Rob Raven

Monash University (Australia)

Internationally, rental properties have fewer energy efficiency features than other homes, causing unnecessary carbon emissions and poor health outcomes for tenants. Landlords are the primary decision-makers for energy efficiency retrofitting of rental properties, yet their retrofit behaviour is not well understood. We surveyed 500 small-scale priv...

This article explores the COVID-19 pandemic as an external “shock” that changed household-consumption practices in Melbourne, Australia. We assess national consumption data and retail data for the state of Victoria to show how dramatically consumption patterns shifted during 2020. We then discuss three specific examples of changed consumption pract...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for rapid transformation towards a more sustainable society, particularly for cities and urban areas. There is a wide spectrum of research which could inform the initiation and management of this urban transformation, but these contributions are found in disparate disciplines and academic fields. This s...

Sustainability transitions require changing many behaviours embedded in production and consumption systems. Simultaneously, behavioural public policy is now a significant site of research-policy translation globally. Links between behaviour and system change are underdeveloped in both fields. Systematic review of current transitions literature foun...

Written by an international team of over sixty experts and drawing on over three thousand scientific studies, this is the first comprehensive global assessment of the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals, which were launched by the United Nations in 2015. It explores in detail the political steering effects of the Sustainable Devel...

In this paper we explore the nature of the emerging purpose ecosystem and its role in transforming and supporting business to help address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We argue that interactions among its 'private actors', who share efforts and belief in changing and redefining the purpose and nature of business by advocating broade...

The decline side of transitions is an emerging study, which advances thinking on regime destabilisation, technology decline and phase-out policies. Previous research has predominantly focused on the complete phase out of specific unsustainable technologies as desirable or possible, but it has given less attention to how these technological aspects...

In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We...

Energy efficiency in private rental properties is lower than that of owner-occupied homes. As landlords are the primary decision-makers for improving rental properties, understanding their energy efficiency behaviour is critical to improving the uptake of energy efficiency retrofits in the private rental sector. However, little is known about how l...

Transition intermediaries are actors that support socio-technical transition processes by bridging structural deficiencies in a transitioning domain. Previous research has identified what roles transition intermediaries perform and how. However, while transitioning domains are by definition in a state of change, the dynamics of transition intermedi...

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are a promising and innovative approach to address multiple sustainability challenges faced by cities. Yet, NBS are not integrated into mainstream urban development practices. Based on a qualitative comparative case study of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, this study shows how b...

Changing consumer food waste-related behaviours is critical to meeting global targets of halving food loss and waste. This paper presents a food waste reduction intervention trialled in five Australian schools and explores its influence on food provisioning practices, changed behaviours and food waste. Consisting of a mix of educational, skills-bas...

In a world faced with constant and varied sustainability challenges, local communities stand at the forefront of global sustainability efforts. What happens at the local level may affect the larger social and environmental systems. Meanwhile, global environmental impacts are also experienced locally. The current global sustainability agenda, Agenda...

The journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Its development represents a great success, contributing substantially to the consolidation and maturation of the research field of sustainability transitions. However, being content with past successes will not be sufficient for tackling...

Sustainability challenges require experimenting with various types of sustainability innovations. Local and regional context conditions influence their diffusion. Our research question is: what are pathways for the transfer of sustainability innovations to other locations, and how do local and regional conditions enable this transfer? We use the no...

Data governance is an emerging field of study concerned with how a range of actors can successfully manage data assets according to rules of engagement, decision rights, and accountabilities. Urban studies scholarship has continued to demonstrate and criticize lack of community engagement in smart city development and urban data governance projects...

Background To advance active transport, robust policy-relevant evidence is needed to understand how to change behaviour and to support decision-making by policy makers and practitioners. Currently, however, priority research questions that are most critical for advancing active transport have not been identified. To this end, we aimed to inform an...

