On the path to a sustainable future, many obstacles turn even sustainable approaches into unsustainable practices. Innovations in the bioeconomy are susceptible to this risk too. A responsible application of these innovations therefore requires understanding the underlying assumptions about the structural barriers involved, as well as strategies for overcoming or circumventing them. The BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding serves as a guide to situate research, teaching, and development within the bioeconomy and establishes a basis for interdisciplinary communication. The very process of developing this framework already contributes to making the bioeconomy tangible and comprehensible, allowing it to be understood and applied to your own fields of application.

This document is a first draft of the BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding and aims to encourage all members of BOKU to engage with the bioeconomy and reflect on its relevance to their own work and study areas, as well as the relevance of these areas to the bioeconomy.

BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding (Draft)

Disclaimer: The English version of the draft is a machine-assisted translation, and does not necessarily reflect the thorough formulations of the German original.

 

Feedback on the draft is expressly requested from all BOKU members via email to Bernhard Kastner by December 31, 2024.

 

Why a BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding?

Since the turn of the millennium, the bioeconomy has gained momentum as a political project, yet this has also contributed to a lack of clarity surrounding the term. Originally derived from scientific analysis of the environmental impact of economic activity, the bioeconomy was envisioned as a model for a post-growth society. However, with the rise of national and international bioeconomy strategies, bio-based production and processing methods were promoted as a growth engine for the economy. Between these two approaches lies a broad spectrum of interpretations of the bioeconomy, within which occasionally conflicting pathways to implementation emerge. The BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding serves several functions within this spectrum:

  • Developing the bioeconomy framework initiates a participatory discourse, thus
  • raising awareness among researchers, teachers, and students.
  • A shared understanding continuously supports functional, networked structures and
  • allows for the evaluation of research objectives.
  • It provides a reference point for research and teaching,
  • forming the basis for strategic decisions in university administration and leadership.
  • The BOKU Bioeconomy Understanding sets forward-thinking impulses in the scientific community,
  • catalyzes the development of a sustainable bioeconomy,
  • and contributes to responsible research practices.

Draft development

The topic of bioeconomy has engaged BOKU for many years—implicitly from the very beginning (forestry and agriculture are core elements of the bioeconomy, with Bodenkultur serving as its foundation) and explicitly since the 2010s, when it was integrated into the BOKU Development Plan 2015. Consequently, the Ethics Platform thoroughly examined the complex implications of this now strategic focus of the university and developed goals and criteria for the bioeconomy to raise awareness for responsible action in the field of bioeconomy. With the establishment of the BOKU Centre for Bioeconomy in 2019, it became evident that within the university, different interpretations of the term were being used and translated into diverse scientific practices, of which some show concerning tendencies toward structurally embedded unsustainability.

The bioeconomy understanding, jointly developed in 2024 by the Centre for Bioeconomy and the Bioeconomy Working Group of the Ethics Platform, aims to provide future-oriented guidance for the university’s ongoing work. In a foundational paper, key obstacles were first identified and solutions proposed, and through several iterations, this evolved into the public draft linked above.