The promotion of ‘innovation’ in forestry: a role for government or others?

Regional forest organizations and their innovation impact on forestry and regional development in central Switzerland

“…The innovations in the research area, as in most cases throughout the forest sector in Switzerland as well as in many other countries worldwide, are considered "incremental" or additive and not "transformative"-that is, they are not really opening new horizons (Innes, 2009). They are explicitly heading for an improvement of its economic performance (Schweizerische Hochschule für Landwirtschaft (SHL), 2010) and networking and learning orientation of forest owners is of little importance to them.…”

“…What will happen in the long run remains to be seen. Cooperating to achieve a better marketing position is an extraordinary development in a traditionally minded, risk-averse, and somewhat emotional and conservative branch, that it is not only in Switzerland, but in other European countries as well (Innes, 2009;Rametsteiner et al 2005:59;Schmidhauser, 2008b;Zimmermann and Wild-Eck, 2007). Therefore it is remarkable that despite a strong cooperative cultural tradition throughout Switzerland, not all forest owners are willing to forgo individual decision making for a better financial return, and in fact, the majority of the forest owners had not joined ROs at the time of the investigation.…”

“…The withdrawal of the Cantonal Forest Service from consulting and cutting activities has paved the way for new institutional forms of cooperation among forest owners. Although it seems to be more often the other way around-that is, government policies promote and institutions hinder progress in the forest sector (Innes, 2009)-the ROs and government financial incentives in central Switzerland have provoked process and organizational innovation, at least in the short run. Nevertheless the foundation of ROs has not been a bottom-up process in the strict sense of the term initiated by social networking from below, but partly through incentives from above and a drawback of services rendered in the past by the Cantonal Forest Service.…”

Innovations in Forest Bioeconomy: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…For instance, the forest bioeconomy is an important sub-sector of the overall bioeconomy, under which forests are managed in a sustainable mode. They are projected to provide a significant contribution of biomass and have "classic" applications, such as wood processing or pulp and paper [7,46]. However, the forest sector was perceived as a conservative industry, with traditional business culture and little experience collaborating with other industries, unlike the companies they partnered with.…”

“…A key could be to ensure adequate extension amongst the target audience. This fosters a requirement for a successful implementation of innovation and encourages the forestry community to engage in innovation [46]. The innovations summarized in Appendix A show that innovations in the forest bioeconomy range from 'classic products', passing through improvements in forest data management and usage, harvesting both timber and non-timber forest products, to biorefining.…”