Living labs have emerged as a form of strategic urban experimentation in sustainability transitions governance among policy makers and researchers. Limited attention has been given to the various challenges and dilemmas when doing LLs in relation to enabling urban transitions. This paper unpacks 16 challenges and dilemmas that arise for different a...

Urban transitions and transformations research fosters a dialogue between sustainability transitions theory an inter- and transdisciplinary research on urban change. As a field, urban transitions and transformations research encompasses plural analytical and conceptual perspectives. In doing so, this field opens up sustainability transitions resear...

This editorial introduces a special issue with 27 short viewpoints about future research on transition studies, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of this journal.

Scholars have proposed university models for creating a sustainable future in response to mounting calls for universities to rethink their roles in society. These university models include the Human Development University, the Developmental University, the Post-Developmental University, and the Transformative University. Through a framing analysis,...

In policy and practice, urban Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are considered promising innovations for sustainable urban transformation. NBS are interventions that use nature to address multiple sustainability challenges simultaneously. As such, they present a novel perspective on urban land use and development. Yet their current uptake into urban dev...

This paper explores conceptualisations of households in sustainability transitions. Existing literature in the field has only engaged with households in a limited and fragmented way, despite the role of households in resource use, shaping social innovation and as a target of environmental policies. The paper asks: how are households conceptualised...

The inability of global governments to meaningfully progress sustainable development over the past three decades is deeply concerning. AI is increasingly framed as a solution for achieving such outcomes, sometimes uncritically. We argue that: 1) for AI to improve public decision-making, the conditions and factors influencing public decisions must b...

Sustainability transitions require changing many behaviours embedded in production and consumption systems. Simultaneously, behavioural public policy is now a significant site of research-policy translation globally. Links between behaviour and system change are underdeveloped in both fields. Systematic review of current transitions literature foun...

Changing the household food waste related behaviours of consumers vital to the sustainable transformation of the global food system. This study utilised a video-elicitation methodology to explore the different factors that influence the food provisioning practices of the household dietary gatekeeper from a multi-level perspective, and to consider t...

Energy efficiency of privately rented homes is poorer than that of owner-occupied properties in many countries across Europe, North America and Australasia. Small-scale private landlords are the key decision makers for energy efficiency improvements for most rental properties. These landlords’ energy efficiency retrofit decisions are poorly underst...

Urban living labs have emerged as spatially embedded arenas for governing urban transformation, where heterogenous actor configurations experiment with new practices, institutions, and infrastructures. This article observes a nascent shift towards experimentation at the precinct scale and responds to a need to further investigate relevant processes...

Children’s participation in urban planning impacts communities. A policy environment supports their participation, yet this is far from mainstream, particularly in areas of greatest vulnerability. This literature review demonstrates what we do and don’t know about barriers and enablers to children’s participation in urban planning. We identify key...

Transportation systems are transitioning to e-mobility, but scholars and policymakers are struggling to understand how to accomplish this transition effectively. In response, we draw on the technological innovation systems perspective and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology to develop a theory-guided and entity-based simulation m...

A transformation of the food system will require action and changes in decision making from individuals across the entire food system. This paper synthesises the literature and develops a framework for analysing the factors which influence decision making for sustainable food practices, with a focus on two key actors: primary producers and consumer...

With this commentary, we share our reflections at the end of a five-year interdisciplinary research project (from 2016 to 2020) on cycling innovations in living labs across the Netherlands. The commentary is the product of a collective writing effort of the researchers. It combines reflections on both the content of our research project (cycling th...

The diversity of local conditions across regions has led to numerous challenges and opportunities for the implementation of global sustainability frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals. A grassroots transformative change led by local communities, cities, and businesses can offer a promising approach for achieving sustainability, tailo...

Transitions are processes of major change and often come with conflict. There has been limited attention for the complex and multi-dimensional nature of conflict and its relation to trans-formative change. To capture this complexity, we use the case of ridesharing in Indonesia and the dynamics of conflict that accompany the emergence of digital inn...

