Projekt

Fraunhofer-Institut für
System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

Consequences, opportunities and challenges of modern biotechnology for Europe (Bio4EU) - Task 2

Modern biotechnology is one of the key enabling technologies of the 21 st century with a potentially wide range of applications in e. g. health care, agriculture and industrial processes. However, recent analyses suggest that the actual adoption of modern biotechnology by various European industry sectors may be lower than anticipated. It appears that modern biotechnology might have been successful primarily in niches where economically competitive alternatives do not exist. In general, data on the actual uptake of modern biotechnology by various sectors and its socio-economic consequences in Europe is still scarce. Against this background the European parliament requested the Commission in late 2004 to carry out an assessment of modern biotechnology. This assessment was carried out in the context of the BIO4EU project which was executed by the JRC-IPTS in line with the European biotechnology action plan.

The objective of BIO4EU is to provide a thorough assessment of the consequences, opportunities and challenges that applications of modern biotechnology present for the EU. The study is de-signed in a way that allows identifying and quantifying as far as possible contributions of modern biotechnology to the achievement of major European policy objectives formulated in the Lisbon Agenda and in the sustainable developments strategy, in particular concerning economic growth and job creation, public health and quality of life, food safety, food production and rural development, and environment and energy. In parallel, to a large part of the study, a mid-term review of the community strategy on life sciences in biotechnology, and the respective action plan will run. Accordingly, study findings and results were scheduled and communicated in a way facilitating their input into this discussion.

The BIO4EU study is structured into 3 tasks: task 1, the mapping of modern biotechnologies and applications, analysis of data availability and identification of indicators. Task 1 has been outsourced to ETEPS, started in October 2005 and delivered results at the end of December 2005. The present study task 2 is the core data gathering and evaluation exercise of the study, analysing adoption of modern biotechnologies and its consequences, opportunities and challenges. Task 3, contribution of modern biotechnology to major EU policy objectives, was carried out by JRC-IPTS.

Task 2 was organised into 7 workpackages: 1.1: Mapping of adoption of modern biotechnology for human and animal health in the EU, 1.2: Evaluation of consequences, opportunities and challenges of modern biotechnology applications for human health, 2.1: Mapping of adoption of modern biotechnology in primary production/agro-food in the EU, 2.2: Evaluation of consequences, opportunities and challenges of modern biotechnology applications in primary production and agro-food, 3.1: Mapping of adoption of industrial biotechnology in the EU, 3.2: Evaluation of consequences, opportunities and challenges of industrial biotechnology applications, 4: Modern biotechnology R&D landscape and human capital. The methodology used to gather the required data comprises mainly desk research, analyses of available statistics, 28 case studies in the 3 main application fields, expert interviews, mini surveys of selected stakeholder groups.

Task 2 was scheduled for a very short period of 6 months with key results required after 3 months. At the same time objectives and scope of the study are broad and challenging. This required the mobilisation of a large number of competent researchers from the ETEPS network, associated and external organisations. Accordingly, the project was carried out by 8 groups. Fraunhofer ISI acted as the project managing partner and was also the lead partner of workpackages 1.1, 1.2, and 4. TNO was the lead partner of workpackages 3.1 and 3.2. INNOGEN led workpackages 2.1 and 2.2. The other participating groups were: VTT, CIRCA, MERIT, TPAC, and the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan (FHW).
 
Status:
Finished (Apr. 2006 – Oct. 2006)

Client:
European Commission DG JRC, IPTS; within the ETEPS AISBL framework

Partners:
  • CIRCA Group Europe (Jim Ryan)
  • Georgia Tech Technology Policy and Assesssment Center (TPAC) (Susan Cozzens)
  • INNOGEN Centre, University of Edinburgh (Joice Tait)
  • Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT), NL (Anthony Arundel)
  • TNO Innovation Policy Group, NL (Christien Enzing)
  • University of Applied Siences of Weihenstephan (Klaus Menrad)
  • VTT Technology Foresight and Technology Assessment (Raija Koivisto)
Publications:
Summary
For all reports see the Bio4EU website:
http://bio4EU.jrc.es