Societal transformations

René Kemp

UNU-MERIT, ICIS, DRIFT

Presentation 5Environment and Sustainable Development course

UNU-MERIT PhD programme

Sustainability benefits may be secured through sociotechnical transformations involving system innovationAre green system innovations easier for countries that go through a transformation?

System Innovation

System innovations involve a new logic (guiding principle) and new types of practices (at the supply and user side).

Through system innovation a service is offered in a novel way or altogether new services are offered.

Innovation System

An innovation system is constituted by elements and relationships which interact in the production, diffusion and use of new and economically useful knowledge (Lundvall, 1992). A further distinction is between national, sectoral and regional systems of innovation.

Socio-technical change

Socio-technical change is the outcome of processes that can be identified at different levels: micro, meso and macroThe story of change: (1) Most innovation is incremental

and part of a technological regime, radical change occurs rarely

Socio-technical change (2)

At the micro level there is variety but the variety is bounded due to competition and to advantages of standardization but also bounded by self-assumed roles, routines and shared assumptions and beliefs – that form a cognitive and normative framework (a regime) which channels investment and imagination into particular directions

Socio-technical change (3)

The transformation of regimes and landscapes

Landscape

Patchworkof regimes

Niches(novelty)

Increasingstructuration of activities in local practices

Multi-level perspective on system- innovation

Geels (2002, 2004)

SSI =Sectoral systems of innovation (Malerba)

TIS = Technology-specific innovation systems (Jacobsson)

Markard (2006)

What is a regime?

A regime may be defined in terms of knowledge and technology (internal combustion vehicle regime)in terms of a practice: automobility, massproductionIn terms of the central institution or type of coordination: world trade agreement, IPR, system of control measures (product testing, occupational safety, health, ..)

Tec h n o lo g ic a lre g im e

U s e r a n dm a rk e tre g im e

S c ien c ere g im e

P o lic yre g im e

S o c io -c u l tu ra lre g im e

Alignment of ongoing processes in

a socio-technical regime

Geels (2005)

Landscape developments put pressure on existing regime, which opens up, creating windows of opportunity for novelties

Socio-technical regime is ‘dynamically stable’.On different dimensions there are ongoing processes

New configuration breaks through, takingadvantage of ‘windows of opportunity’. Adjustments occur in socio-technical regime.

Elements become aligned,and stabilise in a dominant design.Internal momentum increases.

Small networks of actors support novelties on the basis of expectations and visions.Learning processes take place on multiple dimensions (co-construction).Efforts to link different elements in a seamless web.

New regime influences landscape

Niche-innovations

Socio-technical’landscape (exogenouscontext)

Socio-technicalregime

Technology

Markets, user preferences

CulturePolicy

ScienceIndustry

External influences on niches(via expectations and networks)

Increasing structurationof activities in local practices

TimeGeels (2005)

The strength of the multi-level framework

is that innovation and transition processes can be explained by the interplay of stabilizing mechanisms at the regime level and (regime-) destabilizing influences or pressures at the landscape level combined with the emergence of radical innovations at the niche level

Regimes should be operationalised

Regimes are empirically vague: The conceptual issue of how to define a regime empirically has received only scant attention

When can we call something a regime?

How to deal with variations of products, actor strategies, markets within a regime conceptually?

How to measure grammar and rules sets?

An example of a regime

The automobility regime with its various regimeso Internal combustion engineo Car-ownership and self-drivingo Professional servicingo Massproduction

Each of which can be called a regime

How does a regime look?

What are key elements?Can they be observed empirically?

I would define regimes in terms of

Dominant practices (at supply and user side)Self-assumed rolesDominant ways of thinking (basic assumptions, problem definitions, favoured approaches for dealing with problems)Which are being reproduced

Questions

An important question for policy is whether sustainability transformations can be identified and implemented. What capacities and circumstances are needed for transformations to occur?Is the capacity for green transformations in developing countries less than it is in developed countries? If so, what are the reasons for this? Is this because of the lack of markets (which causes agents to adapt) or the lack of certain capabilities?