Muhamed Kudic and Mariia Shkolnykova have published a discussion paper on the subject: “From biotech to bioeconomy. New empirical evidence on the technological transition to plant-based bioeconomy based on patent data” in der kürzlich neu eingeführten Diskussionspapierserie des ierp – Institute for Economic and Policy Reserach.

Abstract: Nowadays environmental and climate issues have brought the topic of bioeconomy to the political agenda around the world. Plant-based bioeconomy (pBE) has a key role in securing sustainable supplies of energy, food and raw materials for increasingly aging and growing societies. However, the technological roots and development path of pBE are far from being fully understood. Accordingly, we seek to contribute to an in-depth understanding of how biotechnology innovations affected the emergence of bioeconomy by exploring the technological field evolution of plant-based patent applications between 1995 and 2015 in Germany. We employ patent citation data and conduct forward citation analysis to trace technological trajectories within plant-based biotechnology. We extend previous work by combining patent-based citation analysis with text-mining approach. Main path analysis allows the identification of main players within plant-based biotechnology over time. Our explorations reveal dominant and also peripheral technologies within the sphere of plant-based applications and provide us in this way with a more comprehensive understanding of the field´s technological evolution. Our findings suggest a transition from basic biotechnological research towards more sustainability- and medicine-related technological orientation in the field.

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