Characterizing bioeconomy policy instruments:

Over the past two decades, the concept of the bioeconomy has gained significant traction in policy making and research. While the visions and goals of bioeconomy policy strategies are well-researched, the policy instruments used to promote them have received little attention. Addressing this research gap, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of bioeconomy-related policy instruments as articulated in 78 governmental bioeconomy policy documents from 50 countries around the world. Qualitative content analysis was used to identify the stated policy instruments and to assess the prevalence, density, choice of instrument type, balance, and calibration of the instrument mix across policy documents as a whole, but also disaggregated by substantive policy focus, time, country income groups, and individual strategies. We find that bioeconomy policies are dominated by economic and nodal instruments focused on promoting innovation, research and development, while regulatory instruments, particularly those addressing environmental issues, are rare within the strategies themselves. Moreover, while bioeconomy strategies contain a significant number of statements about instruments, they rarely specify their calibration. These patterns suggest that while bioeconomy strategies play important agenda-setting and signaling roles, their limited balance and calibration may constrain their ability to provide actionable policy guidance.