Search

Research in sustainability transitions increasingly acknowledges that the structural characteristics of socio-technical systems differ. However, little attention has been paid to the specific transition dynamics that can result from this structural variation. In response, this paper develops a framework for studying transition dynamics that takes the structural characteristics of socio-technical systems and their influence on agency into account. We introduce the concept contestation axis to highlight alternative potential interfaces between functional solutions in a socio-technical system. We argue that considerable agency and frictions between actors can play out at other axes than between established regimes and emerging niches. Our conceptual framework is applied to a case study in the waste sector. We explore how the growing influence of the circular economy triggers misalignment between multiple socio-technical configurations in the Danish waste sector. In the case, we zoom in on three actual frictions that have manifested along different contestation axes.

We perform, to our best knowledge, the first systematic mapping of the foundational economy (FE) at the sub-national level by looking at the FE employment in Swedish regions between 2007 and 2016. We show that the FE itself not only suffered less than traded activities from employment decline during the Great Recession of 2007–2009 but was also a domain of substantial job creation in the post-crisis recovery. At the same time, regions with higher dependence on foundational employment were hit harder during the crisis in terms of overall labour market performance. We demonstrate that it is specific compositions of foundational and traded activities in the regional employment mix that relate differently to regional employment growth in times of crisis and recovery. Jointly, these findings allow us to contribute to the literatures on the FE and regional resilience.

The maritime shipping industry is responsible for around 3 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and is now under pressure to decarbonise. Until now, the shipping industry’s main regulator, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), has failed to implement sufficient policy instruments to support the emission reduction targets set in its Initial GHG Strategy introduced in 2018, and the implemented policy mix lacks consistency and comprehensiveness. This could be considered surprising given that shipping is one of few sectors with a main, global regulatory body, which should allow for a comprehensive and consistent policy mix. This is the puzzle examined in this paper. We identify three main challenges for more consistent, comprehensive and stricter regulation of GHG emissions from international shipping: (1) lack of capacity within the IMO to regulate multiple and emerging technologies, (2) uncertainty around the IMO’s regulatory mandate, and (3) lack of political consensus during negotiations. If the IMO is to play a more progressive role in mitigating climate change, these factors needs to be considered to ensure that the combination of policy instruments are able to achieve set emission reduction targets.

The foundational economy approach to economic development suggests that the production of goods and services that are critical to human welfare (e.g., water, energy, education and elderly care) sho...

This paper focuses on path development processes after a sudden path exhaustion. We analyse the decline, the closure and the attempts at the re-orientation of a forestry-based industry agglomeration in Southern Norway, located around the municipality of Hønefoss. In particular, this paper focuses on the Treklyngen holding company in Hønefoss. This paper explores how policy may be influenced by and built upon regional capabilities to support new path development in the aftermath of path exhaustion. It also shows how natural resources and institutional endowments could contribute to path development, under such difficult circumstances in a peripheral region.

The foundational economy perspective suggests that industries, which provide services essential to all citizens’ well-being and participation in everyday life, should be placed centrally in economic development policy. This article studies the extent to which local governments put emphasis on foundational industries in their strategies for development. Moreover, drivers behind priority-setting are examined. Based on an analysis of all 98 Danish municipalities’ planning strategies and semi-structured interviews with relevant actors from two rural municipalities, we find that foundational industries are to a great extent emphasised, even if they are not characterised as the foundation for economic development. Rather, foundational industries are prioritised in the absence of other options or when municipalities are not compelled to put local job creation as a crucial focus to attract and maintain inhabitants.

