Case study on Bioeconomy Campus, Central Finland

Abstract

AbstractThis paper studies the development path, assets, and challenges of an initiative for a bioeconomy innovation ecosystem located in a sparsely populated rural area. The case studied is the Bioeconomy Campus in northern Central Finland. Central Finland was one of the European bioregions whose bioeconomy was analyzed from the clustering point of view by the FP7 project BERST ‐ BioEconomy Regional Strategy Toolkit (2013–2015). In this paper, the role of the Bioeconomy Campus in the Finnish research, development, and innovation (RDI) system is described and the development path of the campus is studied in the context of the BERST results from Central Finland. The cluster analyses in BERST were based on information about bioeconomy clusters located mostly in densely populated central European areas with big industries. The potential of the Bioeconomy Campus to further develop and to promote smart growth in the surrounding rural environment is discussed by comparing the findings of this case study with the BERST results and with some results presented in literature on clusters and innovation ecosystems. The main aim of the comparison is to get indication of the relevance and usefulness of this type of down‐scaling for further exploitation of BERST results. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd