ABSTRACT
The concept of the bioeconomy has recently emerged to international prominence through the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 2001), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2005) and DG Research within the European Commission. For the OECD the concept of the bioeconomy refers to the increasing convergence of scientific disciplines and technologies directed towards capturing ‘the latent value in biological processes and renewable bioresources to produce improved health and sustainable growth and development’ (OECD 2005: 5). In contrast, for DG Research at the European Commission, what is variously described as the ‘knowledgebased bioeconomy’ and the ‘bioeconomy’ has recently been presented to the public as a progression from the ‘Age of Engineering’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to the ‘Age of Chemistry’ in the twentieth century, to a ‘transition’ towards the ‘Age of Biotechnology’ in the twenty-first century, heralding economic activity and technology that in the words of EuropaBio is ‘clean, clever and competitive’.1