The literature on the catching up of latecomer countries has pointed at windows of opportunity as a precondition for catching up. Previous research has however failed to illuminate the determining factors affecting the number of firms benefitting from windows of opportunity. The current article addresses this gap by combining insights on the nature of knowledge spillovers with sectoral characteristics. This perspective is applied empirically by analyzing the number of firms benefitting from a ‘green’ window of opportunity in the Chinese biomass power plant industry, specifically related to changes in the institutional framework conditions in the form of a feed-in tariff and specified targets for renewable energy. The article finds that while a single Chinese firm constituted the initial phase of the catch-up cycle, domestic knowledge spillovers allowed a larger number of Chinese firms to benefit from the window of opportunity in the later stage of the catch-up cycle. The article points at the importance of combining sectoral characteristics with the degree of domestic knowledge spillovers as key determinants for the number of firms profiting from windows of opportunity.

Recent literature has begun to discuss complementarities between sectors and technologies in the context of sustainability transitions. This paper contributes to this literature by theorizing complementarity formation mechanisms underlying such positive interactions within and across technology value chains. It pursues empirically founded theory building based on a case study of innovation in battery-electric, hydrogen and liquefied biogas technologies in Norwegian coastal shipping. Three complementarity formation mechanisms in technology value chains are identified: synchronization, amplification, and integration. Synchronization points to the need for co-development between the input and user sectors of a technology value chain. Amplification refers to the necessary expansion of input sectors to match the growing demand in user sectors. Finally, integration highlights the potential of convergence between different technology value chains in one or more user sectors. The paper concludes with a discussion of how policy may leverage such complementarity formation mechanisms to foster innovation in zero‑carbon technologies.

This article explores whether and how innovation policies promote transitions to more sustainable configurations in socio-technical systems. Empirically it departs from an analysis of the bioeconomy policy strategies and instruments in four Nordic countries. The analysis highlights that while a transformative approach is present at the policy strategy level in the Nordic countries, the bioeconomy policy instruments implemented are significantly less transformative. The article argues that a bioeconomy transition that contributes to sustainable development will require a redirection of policies towards transformative failures (directionality, policy coordination, demand articulation, and reflexivity). In this regard, it is important that policymakers experiment with and explore ways of balancing between traditional market and innovation system approaches and new policy approaches for transformative change.

Analyses of the future for manufacturing and heavy industries in a climate constrained world many times focus on technological innovations in the early stages of the value chain, assuming few significant changes are plausible, wanted, or necessary throughout the rest of the value chain. Complex questions about competing interests, different ways of organising resource management, production, consumption, and integrating value chains are thus closed down to ones about efficiencies, pay-back times, and primary processing technologies. In this analysis, we move beyond this to identify archetypal pathways that span across value chains in four emissions intensive industries: plastics, steel, pulp and paper, and meat and dairy. The pathways as presented in the present paper were inductively identified in a multi-stage process throughout a four-year European research project. The identified archetypal pathways are i) production and end-use optimisation, ii) electrification with CCU, iii) CCS, iv) circular material flows, and v) diversification of bio-feedstock use. The pathways are at different stages of maturity and furthermore their maturity vary across sectors. The pathways show that decarbonisation is likely to force value chains to cross over traditional boundaries. This implies that an integrated industrial and climate policy must handle both sectoral specificities and commonalities for decarbonised industrial development.

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is today seen as a key technology to cut carbon emissions in many of the hard-to-abate sectors such as energy-intensive process industries and the waste-to-energy sector. Although CO2 capture is technically possible, key challenges for realizing CCS persist. Over the past decade, CCS has entered a new phase with more focus on application in energy-intensive industries rather than the energy sector. For CCS value chains to materialize, innovation and implementation thus needs to occur amongst an array of actors, with different innovation modes, institutions, and policy regimes, and with varying sectoral capacities for adaptation and change. There has so far been limited social science research on CCS innovation dynamics, which we suggest approaching as a socio-technical change process. To better understand this process we draw on the sustainability transitions research field and employ the technological innovation system (TIS) framework to study the CCS innovation system in Norway. We find that, overall, the Norwegian CCS TIS displays systemic weaknesses for example in the form of market formation and resource mobilization, yet recent developments suggest a relatively positive momentum for this technological field which is key to meeting global climate mitigation targets.

