Bioeconomy perception by students of different study programs – study from Slovakia

The paper builds on previous international research done by Masiero et al. (2020). It applies on Slovak national level and expands the previous study with different study programs. The societal transformation towards bioeconomy provides an opportunity for changing current economy and societies into more sustainable ones with mitigation of the environmental pressures at hearts. Such societal transition requires involvement of all stakeholders in bio-economy discussion and decision-making process and studying their perceptions of bioeconomy. Amongst all the stakeholders, future generation is particularly important, as it is important to understand bioeconomy perception by the generation of stakeholders that will manage this area in the near future. For that reason, we focus our attention on students of three bioeconomy related areas at the Technical University in Zvolen (forestry studies, wood processing studies and natural resources management studies). We were able to identify significant differences in bioeconomy perception between analyzed categories. The familiarity with the concept is quite high, as more then two thirds have heard about bioeconomy before the survey was conducted. As the main information sources were selected news, university courses and social media. The study program had a greater impact on perceived importance of forests within bioeconomy than the type of study. Overall, students perceive development of forest-based bioeconomy as favouring sustainable forest management.