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Governments, together with partners in industry and civil society, are developing experimental forms of collaborative platforms to provide better linkages between research and innovation, and to promote the development and use of emerging technology. This report analyses 33 case studies from key fields of emerging technology – genomics, advanced materials and engineering biology – and finds that collaborative platforms are most effective when they act as “convergence spaces” for the fusion of diverse disciplines, actors and technology. It also shows how governance mechanisms shape platform operations and act as policy levers for ordering what amounts to a common pool resource: they aim to maximise tangible and intangible value, realise sustainability models, foment collaboration, and promote technological integration. After presenting cross-cutting and comparative findings on key components of governance, the report concludes with policy implications for the design of existing and future collaborative platforms.

Genomic and biobank collaborative platforms hold significant promise for the development of new discoveries and therapies. This paper explores the complex technical, legal and business challenges arising from genomics and biobanks, and brings together ideas and best practices from major national and international platforms, and from a diverse range of experts. The global sharing of biological samples and genomic data has been critical for accelerating our understanding of the biology and spread of COVID-19, and for the development of vaccines and diagnostics. Although some of the policy challenges in the field are well known, they have been reconfigured by the digitalisation of health innovation combined with the increasing complexity and volume of data, the push for global collaboration, and the growing awareness of ethical, legal, and social implications.

Advanced materials hold significant potential to create better products and production processes. Yet realising their promise remains challenging: historically it has taken 15 to 20 years from discovery to deployment of new materials in products. Consequently, governments have been creating shared digital and physical infrastructures – “collaborative platforms” – to pool and manage global data, drive the development of nascent industries, and create hubs of interdisciplinary research, development and training. Based on evidence from 12 case studies, this report characterises governance mechanisms of collaborative platforms for advanced materials such as terms of funding, access, and IP policy and explores how they can create different kinds of value. Technology convergence, the engagement of society and digitalisation are identified as key trends. The study describes conditions under which collaborative platforms can align and power value chains, foster standards, catalyse innovation ecosystems and build education, skills and social capital.

“Innovation ecosystems in the bioeconomy” examines the policy aspects of building the industrial and innovation ecosystems and value chains needed to make a bioeconomy viable as a sustainable means of production. While building biorefineries is more like a formulaic exercise in engineering, enabling these ecosystems and their value chains is a much more complex endeavour. Building on qualitative case studies and face-to-face interviews in eleven participating countries, the study reveals the diverse ways countries are seeking to achieve the goals set by national strategies and policies. The current report draws lessons from this diverse set of national case studies to generate both common and country-specific insights that can enable this transition from a fossil-based economy to a more sustainable one. These lessons include the need for systems-based approaches, attention to policy alignment, more focus on demand-side instruments, diversification of products, enabling medium-sized companies and harnessing converging technologies.

First the bioeconomy and then circular economy have gained political traction during the second decade of this century. There are synergies to be exploited, but also potential misalignments. The movement of bioeconomy toward the use of wastes, co-products and residue sources resonates well with circular economy principles of making the most efficient of uses of natural resources, as does as transition in focus from virgin to secondary materials in production. However, poorly aligned waste characterisation as well as biomass competition reflect both theoretical and practical conflicts between industrial and environmental policy. Further, waste markets can be disrupted as some materials that currently go to recycling, landfill or incineration could in the future be bound for biorefineries, with implications for waste management markest and public infrastructure. Policies promoting the cascading use of biomass could help mitigate these tensions by achieving high resource productivity.