The paper explores knowledge recombination by analysing how knowledge networks in established technological fields influenced the formation of the emerging field of green shipping in the period 2007–2018. Previous research has demonstrated that embeddedness, proximity, and status are important mechanisms for the evolution of single technological fields. We investigate if these mechanisms also apply across technological fields. By employing dynamic social network analysis models, we find that actors transferred knowledge across technological fields through (re)combination mechanisms, which affected the emergence of the new technological field, but in different ways. While embeddedness and proximity played an important role, status was less important.

The target of zero emissions sets a new standard for industry and industrial policy. Industrial policy in the twenty-first century must aim to achieve zero emissions in the energy and emissions intensive industries. Sectors such as steel, cement, and chemicals have so far largely been sheltered from the effects of climate policy. A major shift is needed, from contemporary industrial policy that mainly protects industry to policy strategies that transform the industry. For this purpose, we draw on a wide range of literatures including engineering, economics, policy, governance, and innovation studies to propose a comprehensive industrial policy framework. The policy framework relies on six pillars: directionality, knowledge creation and innovation, creating and reshaping markets, building capacity for governance and change, international coherence, and sensitivity to socio-economic implications of phase-outs. Complementary solutions relying on technological, organizational, and behavioural change must be pursued in parallel and throughout whole value chains. Current policy is limited to supporting mainly some options, e.g. energy efficiency and recycling, with some regions also adopting carbon pricing, although most often exempting the energy and emissions intensive industries. An extended range of options, such as demand management, materials efficiency, and electrification, must also be pursued to reach zero emissions. New policy research and evaluation approaches are needed to support and assess progress as these industries have hitherto largely been overlooked in domestic climate policy as well as international negotiations.

The paper contributes to debates on dark phases of regional industry path development processes. We focus on the role of industry legitimacy and study legitimacy spillovers from contextual structures in the case of the biogas industry in Scania, Sweden. Previously presented as a success case, we show how legitimacy spillovers from various contextual structures influenced the path development process, in both the emergence and acceleration phases, and in the recent decline period. The analysis highlights how previously accumulated resources in the form of knowledge, finance and market were insufficient to prevent industry decline when it suffered a loss of legitimacy.

Due to a spatial turn in the socio-technical transition literature, the geography of energy transitions has recently been taken increasingly seriously, leading to burgeoning research output on regional energy transitions since early 2010. Amidst this wealth of publications, however, it can be difficult to keep track of its diverse and constantly evolving landscape. This editorial therefore aims at developing a framework that allows for bringing multiple approaches to regional energy transitions into conversation with each other and that helps to understand and explain the complexity of these interdependencies in ways that go beyond observing regional variety in energy transitions.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affects people worldwide. The policies in response to the virus range from closure of national borders to curfews for entire metropolises, like Paris. While we can expect severe impacts on the world economy, the consequences of the pandemic for local sustainability transitions are entirely unclear. In this exploratory study, we investigate how the current situation affects the work of transition intermediaries in the energy sector. More concretely, we aim to analyse the impact of COVID-19 policies on community energy projects and the subsequent change of work practices of intermediaries in this situation. Our data consists of qualitative data we collected between January and October 2020. Our results show that transition intermediaries are affected in different ways. Most notably, the work on networking suffers during these times of crisis. We found that intermediaries are particularly challenged in their ability to build trust. This particularly affects new and complex community energy projects and intermediation activities needed for systemic change. We found that established projects with a strong trust base are least affected by these limitations. Intermediaries dependent on private funding face much bigger problems than publically funded organisations. Our results offer some novel and relevant insights in the role and work of transition intermediaries and the development of community energy projects in times of crisis. These findings can help governments, intermediary organizations and citizen groups to design future transition processes in ways that are more resilient to external shocks.

