Boundary-spanning by design? Policy-induced innovation collaboration in the German bioeconomy

In 2019, the German government introduced a new policy to spur field-spanning innovation synergies in the bioeconomy. The so-called ‘Innovation Space’ defines a funding umbrella around a specific bioeconomy subfield and delegates authority of decision-making on new grants and members to the initially funded consortium. In this paper, we explore the extent to which one Innovation Space focusing on bio-based textiles experienced knowledge cross-fertilization between distinct projects. We propose a typology of boundary-spanning knowledge relationships and apply a mixed relational methods approach to empirically assess the potential for knowledge cross-fertilization and, hence, policy-induced collaboration in the textile bioeconomy. Despite its recent emergence, we find incidence of boundary-spanning learning relations across projects and sectors (science–industry) since inception of the Innovation Space. Members with permanent or temporary geographical co-location, and those receiving referrals from colleagues, were more likely to engage in knowledge exchange than other members. Project managers were involved in two-thirds of boundary-spanning, whereas similar relationships between only technical members were rare. Additionally, analysis of network robustness shows that learning across project boundaries was vulnerable to already low membership fluctuation. The findings suggest that Innovation Spaces are a policy instrument that fosters knowledge cross-fertilization beyond the confines of bounded projects.