DRIFT Dutch Research Institute for Transitions

Sustainability transitions involve complex, long-term societal changes driven by diverse actors embedded in dynamic structural contexts. This chapter adopts a role-based perspective to examine agency in sustainability transitions, distinguishing between social roles and transition roles. Social roles refer to societal positions and categories which constrain and enable human activities, which evolve with changing societal values and priorities. Transition roles reflect actors’ stances and actions within and their engagement with transition dynamics. The chapter explores the conceptual and empirical applications of these perspectives, providing an overview of research trends and gaps. While social roles offer insights into institutional change over time, transition roles highlight how actors strategically position themselves to influence or respond to transition dynamics. The analysis underscores the fluid and negotiated nature of roles, emphasizing their utility as heuristics for understanding institutional change and actor agency. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research, advocating for longitudinal studies on social roles to deepen our understanding of institutional change and for using the transition roles as a boundary object for action-oriented, transdisciplinary sustainability transitions research.

Transition governance, a field within sustainability transitions research, explores how societal transitions can be accelerated towards just and sustainable futures. This chapter presents the explorative and engaged approach to transition governance, which supports societal actors in navigating the complex and uncertain dynamics of ‘transitions in the making.’ A key feature of explorative transition governance is the interplay between analytical and action-oriented, transdisciplinary approaches. The chapter begins by outlining the background and diversity of analytical approaches to understanding how actors interact within transition dynamics, ranging from strategies of resistance to strategies for transformation. It introduces the X-curve framework, an analytical tool that enables identification of the actors and roles required in the twin dynamics of build-up and phase-out. Followed by introduction of the transformative and transdisciplinary approaches that have emerged under the umbrella term Transition Management: a cyclical approach based on strategic, tactical, operational and reflexive activities for social learning in applied multi-actor settings. These include transition arenas, reflexive monitoring, back-casting and transition experiments. Finally, the chapter reflects on the challenges and opportunities for advancing explorative transition governance amidst growing resistance to and need for transformative change.

How can cities be more sustainable and just? This question has guided a process of synthesizing insights from previously funded research and innovation projects that deal with approaches tackling urban sustainability and justice. As part of this process, a database in the form of a knowledge commons was developed to gather 40+ approaches: sets of interventions, actions, strategies, solutions or policies that address urban sustainability and justice. This paper reflects on what we can learn from this database of approaches from an urban transitions perspective, both by sharing the method we used to develop the database and by analysing the content of those approaches and what research has revealed in relation to them. Not only do we introduce our methodology of co-creating the database (Section 2) we also present its outcomes in terms of the interlinkages between sustainable and just cities in the identified approaches (Section 3), their transformative potential (Section 4) and which institutional logics are involved (Section 5). We conclude that in addressing sustainability challenges in cities, tensions and contradictions emerge between ecological sustainability on the one hand and inclusivity, recognition and equity on the other (Section 6). Based on the identified approaches, we find that issues linked to justice are frequently glossed over, implicitly addressed, and instrumentalized in favour of ecological improvements or profitability which causes serious implications for future urban research and innovation. In order to address this gap, we present four recommendations for city-makers and city-thinkers across the globe to integrate sustainability and justice at the urban level.

If transdisciplinary sustainability research is to contribute to sustainability transitions, issues of power dynamics need to be understood and accounted for. However, examples of concrete methods that put this into practice are sparse. This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework that develops a better understanding of the power phenomenon, while providing actionable knowledge. By focussing on the context of social innovation in energy transitions, we demonstrate how different theoretical conceptualisations of power can be translated into a collaborative, transdisciplinary research design. In a facilitated process, researchers, policy workers and practitioners from diverse social innovation fields developed and tested the Transformative Power Lab approach and co-wrote a ‘Power Guide’ as a strategic exploration of power dynamics in sustainability transitions, specifically regarding social innovation in energy transitions. Based on the insights that emerged during this process, we discuss how transdisciplinary and action-oriented approaches in sustainability transition studies might benefit from this approach and, potentially, develop it further.

Achieving climate-neutrality by mid-century and its intermediary reduction targets for 2030, notably the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 55% by 2030, requires an accelerated transformation of our systems of production and consumption. In essence, such transformations are socio-technical change processes that require a combination of technological and social innovation. While it is widely acknowledged that ambitious climate and energy policies are needed to accelerate such transition processes, research and practise have largely focused on their importance for spurring technological innovation. In this research perspective, we argue that energy and climate policy making should pay more attention to social innovation as much needed additional puzzle piece for successful decarbonisation. Such social innovation is diverse, ranging from renewable energy cooperatives, to participatory incubation and experimentation, and crowdfunding as well as local electricity exchange. Based on a literature review that informed an EU policy dialogue bringing together policy makers, practitioners and researchers and followed up by a workshop with city administrations, twelve practical action points were co-created on how to better consider social innovation in energy and climate policy making in the EU (and beyond). We thereby hope to stimulate a broader discourse on the dual need for social and technological innovation for reaching climate-neutrality.