This paper contributes to the literature on urban climate change experiments by analysing ascribed advantages and challenges of organizing climate change experiments at the urban scale, and by examining how local actions translate into effect. We here distinguish between effects of experiments in achieving actual sustainability gains (‘goal-oriented objectives’) and instigating broader institutional change (‘process-oriented objectives’). Empirically, we analyse efforts related to energy supply in two Danish urban climate change experiments: The ‘CPH 2025 Climate Plan’ in Copenhagen, and ‘ProjectZero’ in Sonderborg. Our analysis poses considerable question marks over the importance of the advantages ascribed to urban climate change experiments including ‘authority advantages’ and possibilities of ‘engaging and mobilizing stakeholders’.

In response to the ongoing climate crisis, many countries have issued policies to support the uptake of renewable energy. In the same vein, the European Union (EU) has issued a revised renewable energy directive in 2018. One of the pillars of the directive is the support for community energy initiatives, i.e. sustainable energy initiatives run by or with the participation of citizens. The concept of community energy (CE) has been linked to a number of advantages, such as strengthening local democratic processes or economic development for marginalised communities. The aim of this review article is to find out how past policies helped to overcome or aggravated transition challenges towards a higher share of community energy in the EU. To answer this question, we reviewed the scientific literature on community energy from the last decade. We analysed this body through a theoretical lens that highlights four main transition challenges. These occur in relation to 1) directionality, 2) demand articulation, 3) experimentation, 4) policy learning & coordination. Our results show that visions and goals are important policy tools for providing directionality in the energy transition. Feed-in-tariffs (FiT) surface as the most important policy to support community energy projects and spark demand. We found very little indication for a link between community energy and explicit experimentation. Nevertheless, learning does take place amongst peers. Our review underlined the important role intermediaries play in facilitating policy learning and coordination. We conclude by presenting a number of concrete policy recommendations such as strengthening intermediary organisations and providing administrative support to community energy initiatives in case of changes in the policy framework.

This paper develops a more detailed understanding of when incumbent actors may become the main locomotive driving energy transitions. It also illustrates the trade-offs between policy approaches that actively seek to involve the incumbents in transitions, and policy approaches that pursue transitions without their active involvement. The paper examines state support for the bioeconomy in Sweden and concludes that public investments have been geared towards large-scale, complex and integrated biorefineries that are dependent on the active participation of the forest industry. Incumbents in the forest industry have, however, both lacked motivation and the abilities required to take the necessary steps for commercialisation of the demonstrated concepts. Instead, a rather small investment in a joint venture between actors from the forestry and oil refinery industry in Sweden has spurred learning and revenues; and it has placed an oil refinery at the centre of the future development of what we here term distributed biorefining. The main trade-off is that while this shift has opened up for cross-industrial collaborations and the production of advanced biofuels and materials, it has also paved the way for further investments in existing fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Developing countries are giving increasing attention to industry development in renewable energy industries. Previous research highlights the influence of technology characteristics on such catching-up policies, distinguishing between complex products produced in small batches, and mass-produced simple products. We suggest that catching-up policies should move beyond this binary distinction between technologies. To illustrate this, we carry out a longitudinal analysis of catching-up policies in Mexico for two technologies – solar water heating and solar photovoltaics – that are both characterised as standard, mass-produced products, but which differ in degree of technological complexity. Our analysis highlights that the greater technological complexity of solar photovoltaics implies a larger focus of policies on providing access to resources in the form of knowledge, finance and legitimacy from abroad. Conversely, policies focusing on solar water heating had a greater domestic focus.

Facing increasing pressure to decarbonize, innovation within the shipping sector has turned to low-and zero carbon solutions. In this paper we investigate how the development and implementation of biodiesel and liquefied biogas (LBG) in Norwegian coastal shipping has been influenced by the technological alignment with fossil fuels. We understand this influence to emanate from the (mis)match of biofuels with the structure of coastal shipping (e.g. infrastructure, knowledge, institutions, actors) which has been shaped by fossil fuels. This way we contribute to the development of Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) framework by discussing the effect of sectoral cross-technology externalities on the functionality of a TIS. Our core data consists of semi-structured interviews, supported by a firm survey with Norwegian shipowners. Our results show that the technological alignment provides the biodiesel and LBG TISs with several benefits, such as access to established markets and infrastructure, which suggests that Norway to some extent has good conditions for maritime biofuel markets to form. However, two major barriers for implementation of biofuels are fuel availability and cost. Considering the competition with battery-electric and hydrogen solutions, the positive externalities of the interchangeability between fossil and biofuels are insufficient to make biodiesel and LBG competitive contenders for coastal shipping. In order to upscale implementation of biofuels in the Norwegian coastal shipping sector, which is needed to reach national and international emission targets, there is a need for strengthened policy interventions. To establish market formation, subsidies for biofuels and feed-in targets would be crucial policy instruments.

Proximity and power in collaborative innovation projects. Regional Studies. The proximity literature has so far paid little attention to power relations in collaborative innovation projects. This paper draws on contributions from international business to examine if power constellations between collaborators in innovation projects influence the effects of proximity. An analysis of two cases of collaborations between headquarters and subsidiaries of multinational companies highlights that specific power constellations indeed influence the effects of proximity. While some forms of proximity allow subsidiary-specific capabilities to diffuse throughout the organization and pose a threat to the powerful subsidiary, the weaker subsidiary considers proximity as a possibility to learn from the headquarters.

In this paper, we analyse community energy (CE) projects in urban settings. Building on insights from the literature on the geography of sustainability transitions, we examine how contextual conditions promote or hinder the development of CE. Furthermore, reflecting on calls for greater attention to agency in transitions, we investigated how actors engaged in urban CE projects exploit beneficial conditions or overcome obstacles related to some of the contextual conditions. Empirically, we draw on six case studies of CE projects from the Baltic Sea Region. To develop a thorough understanding of our cases we conducted 24 semi-structured interviews and analysed numerous secondary sources. Our results show that institutions as well as visions, e.g. plans for future energy generation, are important contextual features for urban CE projects. Local actors seek to overcome unfavourable contextual conditions for CE initiatives by building trust, appealing to their community's sense of identity, networking, and promoting demonstration projects. Based on the results, we recommend that local and national governments address the following four issues to strengthen the role of CE in the transformation of urban energy systems: 1) harmonising policies; 2) creating a culture for transitions; 3) developing visions for CE; and 4) promoting policy learning from experiments.

Maritime transport faces increasing pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to be in accordance with the Paris Agreement. For this to happen, low- and zero-carbon energy solutions need to be developed. In this paper we draw on sustainability transition literature and introduce the technological innovation system (TIS) framework to the field of maritime transportation research. The TIS approach analytically distinguishes between different innovation system functions that are important for new technologies to develop and diffuse beyond an early phase of experimentation. This provides a basis for technology-specific policy recommendations. We apply the TIS framework to the case of battery-electric and hydrogen energy solutions for coastal maritime transport in Norway. Whereas both battery-electric and hydrogen solutions have developed rapidly, the former is more mature and has a strong momentum. Public procurement and other policy instruments have been crucial for developments to date and will be important for these technologies to become viable options for shipping more generally. © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

At the regional level, the imperative of sustainable development often manifests itself in an emphasis on developing green industries. However, regions vary in their preconditions for achieving this. In this paper we link regional preconditions to various pathways for green industry development. This provides the foundation for identifying place-based policy implications for growing green industries in different types of regions, grounded in the emerging perspective in innovation studies on transformative innovation policy. The paper thereby helps to understand the pathways for greening the economy in different regional contexts and how such green pathways can be promoted through policy.

