European innovation policies towards resource-constrained innovations In favour of circular economy

International audienceThe Covid-19 crisis coupled with global warming are putting our economies to the challenges and emphasizing the vulnerability of our socioeconomic systems. The 2030 agenda and its 17 development goals include the fight against global warming (SDG13) and the need to change our consumption and production patterns (SDG12) as a development priority. Thus, it seems necessary to change the paradigm to break away from a traditional logic of linear economic development aiming to "produce, consume and throw away" to move towards an economic development which tends to limit the waste of resources and environmental impact, while increasing efficiency at all stages of the product economy. This principle is referred to as the circular economy and consists of a production and consumption system based on recycling, reuse, repair, remanufacturing, product sharing, changing consumption patterns, and new business models and systems (European Commission, 2019).A monitoring framework for circular economy has been well-developed by the European Commission in 2018 in which indicates environmental indicators, including energy efficiency, use of renewable energy sources, carbon intensity and waste taxes (European Commission, 2018). Furthermore, circular economy is referred as part of a strategy to support the EU's carbon neutrality by 2050 (European Commission, 2018). It is based on the principle of decoupling, the objective of which is to ensure "green growth", i.e. economic growth decoupled from resource consumption (Crane et al., 2011; European Commission, 2014). Environmental innovation (or eco-innovation) driven by the deployment of green technologies is at the heart of this strategy as it allows for the reduction of environmental risks, pollution and other negative impacts of resource use throughout the life cycle of products/services (Kemp & Pearson, 2007). However, if innovation is at the center of the EU circularity strategy, the diversity of these forms must be considered. Indeed, beyond eco-efficiency objectives, innovation can also aim at sobriety in production and consumption and thus refer to "low-tech" innovation (Alexander & Yacoumis, 2018), frugal innovation (Agarwal et al., 2017) or bricolage (Senyard et al., 2010), hereafter, referred to as Resource Constrained Innovations (RCIs). In recent times, the implication and linkages of resource-constrained innovations to circular economy have gained interest in academic discussion and management practices (Hyvärinen et al., 2016; Levänen et al., 2016). These two concepts are outcomes of considerations on resource constraints and/or resource optimizing and thus contributing in defining the concept of sustainable development, but the conceptual relationship between them has remained limited (Ezeudu et al., 2022). Resource-constrained innovations, in general, due to their specificities (simplicity, sustainability), raise questions about their ability to guarantee greater adaptability of companies and territories in the face of the progressive changes underway (climate change, increasing scarcity of resources). The systematic study of Ezeudu et al. (2022) found that resource-constrained innovation can act as a veritable facilitator to promote circular economy concept in developing countries but will require the support of official institutions and policies. In the context of European countries, there are relatively few works that assess the role of resource-constrained innovations in innovation policies in favor of a circular economy. This study, thus, aims to fill the gap in this literature by proposing a bibliometric analysis to investigate the links between innovation policy, circular economy and resource constrained innovations in European and to identify possible avenues for future research