DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7509-820-7-0348

PERCEPTION OF STAKEHOLDERS ON DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL BIOECONOMY STRATEGY: THE CASE OF NITRA REGION

Danka MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Filip TKÁČ

Purpose: The bio-based economy is a powerfully emerging sector with huge potential and providing employment for many people across the whole Europe. There are still many European regions, including Nitra region in Slovakia, that do not take full advantage of their potential. The H2020 project POWER4BIO aims at supporting these regions in boosting the bio-based economy in their areas and analysing the transition from a realistic and competitive standpoint. Therefore, one of project goals was to ensure the critical mass beyond the consortium by involving additional stakeholders for fostering a dialogue between the consortium members and regional actors.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper introduces the implementation of POWER4BIO methodology for guiding development of regional bioeconomy strategy in Nitra region.
Based on the initial knowledge status of the regional situation and the regional stakeholder map, further methodological steps led to two-stage approach in selection of the group of relevant stakeholders. The workshop and questionnaire survey were realized within the POWER4BIO project in 2019-2020. All stakeholders were contacted firstly personally and then asked for their responses on an electronic survey translated in the Slovak language, and the respondents were provided with detailed explanations and instructions. The sample of stakeholders consisted of representatives of four different categories - practitioners/companies, associations of producers, providers and legal entities, policy makers, and academic experts.
Findings: Most of the responding stakeholders declared the appropriate knowledge of the state-of-art dedicated to bioeconomy issues. Responding stakeholders evaluated agriculture as existing, as well as the most promising sector from the point of view of current value chains. The survey has shown on the one hand a lack of private, local and regional financial schemes and funding mechanisms, and on the other hand a lack of knowledge of respondents about available models of public funding at the national and EU level. It has been also evident that the stakeholders mostly rely on public funds and government as a managing authority.
Research limitations: The used approach and methods have limitations due to accuracy of the stakeholder groups and because of prevailing qualitative character of the obtained data and information. Thus, we did not conduct standard statistical quantitative analysis. On the other hand, the strength of this approach and method was that the project team members could ensure stakeholders from different categories were properly engaged in a meaningful way in the process of development of regional bieconomy strategy, and provided with a complex policy and field assessment framework.

Klíčová slova: bioeconomy development, multi-actor approach, stakeholders´ engagement, participatory methods, regional bioeconomy strategy

stránky: 348-355, Publikováno: 2021, online: 2021