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This paper reviews path-creation processes in road transport systems in the Nordic countries: e-mobility in Denmark, hydrogen and fuel-cell electrical vehicles in Norway, and advanced biofuels in Finland and Sweden. The study builds on the path creation literature, which seeks to explain the emergence of new technological pathways. Drawing on recent insights concerning the differences between design- and manufacturing-intensive technologies, the paper analyses the influence of technological characteristics on path creation processes. The case comparison indicates that technological characteristics seem to have greater influence on the content of activities in the later phase rather than the early phase of path creation processes. The analysis also emphasises that barriers to path creation processes differ depending on technological characteristics. This highlights the importance of considering technological characteristics in energy and transport policies.

This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge on innovation processes in low- and medium-low-tech industries. Today, industries characterised as high-tech are perceived to be central to economic development, as the research intensity shields them from competition from low-wage countries. This is less the case for low-tech industries, but their economic importance continues to be large, however. It is thus interesting to analyse how they manage to remain competitive. The analysis focuses on a case study of the fabricated metal industry by identifying the innovation strategies followed by firms located in a part of Jutland, where this industry has experienced growth. It is found that the ability to create tailor-made solutions is central to the competitiveness of these medium-low-tech firms. Knowledge is thus highly important, yet in different ways than for high-tech industries. This illustrates the importance of industrial policies that take these differences into account.

The notion of the bioeconomy has gained importance in both research and policy debates over the last decade, and is frequently argued to be a key part of the solution to multiple grand challenges. Despite this, there seems to be little consensus concerning what bioeconomy actually implies. Consequently, this paper seeks to enhance our understanding of what the notion of bioeconomy means by exploring the origins, uptake, and contents of the term “bioeconomy” in the academic literature. Firstly, we perform a bibliometric analysis that highlights that the bioeconomy research community is still rather fragmented and distributed across many different fields of science, even if natural and engineering sciences take up the most central role. Secondly, we carry out a literature review that identifies three visions of the bioeconomy. The bio-technology vision emphasises the importance of bio-technology research and application and commercialisation of bio-technology in different sectors of the economy. The bio-resource vision focuses on processing and upgrading of biological raw materials, as well as on the establishment of new value chains. Finally, the bio-ecology vision highlights sustainability and ecological processes that optimise the use of energy and nutrients, promote biodiversity, and avoid monocultures and soil degradation.

Recent studies stress the relevance of a broad conceptualization of the knowledge economy which goes beyond the strong, current policy focus on high-tech industries. Today, low-tech industries continue to have a significant role in European manufacturing in terms of employment, value added and export. However, the character and activities of these industries are profoundly changing as they become increasingly knowledge intensive. Thus, innovation processes and knowledge production in manufacturing are much more complex than suggested by the classic division into high-, medium-and low-tech industries. This calls for a rethinking of manufacturing’s position in contemporary capitalism and a redefinition of the central categories based on research and development (R & D) intensity that dominate the debate on the knowledge economy. (Less)

Hansen T. Substitution or overlap? The relations between geographical and non-spatial proximity dimensions in collaborative innovation projects, Regional Studies. Traditionally, economic geographers stress geographical proximity's positive impact on collaboration processes. However, effects of cognitive, organizational, social and institutional proximity dimensions have been emphasized recently. This paper examines the relations between geography and these non-spatial dimensions by distinguishing two mechanisms: the substitution mechanism, where non-spatial forms of proximity substitute for geographical proximity; and the overlap mechanism, where geographical proximity facilitates non-spatial proximity. The two mechanisms’ importance is analysed in collaborative innovation projects in the Danish cleantech industry. Regression models are complemented by a qualitative analysis of the relationship between the geographical and institutional dimensions.

a b s t r a c t This paper revisits the theoretical concepts of lock-in mechanisms to analyse transition processes in energy production and road transportation in the Nordic countries, focussing on three technology platforms: advanced biofuels, e-mobility and hydrogen and fuel cell electrical vehicles. The paper is based on a comparative analysis of case studies. The main lock-in mechanisms analysed are learning effects, economies of scale, economies of scope, network externalities, informational increasing returns, technologi- cal interrelatedness, collective action, institutional learning effects and the differentiation of power. We show that very different path dependencies have been reinforced by the lock-in mechanisms. Hence, the characteristics of existing regimes set the preconditions for the development of new transition pathways. The incumbent socio-technical regime is not just fossil-based, but may also include mature niches specialised in the exploitation of renew- able sources. This implies a need to distinguish between lock-in mechanisms favouring the old fossil-based regime, well-established (mature) renewable energy niches, or new pathways.

