**1. Introduction**

The bioeconomy can be defined as being the result of all the economic activities related to the direct or indirect production, transformation, and utilization of resources of biological origin. However, technological advances mean that—in addition to the production of food, forest products, textiles, and energy—such resources can now be exploited to obtain extracts or active compounds for use in nutrition and pharmacology as well as diverse biocompounds, such as bioplastics and biofuels.

The European Union (EU) approved its bioeconomy Strategy in 2012, driven by the General Research Directorate of the European Commission. One of its objectives was to stimulate the development of a national strategy in each member state, adapting the objectives and lines of work to the particular conditions, singularities, and specifications of each country. In Spain, the Bioeconomy Strategy was launched at the start of 2016. This considers the use of science and knowledge as an essential element, while attempting to meet the challenges presented in each of the socioeconomic sectors related to the production and utilization of resources with a biological origin.

The Spanish Bioeconomy Strategy defines the bioeconomy as the whole of the economic activities that provide goods and services, and thus generate economic value, through the use, as fundamental elements, of resources of biological origin in an efficient and sustainable manner. As recognized in this Strategy, and in our context, the objective is the production and commercialization of foodstuffs, forest products, bioproducts, and bioenergy, obtained by means of physical, chemical, biochemical, or biological transformations of the organic materials not destined for human or animal consumption. It is implicit that this should involve processes that are respectful of both the environment and the development of rural communities.

In this chapter, we analyze the possibilities for the bioeconomy in Spain. We describe the sectors that currently form part of it and the challenges that, from our perspective, it must meet, as well as stressing the need to incorporate technology based on the generation of knowledge and innovation. Then, we focus on the Spanish Bioeconomy Strategy, describing its genesis and the elements essential to it, before finishing with an explanation of the activity of the Spanish Observatory of the Bioeconomy, an instrument vital to the development of the bioeconomy in Spain.
