Multidimensional relatedness between innovation systems in sustainability transitions (original) (raw)
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Competing innovation systems and the need for redeployment in sustainability transitions
Technogical Forecasting and Social Change, 2018
A B S T R A C T According to sustainability transitions theories, innovation policies should create protective spaces ('niches') for promising new technologies. Moreover they should support a cumulative process of market formation and growth. Based on results from comparative case studies of two competing technological innovation systems for heavy transport (biogas and electrification), this paper argues that these recommendations are contradictory when technology alternatives with different degrees of maturity compete for the same niche. Should innovation policies open up the niche for the promising but immature alternative, or should they continue to support the technology that already has attained a niche position? If this contradiction remains unsolved, there is a risk for conflicts that block the progress of both alternatives. The paper suggests that there is a need for differentiated policies to resolve the contraction. In order to facilitate further development of both systems, the paper suggests that niche nurturing for immature systems needs to be combined with redeployment into new market segments for more mature systems.
Innovation by co-evolution in natural resource industries: The Norwegian experience
Geoforum, 2011
Some resource-based economies become wealthy while others stay poor and Norway belongs to the first category. This paper argues that part of the answer to why Norway has managed to benefit from its rich natural resources is found in the formation of a well-functioning national innovation system. The paper integrates the innovation system approach with a historical approach through the concept of co-evolution. The empirical study investigates how innovation systems evolve in natural resource industries through analysing the co-evolution between industry, knowledge organisations and national policy in the Norwegian aluminium and petroleum sectors. Parallels are found in the development of these two sectors, which are: i) the deliberate use of concession laws to seize value creation and technological development from foreign direct investments, ii) the establishment and prioritisation of state-owned companies and iii) the more or less intentional formation of a national innovation system. The paper points to the relevance of analysing the historical evolution of national innovation systems to understand the creation of their specific path-dependent characteristics, to analyse how policy influences the creation and working of innovation systems, to use a multilevel approach in studies of innovation systems and to consider how innovation processes in different industries are linked in value chains and through knowledge flows.
Weaving an innovation network from the middle-out: the case of the renewable energy ecosystem
Energy, Sustainability and Society, 2022
Background: Renewable energy (RE) systems are becoming a central component of the clean energy transition and are often seen as the way to combat climate change. Their establishment requires innovation, investments, and deployment policies for emerging technologies. Governments around the world are increasingly trying to create and support the energy-tech and climate-tech innovation ecosystems in their attempt to promote an innovation-supporting environment. However, energy innovation policies are often aligned with the dichotomous notion of technologypush and market-pull and overlook the social, political, and cultural contexts in which RE innovative technologies are embedded, and the multiple actors and interactions that are associated with their development. By combining the Middle-Out Perspective (MOP) and innovation literature, this paper argues that an innovation ecosystem could be weaved from the middle-out. Methods: This paper analyzes the case of 'Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Initiative' and Israel's RE innovation ecosystem creation through the lens of the MOP and applies a socio-technical interpretation to the push and pull terminology. Process tracing methodology was applied to trace a sequence of events to determine whether an actor was pushed or pulled, the formation of a network of actors, and its evolvement to an energy innovation ecosystem from the middle-out. Data for the analysis were collected from interviews, policy papers, media articles, and Governmental decisions. Results: The analysis demonstrates how middle actors push the implementation of RE technologies in Israel, and at the same time pull decision-makers and other middle actors to promote the low carbon transition. The push and pull forces and the interactions between actors lead to the engagement of new stakeholders in the innovation network, the adoption of more ambitious RE targets and supporting policies, and the creation of an effective RE innovation ecosystem. Conclusions: This paper uses the MOP as an analytical framework and the push and pull terminology to demonstrate how a middle actor initiates and develops an actor-network by interacting with other actors. As this network broadens, it forms an effective innovation ecosystem. A network of actors has the potential to lead change, provide innovative ideas, initiate research, encourage investments, create employment possibilities, and promote regional sustainable development.
Broadening the national focus in technological innovation system analysis: The case of offshore wind
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2015
This paper empirically explores if and how the spatial dimensions of Technological Innovation System matter using the case of offshore wind in North-Western Europe. In particular, it demonstrates the territory-specific institutional embeddedness and transnational linkages effects between four national offshore wind innovation systems. The paper discusses the consequences of taking these spatial dimensions into account in the analysis of the domestic TIS performance. It argues that the acknowledgement of these dimensions contributes to better understanding of the systems' dynamics and leads to policy advice that is in sync with recent internationalisation developments in the diffusion of the offshore wind industry.
Translocal diffusion of transformative innovation, 2020
This paper develops a conceptual understanding of transformative innovations as shared activities, ideas and objects across locally rooted sustainability initiatives that explore and develop alternatives to incumbent and (perceived) unsustainable regimes that they seek to challenge, alter or replace. We synthesize empirical work from two European research projects (TRANSIT and ARTS), in which initiatives and networks were empirically studied, to develop a broader conceptual understanding of the emergence of transformative innovation. The development of initiatives can occur through growing, replicating, partnering, instrumentalising and embedding. This is supported through translocal networks that connect initiatives by sharing ideas, objects and activities across local contexts. This translocal characteristic of transformative innovations harnesses an enormous potential for sustainability transitions, but requires further understanding as well as governance support. The perspective we present provides a conceptual starting point to further explore the development and diffusion of transformative innovation as well as transition governance strategies.
Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography, 2019
This paper examines the engagement of different regions in Norway in the EU's environmental programmes. The aim is to explore the programmes' potential for supporting green restructuring through branching and new path creation. The paper assesses which regions participate in the programmes, which international networks they build, and which organisations participate in different regions. It compares three regions with different restructuring needs and research capacity-Rogaland, Hordaland and Sør-Trøndelag. Overall, Norwegian organisations participate relatively frequently in the programmes, but private firms play a marginal role. Their partners are mainly in core EU regions. Regional participation in the programmes is a function of research capacity as well as oil dependence. However, in research-oriented regions, research establishments tend to dominate participation, creating potential for restructuring mainly through path creation. In oil-dependent regions, private firms account for a higher share of participants, enhancing the potential for branching. As the former regions participate more, the programme can mainly stimulate path creation.
Network structures and the reproduction of resources for sustainable innovation
International Journal of Technology Management, 2008
This paper explores whether, and how, network structures in different types of innovation systems align themselves with the resource pathways that sustain these systems. argue that sustainable innovation systems coalesce around pathways that ensure the reproduction of knowledge as well as of other key resources, such as funding for innovation. They suggest three modal positive feedback cycles based, respectively, on the regeneration of scientific, technological, or experience-based knowledge. This paper develops the theoretical implications of resource reproduction processes on innovation network configurations, and examines these implications using data from a survey of innovative firms from different sectors. Results show that networks will have different structures function of the type of resource renewal cycle in which firms are involved. Many of these differences correspond to those anticipated by the resource renewal cycles theory. But results also reveal unexpected elements, for example about the role of universities, which contribute to advance this theory.
Research Policy, 2010
Sustainable development is prompting a re-assessment of innovation and technological change. This review paper contributes three things towards this re-assessment activity. First, it considers how the history of innovation studies for sustainable development can be explained as a process of linking broader analytical frameworks to successively larger problem framings. Second it introduces an emerging framework whose allure rests in its ability to capture the bigger picture: the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions (MLP). Whilst burgeoning researcher networks and literature suggests this policy-relevant theory is attractive, it is not without its challenges. The third purpose of this paper is to elaborate these challenges as areas for further research and development. We do this by drawing upon contributions to this special section and the wider literature.
This paper employs path creation as a lens to follow the emergence of the Danish wind turbine cluster. Supplier competencies, regulations, user preferences and a market for wind power did not pre-exist; all had to emerge in a tranformative manner involving multiple actors and artefacts. Competencies emerged through processes and mechanisms such as co-creation that implicated multiple learning processes. The process was not an orderly linear one as emergent contingencies influenced the learning processes. An implication is that public policy to catalyse clusters cannot be based on an assumption that linear learning dynamics will unfold.
Dissertation, 2021
In this cumulative dissertation, I analyze the regional facets of the multi-scalar Technological Innovation System (TIS) around onshore wind energy. A TIS supports the development and diffusion of such a novel technology. The rollout of wind turbines needs to accelerate over the next years as to decarbonize energy systems and address the climate crisis. According to the TIS framework, the success of wind turbines not only depends on their technological advantages or economic competitiveness. Instead, it relies on an innovation system around dedicated actors, effective networks, and supporting institutions. Their interplay might yield resources like knowledge, market access, or technological legitimacy, which are crucial for advancing the technology. The geography of such innovation systems has recently received increasing attention. Scholars pointed to the multi-scalarity of innovation and the uneven spatial distribution of system elements and resources. This framing paper (Rahmenschrift) provides a comprehensive literature review on the geography of the wind energy TIS. Previous research focused on early system dynamics in turbine manufacturing and pioneering regions. It usually characterizes the technology’s innovation system as spatially sticky. Yet, multiple gaps remain in our under-standing of the regional level in this TIS. These gaps concern the role, relevance, and spatiality of innovation processes in various regional contexts, across the value chain of the industry, and over the technology’s life cycle as the innovation system becomes more established and mature. I address these gaps in my doctoral research. My empirical investigation builds on in depth-case studies about the wind energy sector in five German regions. These studies are mostly informed by qualitative expert interviews and complemented with data from participatory observations, document analyses, questionaires, and a social network analysis. The results are presented in four individual research papers which are the foundation of this cumulative thesis. This dissertation contributes to the research on innovation systems, sustainability transitions, and their geographies. It provides a more nuanced view on how the importance of spatial proximity varies across a technology’s value chain and for different innovation system resources. Furthermore, it highlights and systematizes variances between innovation processes in different regions and how they are impacted by developments at the national or global scale, as well as by shifts in broader socio-technical systems (especially the transformation of the energy system, in this case). These insights are valuable for practitioners and policy makers. They offer potential advice on where wind sector companies and organizations could concentrate their efforts to develop and utilize turbines most efficiently. Understanding the spatial dimension of this innovation system might also improve place-specific policies that aim to build up and support regional wind industries or roll out turbines more rapidly to help tackle the climate crisis. ++ This is a digital version of the dissertation, which has been submitted in print to the doctoral committee of the School I (School of Educational and Social Sciences) at the University of Oldenburg. The disputation and graduation have yet to take place. ++