Contributions on interdisciplinary research have so far focused on barriers to such collaborations and strategies for overcoming these. In this paper, we propose that a geographical perspective contributes to understand the formation of successful interdisciplinary research collaborations. The empirical analysis of a centre for clinical cancer research illustrates the importance of considering the role of geographical proximity to collaborators and decision-makers, as well as the co-location of excellent research groups within different fields, in overcoming barriers to interdisciplinary research. We suggest that policies aimed at stimulating lasting interdisciplinary research collaborations should take the distance between collaborators into account.

Today, low-tech firms in high-wage countries are focusing on increasing investments in highly skilled labour and advanced machinery, incremental innovation and high value-added niches. Danish policy, however, gives little attention to the new specificities of low-tech manufacturing, and the understanding of innovation in national and regional strategies is dominated by a science-based perspective. There is a strong policy focus on human capital and research and development in manufacturing. Human capital is vital to manufacturing in general, but the latter is of less importance for low-tech firms. Conversely, user–producer interactions and machinery investments, which are critical to low-tech competitiveness, are disregarded by policies.

An essential feature associated with the rise of the knowledge economy has been the increasing focus on the importance of human capital as a precondition for economic growth. Human capital has been found to have a positive impact on the economic growth of high-tech industries, however, the influence of human capital on the development of low-tech industries is yet to be analysed. This paper provides such an examination of low-tech industries based on an analysis of employment data within manufacturing industries in Denmark in the period 1993–2006. The findings highlight, first, that human capital appears to be equally important for economic development in low-tech industries and, second, that the divide between the large urban regions, especially Copenhagen, and the rest of the country plays the primary role in explaining the geography of human capital. These findings stress the relevance of a broad conception of the knowledge economy which goes beyond high-tech industries.

Transition towards more sustainability has been on the agenda of politicians, researchers, industry and concerned societal actors for a number of years. The oil crisis in the 1970s, environmental concerns related to decreasing biodiversity, depleted natural resources, cities polluted by emissions from road transport, and climate changes caused by greenhouse gas emissions, all these crises have contributed to a sense of urgency in political statements on the need for transition towards a sustainable society. Politicians have developed different types of instruments to achieve a development towards more sustainability. However, the design and proper mix of such instruments is still to be better developed, as is the knowledge on possible effects of these instruments. This applies also on demonstration projects and programmes.This paper attempts to review two important strands on literature relevant for our understanding of demonstration projects and trials for the transition towards more sustainability: Firstly, the literature on demonstration projects and trials, applying rather different conceptual frameworks, among others technological innovation systems, and secondly, the broad literature on socio-technical systems and strategic niche management. The analysis of the first shows a focus on technological solutions and to a much lesser degree a focus on institutional embeddedness and societal changes induced by such projects. To prevent such one-sided shift of focus we conclude our review with a short but to our mind relevant account of transition theory.Our literature review is guided by the research questions for the InnoDemo project:1. What are the main contributions of Scandinavian demonstration and trial projects and programmes to sustainable energy and transport transitions?2. How should the governance of such projects and programmes be developed to further support their contribution?Therefore, we look both at possible outcomes of such projects and at the organisation and governance of the programmes supporting such projects. This paper will serve as a conceptual guidance for compiling a comprehensive database over all relevant demonstration projects and programmes in the three Scandinavian countries, a survey of the identified projects and programmes and interviews with involved stakeholders.

