Katharina Sailer presents her PhD research on institutional and technical strategies for the diffusion of agricultural sustainable innovations in the frame of the EU funded project ADVANCEFUEL.

Innovative Business Models, new technologies, and innovative cropping schemes are the main focus of agricultural projects funded by the European Union like ADVANCEFUEL, BECOOL, ForBio, an Magic. Some of these approaches have been implemented in practice with very mixed results. 

This study will analyse agricultural innovation processes, their interdependences to institutions as well as the causality with actor’s decision making by applying diffusion of innovation theory and entrepreneurial ecosystem theory. The data will be extracted from various case studies. Archetype analysis will be used to decompose the different cases and compare their individual elements. From the outcome of the archetype analysis, strategies will be derived from shared patterns, on how to upgrade supply chains and develop solid business models.

The study is expected to give new insights into the role of technological and institutional synergy effects of the different case studies regarding agricultural innovations. Furthermore, it is expected to reveal ways how those synergies can be utilized in order to reduce transaction costs.

Speaker: Katharina Sailer

Inviting scientist: Philipp Grundmann