The maritime shipping sector (MSS) is coming under increasing pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For Norway, emission reductions in the MSS are furthermore crucial for meeting the national 40% emission reduction obligations in accordance with EU and the Paris agreements. Using a technological innovation systems (TIS) approach, this report analyses four low- and zero-carbon (LoZeC) energy solutions (biodiesel, liquefied biogas, hydrogen, battery electric (BE) storage) that can replace or supplement fossil fuels in the MSS. Based upon this analysis the report provides both general and technology-specific policy recommendations. Greening the fleet: A technological innovation system (TIS) analysis of hydrogen, battery electric, liquefied biogas, and biodiesel in the maritime sector

Governments in countries across the world increasingly adopt the “green growth” discourse to underline their ambition for the greening of their economies. The central tenet of this narrative is the economic opportunities rather than challenges arising from the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Our paper synthesises insights from 113 recent scientific articles, dealing with both environmental issues and economic growth, as well as innovation. Our ambition is exploratory in attempting to take stock of heterogeneous contributions across the spectrum of social science. The articles have been reviewed with a focus on six themes, derived from current discussions in economic geography and transition studies: skills, technology, physical resources, markets, institutions and policies. Four major implications emerge from the review. First, green growth requires competences that allow for handling complex, non-routine situations – in both the private and the public sector. Second, technological progress should be directed towards greener technologies, to avoid investments funds being channelled to brown technologies for short-term returns. Third, our knowledge of the opportunities for achieving green growth must base upon a joint assessment of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures. Finally, greater attention should be devoted to the geography of green growth processes at different scales. (Less)

This chapter focuses on path development in the forest-based industries of Norway, based on the valorisation of side-streams and residues. Forest-based value creation is one of the main avenues for the emerging bioeconomy in Norway and the neighbouring Nordic countries Sweden and Finland. Historically, the forestry sector has been an important part of the Norwegian economy, both in terms of GDP and employment. The sector contributed 10.4% of Norwegian GDP in 1845 (Grytten, 2004, p. 254). After the discovery of oil and natural gas on the Norwegian shelf, the importance of the forestry sector has diminished. And over the last decade this negative trend has multiplied.

The orientation towards grand societal challenges can be seen as a new wave or paradigm for innovation policy. Such policy aims at system-wide transformation and is often referred to as system innovation policy. While insights from transition studies have provided novel and useful rationales for innovation policy targeting system-wide transformation, it remains unclear how to design, implement and evaluate such policies. The contribution of this paper is to translate and concretize the challenges of system innovation policy towards scope for policy action and analysis. Building on insights from transition studies we group the challenges into four domains: directionality, experimentation, demand articulation, and policy coordination and learning. We relate challenges within the four domains to three generic features of innovation systems: interests and capabilities of actors, networks, and institutions. The derived framework is applied in a case study on the strategic innovation programmes, a recent policy initiative by Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency, targeting system innovation.

The use of environmental DNA (eDNA) has become an applicable non‐invasive tool with which to obtain information about biodiversity. A sub‐discipline of eDNA is iDNA (invertebrate‐derived DNA), where genetic material ingested by invertebrates is used to characterise the biodiversity of the species that served as hosts. While promising, these techniques are still in their infancy, as they have only been explored on limited numbers of samples from only a single or a few different locations. In this study, we investigate the suitability of iDNA extracted from more than 3,000 haematophagous terrestrial leeches as a tool for detecting a wide range of terrestrial vertebrates across five different geographical regions on three different continents. These regions cover almost the full geographical range of haematophagous terrestrial leeches, thus representing all parts of the world where this method might apply. We identify host taxa through metabarcoding coupled with high‐throughput sequencing on Illumina and IonTorrent sequencing platforms to decrease economic costs and workload and thereby make the approach attractive for practitioners in conservation management. We identified hosts in four different taxonomic vertebrate classes: mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, belonging to at least 42 different taxonomic families. We find that vertebrate blood ingested by haematophagous terrestrial leeches throughout their distribution is a viable source of DNA with which to examine a wide range of vertebrates. Thus, this study provides encouraging support for the potential of haematophagous terrestrial leeches as a tool for detecting and monitoring terrestrial vertebrate biodiversity.