The rise of advanced ICT technologies has made it possible to apply low-cost sensor systems for measuring air quality in citizen science projects, including education. High school students in Norway used these sensor systems in a citizen science project to design, carry out, and evaluate their own research projects on air quality. An impact assessment framework was designed to assess the impact of these activities, considering five areas of impact: scientific, social, economic, political, and environmental. In addition, the framework also considers the transformative potential of the citizen science pilot, i.e., the degree to which the pilot can help to change, alter, or replace current systems, and the business-as-usual in one or more fields such as knowledge production or environmental protection. Data for this assessment were gathered in the form of questionnaires that the students had to complete before starting and after finalizing the pilot activities. The results showed positive impacts on learning, a pro-environmental world view, and an increase in pro-science attitudes and interest in scientific and environmental-related topics at the end of the pilot activities. Only weak impacts were measured for behavioral change. The activities showed transformative potential, which makes the student activities an example of good practice for citizen science activities on air quality with low-cost sensors.

This chapter describes how entrepreneurial policy makers, researcher and professionals in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, support the transition to a water resilient city. It identifies the capacities needed to work systematically on transformative change: stewarding, unlocking, transforming and orchestrating. This framework of transformative governance is illustrated with practical examples that show it is both possible and challenging to make the transition. A resilient city is a city that can adapt, develop and renew beyond institutional fragmentation and inertia. To work across silos, to experimentally develop and empower social innovation and to scale and diffuse sustainable alternatives require a long-term commitment, a strategic transition perspective and a diverse set of capacities, skills and competences to come together. This chapter offers a practical and coherent perspective on how cities can work to make this transition.

Hajer and Wagenaar originally proposed Deliberative Policy Analysis (DPA) as an approach suited to transforming a policy world characterized by complexity, pluralism and unpredictability. Because its transformative ambitions have long remained unfulfilled, DPA has begun embracing a variety of Action Research (AR) approaches committed to generating policy change in a world beset by multiple sustainability crises. However, a systematic assessment of how AR can make DPA more transformative has been absent thus far. We argue that AR can strengthen the transformative ambitions of DPA in three ways. First, it helps clarify the purposes of DPA based on a critical and relational worldview emanating from their shared pragmatist foundations. Second, it unveils the structural challenges of becoming more transformative in the shadow of the hegemonic institutional organization of academic and policy systems. Finally, it provides a heuristic framework for engaging in the critical-relational dynamics of generating policy change and sustainability transitions. We conclude with a number of recommendations, based on AR principles, practices and experiences, that deliberative policy analysts can adopt to help their initiatives become more transformative.

The complex interactions of drivers represented in scenarios and climate change impacts across scales have led to the development of multiscale scenarios. Since the recent development of global shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), which have started being downscaled to lower scales, the potential of scenarios to be relevant for decision making and facilitate appreciation and inclusion of different perspectives has been increasing, compared with a single-scale global scenario set. However, in practice, quantitative downscaling of global scenarios results in narratives that are compressed from the global level to fit the local context to enhance consistency between global and local scales. We brought forward the concept of scenario archetypes to analyze multiscale SSP scenario narratives and highlight important diverging assumptions within the same archetype. Our methodology applied scenario archetypes both as typologies, to allocate specific cases of scenarios into existing scenario archetypes, and building blocks, conceptualized with worldviews from cultural theory. Although global SSPs generally match existing archetypes and tend to be well defined, the socially unequal SSPs at subglobal scales are more nuanced, and dominant worldviews are much less straighforward to interpret than in global scenarios. The closest match was the great transition–sustainability (SSP1) archetype, whereas the most divergent was the market forces–fossil fuel development (SSP5) archetype. Overall, our results highlight the need to improve uptake of bottom-up approaches in global scenarios to improve appreciation of different perspectives as sought after in multiscale scenarios.

The recent upsurge of interest in the experimental city as an arena within and through which urban sustainability is governed marks not only the emergence of the proliferation of forms of experimentation – from novel governance arrangements to demonstration projects, transition management processes to grassroots innovations – but also an increasing sensibility amongst the research community that urban interventions can be considered in experimental terms. Yet as research has progressed, it has become clear that experimentation is not a singular phenomenon that can be readily understood using any one conceptual entry point. In this paper, we focus on one particular mode of experimentation – the urban living laboratory (ULL) – and develop a typology through which to undertake a comparative analysis of 40 European ULLs, to understand how and why such forms of experimentation are being designed and implemented, and to identify the particular forms of experimentation they entail. We argue that there are distinct types of ULL taking shape, delimited by the ways in which they are designed and deployed through, on the one hand, specific kinds of configuration and practice and, on the other hand, by the ways in which they take laboratory form: the different dispositions towards the laboratory they entail. We propose three ‘ideal’ ULL types – strategic, civic and organic – and argue that these can be placed along the spectrum of four dispositions: trial, enclave, demonstration and platform.

