bioeconomy. Effectively, they will be the ones who will act as qualified labor for sustainable and biotechnological development, and they will be the future leaders of nations. To this end, a quantitative, cross-sectional, and descriptive study was developed based on a questionnaire applied to 405 African higher education students between April and May 2022. A non-probabilistic sampling was chosen for convenience, as this is an exploratory study. The questionnaire was created on the Google Forms platform and subsequently published on the researchers' social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The questionnaire was organized into two sections. The first contained questions that allowed the characterization of the student. The second included 16 statements with 3 possible answers, namely “True,” “False,” or “I don’t know.” Questions identified correctly were assigned 1 value, and those selected incorrectly or “I don't know” were assigned 0 values.

Then, the level of knowledge was classified as follows:
(1) 0-19%: very insufficient;
(2) 20-49%: insufficient;
(3) 50-69%: sufficient;
(4) 70-89%: good and
(5) 90%-100%: very good.

The sample included students of five nationalities, namely Cape Verdean (50.9%), Guinean (20.1%), Santomean (14.0%), Angolan (11.8%) and Mozambican (3.2%). The majority of students came from rural areas (88.0%), were female (56.0%), and lived in a household consisting of, at most, 4 members (69.3%) with a household income of less than 705 euros/month. Although the sample includes students from 74 institutions located outside or in Portuguese territory, most were undergraduate students at the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (65.8%). The results showed that all respondents knew the term “Bioeconomy” (51.1%). The terms related to Bioeconomy known by the largest number of respondents were “Recycling economy” (53.1%) and “Green economy” (52.3%). The least known term was “Linear economy” (36.1%), followed by the terms “Sharing economy” (38.8%) and “Ecoeconomy” (46.9%). The level of knowledge about Bioeconomy was insufficient. Considering the respondents' nationality, it was found that the level of knowledge was higher and sufficient among Mozambicans and lower and insufficient among Angolans. The distribution of respondents by level of knowledge was as follows: 25.6% very insufficient, 22.4% insufficient, 36.4% sufficient, 15.5% good, and 0.2% very good. Regarding the students' opinion on the process of replacing fossil resources with renewable ones, favoring the transition to a sustainable Bioeconomy, on a scale from 1 (absolutely against) to 7 (absolutely in favor), the average recorded was 5.29 (SD = 1,596). In the present study, respondents of Mozambican nationality were more favorable to the process than respondents of Santomean nationality, followed by Guineans, Cape Verdeans, and Angolans. Gaps in students' knowledge about Bioeconomy were identified, which can and should be addressed by higher education institutions.

Keywords: Bioeconomy, Knowledge, Higher Education, Students, Sustainability.