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This paper aims to explore the evolutionary dynamics of innovation ecosystems in the food industry by adopting both open innovation and convergence approaches to derive practical policy implications to develop impactful innovation ecosystems to promote food production sustainably.

Starting from the cutting-edge case of Foodvalley in the Netherlands, the study adopts a backcasting approach to reach a future vision of food ecosystems from a sustainable food production perspective. The authors set the backcasting analysis in four steps: (1) description of the present and trends analysis, (2) selection of trustworthy criteria and goals, (3) development of future images and (4) analysis of how to reach the images.

The trends analysis has identified three existing innovation fields – protein shift, circular agrifood and food and health – and two strategic directions – convergence and localness decrease. The study reports how a long-term commitment may lead the valley toward a best future scenario.

The study suggests that policymakers and stakeholders can promote innovation strategies in sustainable food production ecosystems by encouraging collaboration between different sectors, reducing regulatory barriers, attracting innovative actors, and investing in education and training programs. To achieve measurable environmental and social impact outcomes, policies should promote entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that encourages innovation and risk-taking.

The originality of this paper concerns the backcasting perspective applied to the analysis of the food ecosystem. This approach facilitates the identification of a path direction for successfully managing open innovation and industry convergence toward a desirable future of sustainable food production.

The paper aims to explore the nature of initiatives and strategies of inter-organizational cooperation to cross the valley of death in the biopharma industry.

The authors conducted an exploratory case study analysis in the Biopharma Innovation Ecosystem in Greater Boston Area (USA), which is one of the oldest, and most successful IE in the US, specialized in the Biopharma domain, by conducting a round of expert interviews with key informants in the area, chosen as representatives of the different types of actors engaged in the drug development processes at different stages.

Main findings suggest that cooperation can contribute to surviving the valley of death by reducing the barriers within the drug development pipeline through the promotion of strategic relationships among actors of different nature, including the establishment of government-led thematic associations or consortia, agreements between university and business support structures, proximity to venture capitalist and the promotion of a general culture of academic entrepreneurship within universities.

The authors believe that this paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the nature of the specific cooperative initiative the barriers in drug development and help to survive the valley of the death.