Changing the everyday food-related behaviours of consumers is a critical part of tackling the global food waste challenge. Comprehensive frameworks of household food waste and consumer behavior are needed to guide the development of targeted interventions and future research agendas. This study systematically reviews food waste and behaviour studie...

Bike sharing has the potential to contribute to more sustainable urban mobility. Companies providing this service need to generate legitimacy for their venture when entering new cities. They may have to change formal and informal institutions in cities they want to operate. In this paper we explore how and why companies’ institutional strategies di...

Current sustainability challenges call for transitions in locked-in socio-technical systems. The governance of transitions often remains limited to the cultivation of sustainable 'niche' innovations, however. This paper explores how to handle transitions directionality, i.e. the diversity of possible socio-technical development paths. It reaches be...

Sustainability transitions in energy, transport or agro-food systems are needed to tackle grand sustainability challenges. Due to the urgency of these challenges, transitions need to accelerate and widen in scope, which, in some cases, is already happening. This shift in gear, however, comes with a series of 'acceleration challenges', including who...

This paper studies the performativity of smart mobility expectations in envisioning urban futures. Smart mobility, or ICT-enabled transport services, are increasingly considered a necessary ingredient for sustainability transitions in cities. Expectations of smart mobility’s contribution to such a transition are constituted by a strong belief in th...

Transitions literature regards technologies as critical components in shifting systems towards sustainability, which has informed the development of the technology-oriented Technological Innovation System (TIS) framework. The emerging discourse on nature-based solutions (NBS) – multifunctional nature-integrated spatial planning and design innovatio...

Literature on sustainability transitions advocates the institutionalisation of niche innovations and assigns an important role for institutional work in this respect. Previous work has conceptually and empirically substantiated a range of strategies that institutional entrepreneurs perform. However, little is known about how institutional entrepren...

The private sector arguably plays a critical role in addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene and providing potential solutions to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Recently, a myriad of new actors in the form of intermediaries, initiatives and organisations have started driving wider systems change by advocating and ad...

This introduction reviews analysis of the dynamics of Technological Innovation Systems and introduces four papers that extend the analysis of dynamic processes in TIS. All four papers employ a system analysis for explaining TIS dynamics: Walrave & Raven and Markard consider the dynamics of the whole TIS. Musiolik et al. and Kieft et al. consider in...

Cities are critical places for the emergence of sustainability transitions. The early phases of transition are often characterised by experimentation. Socio-spatial conditions, such as local policy, governance networks, localised learning and funding structures, are known to influence experimentation, yet there is little empirical knowledge on how...

Low carbon transitions of urban energy systems have been on urban research and policy agendas for several years now. While the spatialities of infrastructure transitions have been widely discussed, their temporalities have attracted much less attention. This is surprising, since the transition of urban infrastructures in the course of system integr...

The domain of transition studies has been drawing more and more scholarly attention and, as a result, its body of knowledge is rapidly growing. This raises new challenges as well as opportunities, not the least regarding the methodological and philosophical underpinnings of research in this domain. In this respect, transition research, as a relativ...

Low carbon transitions of urban energy systems have been on urban research and policy agendas for several years now. While the spatialities of infrastructure transitions have been widely discussed, their temporalities have attracted much less attention. This is surprising, since the transition of urban infrastructures in the course of system integr...

The future of cycling is about to change. At least, this is apparent if we are to believe the multitude of innovators, start-ups, incumbent industries, policy actors and consultants proposing to harness the power of digital techniques to improve and transform cycling experiences, infrastructures, and gadgets. This ‘smartification of cycling’ is a p...

Research on sustainability transitions has expanded rapidly in the last ten years, diversified in terms of topics and geographical applications, and deepened with respect to theories and methods. This article provides an extensive review and an updated research agenda for the field, classified into nine main themes: understanding transitions; power...

