20 M. M. Bugge et al.
number of central grand challenges. Specifically, the chapter seeks to explore
the origins, uptake and contents of the term “bioeconomy” in the academic
literature. First, this includes a bibliometric analysis of peer- reviewed articles
on the topic (Section 2.3), which identifies central organisations, countries
and scientific fields. A main result is that the bioeconomy concept has been
taken up in multiple scientific fields. Consequently, in Section 2.4 we review
literature on the bioeconomy in order to examine the differences in the
understanding of the bioeconomy concept that are put forward in the academic literature. Specifically, we focus on the implications regarding overall
aims and objectives, value creation, drivers and mediators of innovation, and
spatial focus. Before proceeding to the analysis, the following section presents
the methodology.
2.2 Methodology
2.2.1 Bibliometric analysis
The bibliometric analysis is based on a literature retrieval of relevant scientific
articles indexed in a recognised scientific article database, the Core Collection
of Web of Science. The delimitation of a sample can be defined by the chosen
publishing period, the geographical location of the authors, the selection of
research areas, the selection of a journal sample or the selection of keywords.
For the purpose of this study, we analysed the literature indexed during the last
decade, from 2005 to 2014. We did not include 2015 to allow the papers published in the last year to gather citations in 2015. Since we decided to analyse
the existing scientific literature about the bioeconomy, we chose to take a
global approach and to include all research domains. (Furthermore, there is
significant overlap in the research carried out on the bioeconomy between the
human, social, natural and technical research domains. For example, ethical
aspects of the development of the bioeconomy are often covered by journals
categorised as humanities, so this research domain is included as well.)
The following keywords and their variants were selected: bioeconomy, biobased economy, bio- based industry, circular economy and bio*, bio- based
society, bio- based products, and bio- based knowledge economy (variations are
created by hyphens and truncation). A list of calculated indicators is provided in
Appendix A. In the analysis of most active organisations and their collaboration
in terms of co- publishing we used fraction counts and not absolute counts to
achieve a more accurate picture of the position of the different organisations.
Social network analysis (SNA) techniques were applied to measure
different types of centrality in the networks, such as degree centrality and
betweenness centrality. While degree centrality is defined as the number of
links that a node has (Borgatti, 2005), betweenness centrality is defined as the
number of times a node acts as a bridge along the shortest path between two
other nodes (Freeman, 1977). Both indicators are calculated with the help of
UCINET 6 developed by Borgatti, Everett and Freeman (2002) and network
number of central grand challenges. Specifically, the chapter seeks to explore
the origins, uptake and contents of the term “bioeconomy” in the academic
literature. First, this includes a bibliometric analysis of peer- reviewed articles
on the topic (Section 2.3), which identifies central organisations, countries
and scientific fields. A main result is that the bioeconomy concept has been
taken up in multiple scientific fields. Consequently, in Section 2.4 we review
literature on the bioeconomy in order to examine the differences in the
understanding of the bioeconomy concept that are put forward in the academic literature. Specifically, we focus on the implications regarding overall
aims and objectives, value creation, drivers and mediators of innovation, and
spatial focus. Before proceeding to the analysis, the following section presents
the methodology.
2.2 Methodology
2.2.1 Bibliometric analysis
The bibliometric analysis is based on a literature retrieval of relevant scientific
articles indexed in a recognised scientific article database, the Core Collection
of Web of Science. The delimitation of a sample can be defined by the chosen
publishing period, the geographical location of the authors, the selection of
research areas, the selection of a journal sample or the selection of keywords.
For the purpose of this study, we analysed the literature indexed during the last
decade, from 2005 to 2014. We did not include 2015 to allow the papers published in the last year to gather citations in 2015. Since we decided to analyse
the existing scientific literature about the bioeconomy, we chose to take a
global approach and to include all research domains. (Furthermore, there is
significant overlap in the research carried out on the bioeconomy between the
human, social, natural and technical research domains. For example, ethical
aspects of the development of the bioeconomy are often covered by journals
categorised as humanities, so this research domain is included as well.)
The following keywords and their variants were selected: bioeconomy, biobased economy, bio- based industry, circular economy and bio*, bio- based
society, bio- based products, and bio- based knowledge economy (variations are
created by hyphens and truncation). A list of calculated indicators is provided in
Appendix A. In the analysis of most active organisations and their collaboration
in terms of co- publishing we used fraction counts and not absolute counts to
achieve a more accurate picture of the position of the different organisations.
Social network analysis (SNA) techniques were applied to measure
different types of centrality in the networks, such as degree centrality and
betweenness centrality. While degree centrality is defined as the number of
links that a node has (Borgatti, 2005), betweenness centrality is defined as the
number of times a node acts as a bridge along the shortest path between two
other nodes (Freeman, 1977). Both indicators are calculated with the help of
UCINET 6 developed by Borgatti, Everett and Freeman (2002) and network