This review covers the recent literature on the geography of sustainability transitions and takes stock with achieved theoretical and empirical insights. The review synthesises and reflects upon insights of relevance for sustainability transitions following from analyses of the importance of place specificity and the geography of inter-organisational relations. It is found that these contributions focus on the geography of niche development rather than regime dynamics, and that there is an emphasis on understanding the importance of place-specificity at the local level. While there is a wide consensus that place-specificity matters there is still little generalisable knowledge about how place-specificity matters for transitions. Most contributions add spatial sensitivity to frameworks from the transitions literature, but few studies suggest alternative frameworks to study sustainability transitions. To address this, the review suggests promising avenues for future research on the geography of sustainability transitions, drawing on recent theoretical advancements in economic geography.

This article provides an overview of the literature on demonstration projects and trials, and accounts for how insights drawn from this literature can contribute to the development of a sustainable bioeconomy. The article reviews the literature on demonstration projects and trials, covering both more broad-based studies on demonstration projects mainly carried out in the US and more specific studies on demonstration projects for energy technologies carried out in Europe, the US, and Japan. The aim of the article is to account for how demonstration projects and trials can contribute to the development of a sustainable bioeconomy.

This article examines the case of a Chinese firm that has upgraded to lead firm position in the global biomass power plant industry mainly through acquisitions of technological frontier firms in Denmark. Sustaining the lead firm position was, however, challenged by difficulties in developing innovative capability. Drawing on the literature on (i) firm-level technological capability and (ii) knowledge transfer in international acquisitions, we explain the reasons for insufficient innovative capability building. Based on these empirical findings, we suggest maintaining the existing upgrading framework but applying it analytically in a more flexible manner that avoids linearity, hierarchy and segmentation while stressing the co-existence of and inter-relationships between the different types of upgrading.

Studies increasingly apply a multidimensional proximity framework in the analysis of collaborations between actors. This article explores the influence of collaboration motives on the desired proximity characteristics of partnerships in innovation projects based on 50 interviews with representatives from Danish cleantech firms. How search criteria along proximity dimensions differ depends on the purposes of the collaborations. In this way, the analysis distinguishes between the types of collaboration, where geographical proximity is considered highly important and those where geographically distant partners are preferred. Geographical proximity plays an important role in partnerships motivated by interaction around actual product development and knowledge creation, while long-distance relationships appear to be important for partnerships motivated by market access and cost considerations. The insight that the desired proximity characteristics of partnerships are indeed contingent on the motive for collaborating highlights how the proximity framework can be applied in the analysis of firm decision making.

The voluminous literature on industrial catching-up in Southeast Asian countries has regularly argued that successful catching-up largely depended on a committed state, which orchestrated industry development with a relatively uniform set of policies, including R&D support, subsidies, trade restrictions, and local content requirements. In contrast, recent contributions from the technology lifecycle literature have argued that policies should be tailored to differing technological characteristics in industries for mass-produced standardized goods, complex engineered products, and—as we argue—complex product systems (CoPS). In this paper, we extend this argument by introducing a set of separate policy mixes for each industry type, which appears most capable of providing the key resources required for catching-up: knowledge, market access, financial investment and technology legitimacy. This framework is used to analyze catching-up patterns in China’s wind, solar PV, and biomass power plant industries, drawing mainly on policy documents and 106 interviews with key industry actors. We find that traditional top-down catching-up policies played a decisive role in the development of China’s wind industry, but were of limited importance in the early solar PV industry, and resulted only in a limited period of rapid growth in the biomass power plant industry. The relative progress achieved in these three industries is not related to top-down policy guidance alone, but also to private sector initiative, international interdependencies, and flexibility in adapting policy mixes to each industry’s technological characteristics. These results suggest that policy makers in newly industrializing countries (NICs) should avoid drafting generic sector plans, but should tailor plans to individual industries, and respond to changing policy support needs as technological capacities and global competitiveness develop.

