The resilience of social-ecological systems (SES) has become a major concern in environmental policy. The ongoing transition towards a bio-based economy essentially aims to address resilience challenges of the fossil-based economy. Its success depends on the resilience of the SES and bio-based production systems (BBPS) on which the bioeconomy rests. This paper introduces the Resilience Policy Design (RPD) framework to analyse and assess how bioeconomy policies address the resilience challenges of SES/BBPS. It combines resilience thinking and the 'new' policy design perspective, aiming at comparative research across countries, sectors and policy levels. It comprises five steps: determining relevant context conditions and the policy design space, characterizing bioeconomy policy mixes, identifying affected SES/BBPS and their resilience challenges, assessing the orientation of the policy mix towards different resilience capabilities (robustness, adaptability or transformability) and its resilience-enabling or-constraining elements, and overall assessment. An exemplary application focusing on energy maize in Germany finds a layered policy mix, addressing different resilience concerns over time. It demonstrates the inherently political nature of SES/BBPS resilience that requires inclusive, deliberative policy-making, the importance of policy feedback for adaptive and transformative governance with a long-term perspective, and the need for inter-/transdisciplinary collaboration to develop and assess resilience policies.