SUPERVISOR: Simone GINGRICH

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Bernhard KASTNER

Solutions to pressing global crises (e.g. transgression of planetary boundaries, increasing societal instabilities) have been proposed under many different names, concepts and programs. Among the (recently) more popular ones is the “Bioeconomy”, as a concept for a post-fossil future. The term itself already has rich intellectual ancestry and powerful contemporary advocates, however, many modern bioeconomic practices appear to be moving the world towards further escalation of the crises whereas the knowledge for sustainable solutions fails to gain traction for large-scale interventions. This dissertation wishes to explore the field between theoretical knowledge base and practical implementation.

The first chapter clarifies inconsistencies and contradictions within the discourse surrounding the term “Bioeconomy”. The research questions inquire which issues have the Bioeconomy community divided: What are the major crossroads at which the different approaches to the Bioeconomy part ways? And can the diverging approaches still be bridged through any commonalities? The answers to these questions are hoped to uncover hidden levers of change and help design better theory and practice. The resulting framework allows to conceptualize the bioeconomy as a reordering of social metabolism and provisioning systems within planetary boundaries, and to outline the contours of an emerging narrative of a transformative bioeconomy characterized by including culturally created values and mentalities on which the normative purpose of economic activity is grounded. 

The second chapter details the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in implementing the bioeconomy in practice. In particular, this project evaluates the bioeconomy profile of BOKU University, an HEI with a unique combination of life sciences, social sciences and engineering, and founding member of the European Bioeconomy University Alliance which has been named a central catalyst of the new European Bioeconomy Strategy 2025. The study triangulates three components: (1) a document analysis of strategic texts (BOKU’s internal development plan; performance agreement with the Ministry) to identify institutional logics, metrics, and governance commitments; (2) a discourse analysis of BOKU publications explicitly invoking “bioeconomy” to map dominant narratives, metaphors, and evaluative criteria; and (3) a Q‑methodological study to elicit and structure subjective viewpoints among key constituencies (e.g., researchers, students, administrators) on the purposes, guardrails, and societal obligations of the bioeconomy. Together, these methods reveal alignments and tensions between institutional strategy, scientific discourse, and imaginaries.

More broadly, the project explores bioeconomy discourses in general and identifies the transformative bioeconomy as a promising route to pursue. Beyond that, it demonstrates how HEIs can reorient the bioeconomy by reforming internal incentives and narratives, thus reorganizing provisioning for equitable, regenerative futures.