The breakthroughs in terms of thinking, framing, and unlocking Aberdeen’s potential were realised during the envisioning phase of a transition management process. As thus, we zoom in on the envisioning phase and elaborate its outcomes as being the ‘critical phase’ in which diverse interests, perspectives, hidden assumptions, and ingrained perspectives were expressed, negotiated, and debated. This action resulted in a new understanding of the city’s persistent problems and a holistic perspective for future sustainability in the city. From our analysis, the successful output of the envisioning process was an integrative understanding of future aspirations that comply with sustainability values (intergenerational justice, fairness, equity) and, in turn, created a momentum for inclusive social dialogue and mobilised networks to take the vision into practice.

Combined heat and power (CHP) plants using biomass are considered important to substantially increase the share of renewables in the total energy supply and meet ambitious climate targets. The analysis focuses on the links between the size of bio-fuelled CHP plants and their techno-economic and environmental performance, as well as social acceptance. In an exploratory way, this paper compares the performance of six bioenergy plants in the Netherlands in these three key areas, thereby focusing on the link between the size of biomass plants and overall performance in an integrated multi-dimensional manner. The findings show that economic and environmental performance does not necessarily improve with scale and, in effect, several large-scale biomass plants score low in several environmental indicators. In addition, we find that there is often limited data availability on economic, environmental and social characteristics of biomass plants in the Netherlands, despite the fact that their operations are largely supported by public funds.

In this paper, seven researchers reflect on the journeys their research projects have taken when they engage with and synthesize complex problems. These journeys embody an adaptive approach to tackling problems characterized by their interconnectedness and emergence, and that transcend traditional units of analysis such as ecosystems. In this paper we argue that making such a process deliberate and explicit will help researchers better combine different research paradigms such as expert-driven and participant-directed work, thus resulting in both broad explanations and specific phenomenon; research tensions traditionally defined as oppositional must be approached as complimentary. This paper includes researchers' personal journeys as they dealt with the emergent properties of complex problems and participant involvement. This paper argues that that research journey should be more than accidental but is a methodological necessity and should guide the theoretical and practical approaches to complex problems.

Urban landscapes are the everyday environment for the majority of the global population, and almost 80 % of the Europeans live in urban areas. The continuous growth in the number and size of urban areas along with an increasing demand on resources and energy poses great challenges for ensuring human welfare in cities while preventing an increasing loss of biodiversity. The understanding of how urban ecosystems function, provide goods and services for urban dwellers; and how they change and what allows and limits their performance can add to the understanding of ecosystem change and governance in general in an ever more human-dominated world. This Special Issue aims at bridging the knowledge gap among urbanization, demand creation, and provisioning of ecosystem services in urban regions on the one hand and schemes of urban governance and planning on the other.

We explore whether Rotterdam city has the governance capacity in terms of processes at place, and the attention in terms of vision and strategy to take up an integrated approach toward urban resilience. We adopt an interpretative policy analysis approach to assess the dynamics of urban ecosystem governance considering interviews, gray literature, and facilitated dialogues with policy practitioners. We show the inner workings of local government across strategic, operational, tactical, and reflective governance processes about the way urban ecosystems are regulated. Despite the existing capacity to steer such processes, a number of underlying challenges exist: need for coordination between planning departments; need to ease the integration of new policy objectives into established adaptive policy cycles; and need to assess the lessons learnt from pilots and emerging green initiatives. Regulating and provisioning ecosystem services receive heightened policy attention. Focus on regulating services is maintained by a policy renewal cycle that limits and delays consideration of other ecosystem services in policy and planning. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0512-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Community owned renewable energy initiatives are the emergent and self-organized arrangements where communities become both producers and suppliers of energy. Cases of community energy developments form Texel (Netherlands), and Undy and Urgha (UK) are the empirical grounds that demonstrate this capacity. As highly desirable community owned renewable initiatives may seem, they face many enablers. However, they are also confronted with various tensions, as identified in this chapter. A closer look of the governance space in which these community initiatives operate, reveals that tensions and opportunities span from socio-cultural, political, and technological axes. These initiatives are both outliers and frontrunners of a sustainable energy transition: they create new forms of institutions, challenge even benefiting to them instruments, dare to uptake risks and seize opportunities, and operate outside demarcated institutional space. Community owned energy initiatives constitute a new form of local renewable energy governance that deserves to be explored.

In this article we present four different cases of transition management in which we were involved over the past 10 years. Transition management was developed in the course of this period in theoretical and practical sense, mainly in the Netherlands, as novel mode of governance for sustainable development. The theoretical debate about transition management is being increasingly published, but so far only few empirical examples were. In this article we present four cases that combined give a representative illustration of both the advantages and the difficulties of actually trying to manage transitions. The article ends by drawing lessons and formulating research questions for the future.