Actor roles, knowledge types and the role of patenting for progressing sustainable technologies: A case study of demonstration projects

Abstract: The transition towards a bioeconomy is one of the greatest challenges of our times, and dependent upon radical innovations and the replacement of fossil-based technologies with clean and more sustainable ones. This is however not done in a jiffy since key underlying process technologies are underdeveloped and also contradict with the prevailing socio-technical regime. This makes demonstration projects crucial for the development of new biorefinery technologies since such projects can reduce not only technical but also organizational and institutional uncertainties. Due to the complexity and costs of demonstration activities, they are typically performed in inter-organizational settings with actors from government, academia, research institutes and the industry. Such a constellation of actors often implies somewhat contradicting interests, for example regarding diffusion versus protection of knowledge that bring challenges for technological development. The overall purpose of the thesis is therefore to enhance knowledge about demonstration projects as knowledge generators contributing to the progression of sustainable technologies. The thesis builds upon case studies of biorefinery demonstration plants and investigates the processes of knowledge development and diffusion in order to contribute to bridging the valley of death between demonstration and commercialization of more sustainable technologies. Three papers are appended to the thesis. Paper I studies which key barriers that actors engaged in demonstration plants experience during technological development and suggest a role-typology to address those barriers. The second paper investigate knowledge production taking place in demonstration projects and suggests that there is an “imbalance” in production of domain-specific technical knowledge in relation to general and procedural knowledge on how to work with commercialization, which contributes to the problem of new technologies not making it past demonstration. The third paper seeks to address management of demonstration projects as protected spaces for emerging technologies. Those findings show that patenting strategies influence the formulation of expectations among actors that guides the creation of the social network as well as the experimental work and learnings taking place there in order for emerging technologies to develop further.