The topics of regional innovation systems (RIS) and cross-border regions attract increasing attention, but few studies combine the themes. Further, the existing empirical studies of cross-border innovation and knowledge creation analyse one case at one point in time, thus, making it difficult to assess the progress of integration in the regions, as well as the effect of cross-border innovation policies. Consequently, important questions are left unanswered, including the central research question of this paper: does the sudden removal of significant physical barriers directly impacts collaboration activity in cross-border innovation systems? This paper examines regional integration in the Oresund Region over time. It deals with a specific part of the RIS, as it analyses research collaboration between actors from the Danish and Swedish sides, with a specific emphasis on the biotech industry. Scientific collaboration constitutes an important element of a RIS, particularly in research-intensive sectors. The quantity and quality of co-authorships are used as indicators for research collaboration. The results indicate that the removal of internal barriers in a cross-border region can have a substantial and long-term positive effect on knowledge flows if a targeted policy effort is made. In the absence of such policies, no effect is found.

Today, acquisition, creation and utilisation of knowledge are the key factors explaining economic development. Firms must constantly employ new knowledge and combine different types of knowledge in their activities to maintain competitiveness. This thesis examines the knowledge economy from two perspectives. The first focuses on the role of geographical proximity for interactive knowledge creation. It follows from the increasing knowledge intensity of the economy that it is highly unlikely that firms can access knowledge of a sufficient depth and variety within their own boundaries. Papers I-III in the thesis analyse the impact of geographical proximity on such collaborative processes of knowledge creation and innovation. The second perspective is concerned with the development of low- and medium low-tech manufacturing industries in high-wage countries. While high-tech sectors are increasingly seen as vital to economic development, low- and medium low-tech industries maintain economic importance in high-wage countries. Papers IV-VI in the thesis examine the responses of low- and medium low-tech manufacturing industries to the challenges of the knowledge economy. The results of the first part of the thesis highlight that geographical proximity has a significant impact on interactive knowledge creation; however, the effect of geography cannot be isolated from other forms of proximity, such as established social relationships and common institutional frameworks. In fact, it is exactly by leaving behind the narrow focus on geography, and replacing it with an approach sensitive to social, institutional, cognitive and organisational relations, that the importance of geography for interactive knowledge creation becomes evident. While the role of geographical proximity varies depending on collaboration motives, it is particularly important in collaboration projects at the core of innovation processes, where the objective is to access technologies, obtain knowledge or reduce the innovation time-span. The main conclusion of the thesis’ second part is that low- and medium low-tech industries maintain significant economic importance in high-wage countries, contrary to the assumptions of much academic and policy work. However, the character and activities of these industries are profoundly changing. The papers highlight that they are not passively waiting to be outcompeted by firms from low-cost countries. Instead, they are actively pursuing strategies to maintain competitiveness and increase the value added of products and processes. These findings underline the importance of a broad conception of the knowledge economy, which goes beyond research intensive industries.

The current European policy agenda strongly accentuates the importance of research and development (R&D) as a driver of economic growth. The basic assumption is that high European wage levels make it unlikely that less research-intensive parts of the economy can withstand competition from low-wage countries with increasingly skilled labour forces. Thus, the inferior growth of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s compared with the USA has been explained by the latter’s higher rate of R&D investments. The paper challenges this rather simplistic view of innovation and examines the regional consequences of such policies. EU growth has caught up with that of the USA during recent years and low-tech industries continue to have considerable economic importance in Europe in terms of jobs and value added, especially outside the main growth regions, but also in the major urban regions. Empirical evidence from Denmark and the UK provided in the paper suggests that low- and high-tech industries are closely interconnected because low-tech firms play important roles both as partners in the innovation processes of high-tech firms and as buyers of high-tech products. Therefore, EU industrial policy is not appropriate because it overlooks the continuing significance of low-tech industries. Furthermore, the rather uniform focus on R&D is associated with a strong emphasis on large city-regions where research-intensive industries are concentrated and, thus, increasing regional inequality in Europe is being produced.

This paper presents an account of the progress of the integration between the Danish and Swedish parts of the Öresund Region within the world of science, with emphasis on biotech. The paper is based on data from the database Science Citation Index Expanded. The amount of co-authorships produced by agents from each side of the region is analysed for a 12-year period (1994–2005) and used as an indicator to show how the integration is proceeding. Each of the co-authorships is examined to shed light on the nature of the interactions, thereby identifying the agents most involved in collaboration. Furthermore, the development in co-authorships within the region is compared to the development in co-authorships between the Öresund Region and four selected reference areas. Our findings indicate that there has been a substantial increase in both the number of co-authorships overall and within biotech solely. The rise in co-authorships between the two parts is proceeding at a faster pace than the rise in co-authorships between the Öresund Region and the reference areas. The overall results of this paper indicate a growing integration of the biotech sector in the Öresund Region.

This chapter discusses the notion of the circular bioeconomy, and the drivers and barriers for adding value to waste and thereby creating a more sustainable bioeconomy. It highlights the special role of governance including innovation policy in developing the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy is an emerging area for research, policy and economic activity and there are many views on it. Our focus is on the role of innovation in waste valorisation, including technological as well as social and institutional innovation. We discuss the waste pyramid that illustrates the hierarchy of alternative forms of waste management in terms of resource efficiency and sustainability, and the associated notion of the cascading use of biological resources. We conceptualise the different forms of waste management as “integrated socio-technical systems of production and consumption”. This concept brings into play the body of literature on socio-technical transitions, innovation and governance that is central for analysing the patterns and dynamics of waste valorisation.

The objective of this paper is to outline and discuss the key elements of an EU industrial development policy consistent with the Paris Agreement. We also assess the current EU Industrial Strategy proposal against these elements. The “well below 2 °C” target sets a clear limit for future global greenhouse gas emissions and thus strict boundaries for the development of future material demand, industrial processes and the sourcing of feedstock; industry must evolve to zero emissions or pay for expensive negative emissions elsewhere. An industrial policy for transformation to net-zero emissions must include attention to directed technological and economic structural change, the demand for emissions intensive products and services, energy and material efficiency, circular economy, electrification and other net-zero fuel switching, and carbon capture and use or storage (CCUS). It may also entail geographical relocation of key basic materials industries to regions endowed with renewable energy. In this paper we review recent trends in green industrial policy. We find that it has generally focused on promoting new green technologies (e.g., PVs, batteries, fuel cells and biorefineries) rather than on decarbonizing the emissions intensive basic materials industries, or strategies for handling the phase-out or repurposing of sunset industries (e.g., replacing fossil fuel feedstocks for chemicals). Based on knowledge about industry and potential mitigation options, and insights from economics, governance and innovation studies, we propose a framework for the purpose of developing and evaluating industrial policy for net-zero emissions. This framework recognizes the need for: directionality; innovation; creating lead markets for green materials and reshaping existing markets; building capacity for governance and change; coherence with the international climate policy regime; and finally the need for a just transition. We find the announced EU Industrial Strategy to be strong on most elements, but weak on transition governance approaches, the need for capacity building, and creating lead markets.

In recent decades, the technological innovation systems (TIS) framework has been applied to the study of technology development and diffusion. While policy is considered a key element of TIS analysis, less attention has been paid to the influence of TIS dynamics on policymaking. To better understand the coevolution between TIS and policies, this paper develop an analytical framework to highlight the coevolution between TIS dynamics and policymaking. The framework underlines not only the influence of policies on TIS functionality, but also that changes in TIS functionality may in turn feed back into policymaking: policymakers may observe changes in TIS functionality and adjust policies to account for this, but changes in TIS functionality may also have implications for the ability of TIS actors to influence policymaking. Empirically, we study the new energy vehicle battery (NEVB) industry in China since the early 2000s. In the case of China's NEVB industry, an increasingly strong and complicated coevolutionary relationship between the focal TIS and relevant policies at different levels of abstraction can be observed. Overall, we argue that more research is needed to better understand the agency side of how TIS development leads to changes in policymaking.

The Swedish steel industry stands before a potential transition to drastically lower its CO2 emissions using direct hydrogen reduction instead of continuing with coke-based blast furnaces. Previous studies have identified hydrogen direct reduction as a promising option. We build upon earlier efforts by performing a technological innovation system study to systematically examine the barriers to a transition to hydrogen direct reduction and by providing deepened quantitative empirics to support the analysis. We also add extended paper and patent analysis methodology which is particularly useful for identifying actors and their interactions in a technological system. We conclude that while the innovation system is currently focused on such a transition, notable barriers remain, particularly in coordination of the surrounding technical infrastructure and the issue of maintaining legitimacy for such a transition in the likely event that policies to address cost pressures will be required to support this development.