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agriculture, fisheries, and aquaculture play a fundamental role in providing these bio-based substitutes for non-renewable sources [8,9]. Forestry is seen as one of the key sectors of the EU bioeconomy [10]. In the last years, publications on a forest bioeconomy have rapidly increased, confirming that international policies and academic research on forest bioeconomy prove forestry as one of the solutions for sustainable economic growth and green job opportunities, and has a key role in targeting challenges such as climate change, food security, health, industrial restructuring, and energy security [2,11]. The forest-based sector can promote novel and innovative wood-based bio-materials such as construction materials, chemicals, bio-plastics, packaging materials, and bio-textiles [12–14] and can contribute to a sustainable and inclusive biosociety [12,15]. It is however surprising that the social aspects of the bioeconomy were less discussed in literature or in practice discussions [16]. This is also discussed in the paper of Ludvig et al. [15] which states that the social benefits of the bioeconomy and its potential to create green jobs should not be forgotten and undervalued [16]. Transition processes to bioeconomy and reduction of operations in fossil industries will create the need for new types of jobs, and these can be replaced by bioeconomy-related activities that can bring skilled jobs to rural areas and contribute to their development [17–19]. Thus, diversified activities within the bioeconomy are also needed. Jankovsk ý et al. [12] point further to the need for cooperation, support, and learning from other sectors that can support a smoother and friendlier transition to bioeconomy. The wide spectrum of activities, in the forest-based sector with various forest products and services, and innovative ways of using and promoting these, can contribute to a just transition that could provide opportunities to diverse actors (such as small forest owners, entrepreneurs, and individual households) and not just forest industry. Such products and services are also related to non-wood forest products and services (NWFPs) that are recognised as an important contribution to the bioeconomy [10,20]. “NWFPs are defined as wild and semi-wild non-wood forest species and products thereof, as well as products in early stages of domestication, e.g., fruit trees, bushes, orchards, and with reference to specific services related to NWFPs such as wellbeing and tourism” [21] (p. 9). NWFPs are in most cases perceived as a niche product with limited potential for added value and scalability, with a wide range of contributions to forestry’s economic output, tourism, and rural development [21]. NWFPs are often termed “side-products”, “niche markets” or even “non-market” goods [21]. As a result, the field of NWFPs and related business opportunities are hardly visible and recognized, although they seem to be bigger than often thought. The level of NWFPs’ contribution to the bioeconomy is unrecognised by both policymakers and forestry practitioners and their production is rarely considered a forest management objective [10], except for some specific products in specific countries (like chestnuts in Italy, or mushrooms or cork in Spain and Portugal) [22,23]. The current and the potential role of NWFPs in the bioeconomy have been discussed in few review publications [10,15,22–27]. This paper aims to go further and emphasize the potential role of NWFPs in the bioeconomy, by analysing existing innovative activities with NWFPs. The reason for taking an innovation perspective is manifold. Innovations of all kinds can play a prominent role in the transformation to a sustainable future forest use [15,28]. Furthermore, innovation systems that exist around these products and services illustrate a complexity of a system, which is a characteristic of the bioeconomy as well [29]. Thus, many of the identified aspects are relevant for supporting the process of the bioeconomy transition (illustrated on European level). By providing an overview of concrete examples of selected innovations in Europe that may have an opportunity to scale up in future alongside a wider transforma- tion process, this paper illustrates in which way NWFPs can contribute to the European bioeconomy. Through this, we attempt to address the gaps in existing research and make important contributions to both forest bioeconomy and innovation literature. Jankovsk ý et al. [12] showed that the scientific literature on the topic of innovations in the forest bioeconomy so far was mainly focused on the necessary adaptation of policies, while innovations were mainly focused on specific fields, such as: biorefining, biotechnol-
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