News
Working Paper: The Third Phase of the Energy Transition
Sustainability transitions understood as the transformation of socio-technical systems to more sustainable ones occur in different phases: the emergence of new innovations, the acceleration of innovations , and the stabilisation of new regimes. Public policies play a central role in the guidance of transitions. Research on policy mixes in sustainability transitions has focused so far on the emergence, acceleration and diffusion of radical niches and has started to address the destabilisation of the existing regime. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the third phase, the building and stabilisation of the new regime. This process does not merely take place in the niche sphere, but asks for restructuring dynamics in the existing regime as well. It involves the institutionalisation of innovations, the alignment of old and new regime elements as well as an interaction between old and new regime actors. With the help of a literature review and building on theories of socio-technical transitions and policy mixes in such transitions, this paper explores the challenges that come along with the establishment of a new regime and what strategies could be pursued to tackle those challenges in order to guide transitions. Theoretical considerations are exemplified with current discussions in the energy transition.
The working paper was presented at the International Sustainability Transitions Conference 2021 and can be found here.
Working Paper: Architectural change in accelerating transitions. Insights from the German energy transition
As transitions accelerate, they often increase in depth and scope. Transition dynamics may go
beyond changes in core technologies to include architectural change at the system level. In this
paper, we study actor preferences for system technologies that underpin different system
architectures. System technologies are important as they can affect the pace and direction of
transitions including system architecture. Our empirical case is the transition in the German
electricity system where actors disagree about how decentralised the system architecture should
become. In electricity, system technologies ensure stable supply by e.g. providing flexibility for
the integration of variable renewable energies. We find that many incumbents mainly prefer
established centralized system technologies but because these are difficult to expand, they
reluctantly accept a role for novel and immature decentralized system technologies. As for
challengers, there are important differences from incumbents in terms of when and to what
extent new system technologies are needed and how they should be supported. We make two
contributions to the literature: 1) we introduce system technology as a concept and use it to
illustrate tensions between the pace and direction of accelerating transitions, and 2) we show
how actor roles and positions become more fluid during acceleration.
The working paper can be found here.
Panel "Experimental Spaces and Living Laboratories" with Dierk Bauknecht
At the innOsci Festival we will go on a discovery tour together and explore new possibility spaces, potentials and sources for new knowledge on the map of the innovation ecosystem and on the way to the future. Over three days at the innOsci Festival 'The unknOwn unkOwns', we want to open up new spaces of opportunity for research and innovation through openness across sectors and learn, change and shape together. On the third day, Prof. Dierk Bauknecht will participate in the panel discussion on 'Experimental Spaces and Reallabs'.
Date:
12.16.2021 09:00 am - 12.16.2021 4:00 pm
https://innosci.de/unknown-festival/
Webinar about Regulatory Experiments in Sweden
18.10.2021
The Committee for Technological Innovation and Ethics (Komet) in Sweden hosted a webinar on Regulatory Experiments, where Dierk Bauknecht presented his work and experiences on "Design and Evaluation of Regulatory Experiments". A recording of the webinar is available here:
Participation at the IST Conference 2021
The Chair of Sustainability and Transformation Research is represented with 3 contributions at the "International Sustainability Transitions" (IST) conference. Among them are two full paper contributions: "Regulatory experiments as a tool for sustainability transitions: conceptualisation and empirical findings" and "The third phase of the energy transitions" as well as a dialogue session: "Visions of decentralisation in the energy transition".
The motto of this year's conference is "Mainstraiming sustainability transitions: From research towards impact". Further information on the conference and registration can be found here.