Browsing by Subject "Sustainable bioeconomy"

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Bioeconomy innovation networks in urban regions: The case of Stuttgart
(2023) Stöber, Lea F.; Boesino, Marius; Pyka, Andreas; Schuenemann, Franziska
For a successful transformation towards a sustainable bioeconomy, cooperative knowledge creation leading to innovations through research at the company and academic level are important. Urban regions are the centre of economic and research activities. The example of the region of Stuttgart, which aims to complement its mature industrial structure with new opportunities related to the knowledge-based bioeconomy, is an interesting case for the application of social network analysis to shed light on the dynamics of innovation networks to support the transformation of urban regions. As with smaller spatial levels of observation connectivity in network decreases, we find a scale-free network structure for the supra-regional network and a star-like network structure for the regional network, with two universities and one transfer-oriented research institutes at the core. While research collaborations beyond regional borders and across different industries foster knowledge co-creation, the central actors can be recognized as gatekeepers who dominantly influence knowledge flows. To potentially strengthen the resilience of the network, policy and industry associations serving as network facilitators can foster collaboration between periphery actors. The case of the Stuttgart region impressively illustrates the opportunities of the knowledge-based bioeconomy for urban regions and the complementary role traditional manufacturing sectors can take in the transformation towards higher degrees of sustainability.
Time to say ‘good buy’ to the passive consumer? A conceptual review of the consumer in the bioeconomy
(2021) Wilke, Ulrich; Schlaile, Michael P.; Urmetzer, Sophie; Mueller, Matthias; Bogner, Kristina; Pyka, Andreas
Successful transitions to a sustainable bioeconomy require novel technologies, processes, and practices as well as a general agreement about the overarching normative direction of innovation. Both requirements necessarily involve collective action by those individuals who purchase, use, and co-produce novelties: the consumers. Based on theoretical considerations borrowed from evolutionary innovation economics and consumer social responsibility, we explore to what extent consumers’ scope of action is addressed in the scientific bioeconomy literature. We do so by systematically reviewing bioeconomy-related publications according to (i) the extent to which consumers are regarded as passive vs. active, and (ii) different domains of consumer responsibility (depending on their power to influence economic processes). We find all aspects of active consumption considered to varying degrees but observe little interconnection between domains. In sum, our paper contributes to the bioeconomy literature by developing a novel coding scheme that allows us to pinpoint different aspects of consumer activity, which have been considered in a rather isolated and undifferentiated manner. Combined with our theoretical considerations, the results of our review reveal a central research gap which should be taken up in future empirical and conceptual bioeconomy research. The system-spanning nature of a sustainable bioeconomy demands an equally holistic exploration of the consumers’ prospective and shared responsibility for contributing to its coming of age, ranging from the procurement of information on bio-based products and services to their disposal.