Production of cellulosic ethanol (CE) has not yet reached the scale envisaged by the literature and industry. This study explores CE production in Europe to improve understanding of the motivations and barriers associated with this situation. To do this, we conduct a case study-based analysis of CE production plants across Europe from a global value chain (GVC) perspective. We find that most CE production plants in the EU focus largely on intellectual property and are therefore only at the pilot or demonstration scale. Crescentino, the largest CE production facility in Europe, is also more interested in technology licensing than producing ethanol. Demonstration-scale plants tend to have a larger variety of feedstocks, whereas forestry-based plants have more diversity of outputs. As scale increases, the diversity of feedstocks and outputs diminishes, and firms struggle with feedstock provisioning, global petroleum markets and higher financial risks. We argue that, to increase CE production, policies should consider value chains, promote the wider bio-economy of products and focus on economies of scope. Whereas the EU and its member states have ethanol quotas and blending targets, a more effective policy would be to seek to reduce the risks involved in financing capital projects, secure feedstock provisioning and support a diversity of end products.

This paper unpacks resource mobilisation for biorefineries by studying investment decisions of incumbent pulp and paper firms in Sweden and Finland. The analysis highlights that the limited adoption of biorefinery technologies can be attributed to both insufficient abilities (lack of needed competencies and partnerships) and interests (preference for improving existing technologies) by pulp and paper incumbents. Drawing on the technological innovation system perspective complemented with insights from the management literature on the role of incumbents in technological change, four issues are empirically identified as important for improving resource mobilisation for biorefinery technologies: establishing loosely coupled divisions in pulp and paper firms; creating internal markets for new bioproducts aimed at further technological development; entering purchasing agreements with downstream actors; and investing in new managerial competencies.

The concept of a bioeconomy can be understood as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals, and energy are derived from renewable biological resources. Biorefineries are considered an integral part of the development toward a future sustainable bioeconomy. The purpose of this literature review is to synthesize current knowledge about how biorefinery technologies are being developed, deployed, and diffused, and to identify actors, networks, and institutions relevant for these processes. Several key findings can be obtained from the literature. First, investing more resources in R&D will not help to enable biorefineries to cross the ‘valley of death’ toward greater commercial investments. Second, while the importance and need for entrepreneurship and the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is generally acknowledged, there is no agreement how to facilitate conditions for entrepreneurs and SMEs to enter the field of biorefineries. Third, visions for biorefinery technologies and products have focused very much on biofuels and bioenergy with legislation and regulation playing an instrumental role in creating a market for these products. But there is a clear need to incentivize non-energy products to encourage investments in biorefineries. Finally, policy support for biorefinery developments and products is heavily intertwined with wider discussions around legitimacy and social acceptance. The paper concludes by outlining current knowledge gaps.

Over the past 10-15 years the bioeconomy has increased in importance and has been promoted as a possible contribution to address important societal challenges such as climate change, food security, and global health issues. It is argued that the development towards a circular bioeconomy can be characterised as a system change as it requires fundamental changes in both production and consumption systems (Coenen, Hansen, and Rekers 2015; Bugge, Hansen, and Klitkou 2016; Scordato, Bugge, and Fevolden 2017). However, even if governments in many countries have started to introduce policies addressing grand societal challenges, it remains unclear how policies can be implemented to achieve determined goals, and also how such policies can be understood in relation to existing policies (Kuhlmann and Rip 2014; OECD 2015; Schot and Steinmueller 2016). Still, we know very little about the extent to which policies are in fact giving sufficient importance to transformative failures (vis-à-vis market and structural failures). Also, to the extent that transformative failures are given attention in bioeconomy policies, we don’t know whether this is consistent in the policy mix or only in terms of formulating visions.