In the field of sustainability transitions, temporality has recently received increased attention, specifically with regard to understanding acceleration of transitions. Acceleration of sustainability transitions is needed, to minimize the risks of global crises, and so the question is how these transitions can be accelerated. To answer this questi...

As a result of urbanisation and climate change, many cities experience the necessity of efficient and sustainable land use. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are interventions that address social, economic and environmental sustainability issues simultaneously, thereby presenting a multifunctional, solution-oriented approach to increasing urban sustaina...

This special issue brings together international, interdisciplinary sustainable development research collaborations that seek to influence policy and practice in their respective domains. The contributions to this issue cover a variety of empirical fields, geographical scopes, and disciplines. Further details can be found in article number 1900020.

Het inzetten van de natuur voor duurzame steden is niet nieuw. Het concept nature-based solutions daarentegen wél. Dat zijn op natuur gebaseerde of geïnspireerde ruimtelijke duurzaamheidsmaatregelen zoals groene daken, natuurlijke drainage-systemen of gemeenschapstuinen. Maar wat is de meerwaarde van dit concept ten opzichte van eerdere ideeën rond...

Urban experimentation (UE) is seen as crucial for enacting transformations towards sustainability. Research in this domain has flourished, but still lacks theoretical coherence. We review this emerging literature, combining methods for problematisation and critical interpretive synthesis, to address two questions: how does the extant literature con...

Few studies on ridesharing have so far been conducted in developing countries. To explore this, the present paper presents a frame analysis of news content on ridesharing platforms in Indonesia and the Philippines. We identify five distinct frames, perceiving ridesharing as a (1) commuter solution, (2) unregulated public transport service, (3) coop...

There is a risk in the ‘Smart City’ that plural forms of knowing the city become eclipsed by singular governance-oriented analyses produced through computational logics originating from undemocratic service providers. In light of this concern, this chapter considers three aspects of smart urbanism’s knowledge politics: i) the role of urban agencies...

The sustainability challenge requires experimentation with innovations, followed by an upscaling process towards a broader regime change in the long term. In Europe we observe various regional hotspots for sustainability experimentation which suggests that there are favorable spatial contexts. Little is known about why different kinds of experiment...

The need for challenge-led innovation policies to address grand societal challenges is increasingly recognised at various policy levels. This raises questions how to overcome a variety of ‘failures’ prohibiting innovations to flourish. A key-line of thought in theory and policy emerged since the late 1990s on the role of system failures, next to mo...

Most transition studies are historical in nature and fail to arrive at prospective conclusions about future potential. In this paper we develop a new prospective transition framework, which revolves around the interplay between business models and socio-technical contexts. By looking at the dynamics of increasing returns, industry structure and the...

Current electricity grids do not fit the needs and challenges of the 21st century, such as the need to transition to renewable energy sources and the variability in power supply concomitant with such energy sources. In this context, smart electricity grids have been proposed as a solution. A large number of pilots and experiments have been set up,...

Currently little is known about how institutional arrangements co-evolve with urban experimentation. This paper mobilizes neo-institutional literature and recent urban experimentation literature as a framework to explore how and why institutional arrangements differ across urban contexts. Empirically the paper focusses on smart city initiatives in...

The policy pointers presented in this report are the result of a three-year (2015-18) research project led by Federico Caprotti at the University of Exeter. The project, Smart Eco-Cities for a Green Economy: A Comparative Analysis of Europe and China, was delivered by a research consortium comprising scholars and researchers in the UK, China, the N...

It is generally accepted that the concept of sustainability is not straightforward, but is subject to on-going ambiguities, uncertainties and contestations. Yet literature on sustainability transitions has so far only engaged in limited ways with the resulting tough questions around what sustainability means, to whom and in which contexts. This pap...

This review paper systematically queries the Sustainability Transitions literature to unpack the concept of ‘experimentation’. We define an experiment as an inclusive, practice-based and challenge-led initiative, which is designed to promote system innovation through social learning under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. A distinction is ma...