Enno Kreher

Enno Kreher has earned both his bachelor and master degree in Chemistry and Management at Ulm University (Germany).

In his master thesis, Enno aimed at investigating barriers and key policy interventions to support the German bio-based economy. Bio-based products and services are recognized to be promising for the continuous development of an economy. Such an economy could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the use of nonrenewable resources. To enhance the effectiveness of policy interventions and to optimize the distribution of governmental funds, it is essential to know which interventions reflect the needs of stakeholders best. Stakeholders addressed in a survey included experts on bio-based economy in industry as well as in research and governmental organizations in Germany. The survey was designed based on the theoretical concept of functions of innovation systems. It aimed at gaining insights into the opinions of stakeholders regarding policy interventions and potential changes in the needs and priorities of stakeholders over the last years. Therefore, results from a former EU funded Climate-KIC project Biohorizons were used as a reference.

In the thesis, Sawtooth Software’s MaxDiff module was used to obtain and rank the stakeholders’ opinion on different policy interventions. The main rationale behind using MaxDiff method was that otherwise participants tend to judge all interventions as important or highly important and answers therefore lack clearness. Results show that policy interventions, which ensure the continuity of policy, stimulate industrial symbiosis, ensure competitive feedstock costs, raise public awareness of bio-based products and institute standards and regulations for the bioeconomy, have the highest priority amongst the presented policy choices. The ranked results of the survey show notable similarities to the results obtained five years before in the Climate-KIC project. The calculated individual scores were also used to identify significant differences between three stakeholder groups representing the participants: academia, business and public institutions/policy. Conducting an analysis of variance (ANOVA) significant differences between stakeholder groups could be identified for nearly one third of the interventions.