Taking ideas to market can be a long, iterative, and complex process. When dealing with new bio-based materials, under-standing factors that help bridge the lab-to-market gap and how materials are selected for new product development have the potential to speed up the transition to a circular bioeconomy. This article defines abstract and conceptual material demonstrators and explores how they support the innovation process in different ways. Nine roles are iden-tified, including how material demonstrators contribute to generating and expressing new ideas, enable a shared understanding of technology, support the discovery of market value and the visualization of potential applications as well as helping to articulate internal and external strategies and communications. Abstract and conceptual material dem-onstrators are exemplified with both technology-driven and market-driven bio-based materials used in packaging.

In moving towards a cellulose-based society, interdisciplinary effort is required as it is at this interface that new ideas are found and can grow. New bio-based materials will play a key role but getting them into the marketplace is not always straightforward. Many options are available both for sourcing and for producing composite materials from wood-based cellulose and poly-lactic acid (PLA). Depending on how the material is processed, a multitude of properties can be generated. The main goal with this work was to attempt to reduce the research-To-market gap. This was done by testing a new way of working together where we bundled innovation-oriented projects and research-oriented projects around the theme of material experience. We then systematically worked with material demonstrators. In this article, we exemplify the results by focusing on one research-oriented project that did not at the outset have a market context and on one innovation-oriented project with clear market requirements. In addition to introducing a new concept in bundling research-oriented and innovation-oriented projects, this paper contributes several practical examples of what material demonstrators can do. We also present an application and analysis of Moultrie’s extended Science-Technology-Application-Market (STAM) model to analyze the material demonstrators and design phases of the bundled projects. We modified the proposed classification with different types of material demonstrators according to how close they are to an actual product segment. Designers and scientists worked together but with different emphasis in each phase.

Matching market demands and technological solutions is not always straightforward. In this article, we report on one material, a cellulose-PLA multimaterial, which was made on a full-scale pilot paper machine and adapted to five different market applications having specialized and often conflicting demands. The material can be injection molded, 3D-printed, hot pressed, treated as a textile, used in a laminate, or converted as a paper board, giving it a wide range of possible properties depending on how it is processed.The five application areas presented here were identified as gaps in the marketplace where seemingly conflicting needs were desired: opacity and transparency; compact for transport but having an expanded size during use; stiffness and flexibility; strength and light-weight; and durability and degradability. These properties are exemplified in a number of material and product demonstrators, illustrating how tailored solutions can give products with distinctly different personalities. The material can be made flexible and given movement as graceful as the wing of a bird or be processed to be strong and light-weight enough to be used in vehicles like airplanes. By having one material that is produced on a large scale, but then processed according to specific market demands and expectations, the gap between needing scale and needing scope is bridged.