STRIVE: New project on Bioeconomy launched at ZEF
July 12, 2016.
The project STRIVE (Sustainable TRade and InnoVation transfer in the bioEconomy: from national strategies to global sustainable development goals) combines research expertise from economics, political science, and environmental geography to improve the knowledge base for the design of sustainable bioeconomy policies and investments with a focus on international regulatory frameworks.
The project will be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a total sum of approximately 3 million euros.
ZEF Junior-Professor Jan Börner is the project's Principal Investigator and tells about the following details:
Our research program is motivated by the notion that an alignment of bioeconomic societal transformation with global Sustainable Development Goals as contemplated in the post-2015 debate involves multiple complex governance challenges. To address these challenges, this project aims at (I) enhancing public and private decision-makers’ capacity to tailor bioeconomy related policies and investments according to regional and local sustainable comparative advantages and at (II) identifying essential ingredients of international and national regulatory frameworks to promote social and environmental benefits of bio-based transformation.
We propose three closely aligned research components that focus on transnational biomass flows and innovation transfer in selected bioeconomy sectors with an emphasis on major biomass and knowledge producing countries and regions.
Component 1 broadens the existing global knowledge base on drivers, conditions, and outcomes of bioeconomic transformations;
Component 2 develops integrated tools for scenario & tradeoff analyses and social as well as environmental impact assessment; and
Component 3 systematically identifies governance gaps and optimal design principles of international regulatory frameworks for a sustainable global bioeconomy. The planned research will be conducted in collaboration with strong German, European, and international partners and is embedded in a networking strategy that aims at mainstreaming sustainability science in applied bioeconomy research.
