News
Dierk Bauknecht ist Mitglied des Beirats für eine Studie über innovative Praktiken in der Gesetzgebung im Zusammenhang mit aufstrebenden Technologien
4FRONT together with European Future Innovation Systems (EFIS) Centre and Visionary Analytics are conducting a study to assess the role of experimentation spaces, such as regulatory sandboxes, living labs, and testbeds in the development and market uptake of emerging technologies. The study looks at how innovative regulatory practices can enhance the growth and market uptake of new technologies, and what kind of regulatory barriers innovative technology projects face in their development. It focuses on projects supported by the European Innovation Council (EIC).
The study aims to:
- Identify regulatory barriers for the development and market uptake of emerging technologies.
- Spot areas where there unclear regulations, which can create uncertainties or risks for EIC-supported projects.
- Figure out which EIC-supported technologies could benefit from more flexible rules.
- Assess the usage of flexible regulatory practices, such as sandboxes, test labs or living labs, that are already being used in the EU, and see how well they work.
The study is conducted for the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA), and it is scheduled to be completed by November 2024.
Systembildung als fehlendes Glied bei Nachhaltigkeitstransformationen: Entwicklung, Validierung und Reflexion eines Rahmens für die Oberrheinregion
The project analyses what is needed for sustainability transitions to lead to new functioning and sustainable systems. Sustainability transitions, i.e., fundamental changes in socio-technical systems such as energy and food, are a dominant theme in European policy making, such as in the European Green Deal.
Research has developed a deep understanding of how innovations emerge in these systems, how they accelerate, and how they eventually put existing regimes under pressure to change. However, there is a lack of understanding of the late stage of such transitions, the consolidation or establishment of alternative functioning systems that are considered more sustainable than the previous ones. The project explores this stage of sustainability transitions, which is called system building. This includes a conceptual analysis, a first validation in the energy and food systems as well as an application to regional transformation activities in the Upper Rhine region.
Optionen für ein Strommarktdesign zur Finanzierung eines vollständig erneuerbaren Stromsystems - Ein gemeinsames Projekt mit dem Öko-Institut
An increasing share of renewable energies will lead to significant changes in the electricity markets. The very low marginal costs of electricity from renewable energy sources will result in wholesale prices close to zero. This raises the question of how renewables and flexibility options can be financed in a system based on 100 % renewables. What are the challenges for the market design, which options are available and what is relevant for the transformation. These questions are currently being increasingly discussed both from the scientific and political side (beyond short-term measures to limit rising electricity prices due to the Russian attack on Ukraine). This project aims to provide a structured overview and assessment of different options and feed them into the discussions.
Reallaborkonferenz "Reallabore – Experimentier Räume für den Weg in eine nachhaltige Gesellschaft"
Dierk participated in this conference in Dresden. Together with Regina Rhodius he took care of the sessions on “Reallabore als politisch-regulative Testräume”.
OECD-Workshop „Skalierung oder Einstellung von Experimenten in der WTI-Politik: Bewertungsbedarf“
Dierk contributed to the workshop “Scaling or phasing out experiments in STI policy: Assessment needs”, organised by the OECD Working Group on Innovation and Technology Policy on April 22, 2024. The workshop was organised in two parts: Part 1 on scaling experiments in STI policy. Part 2 on monitoring and evaluation of experiments in STI policy. It discussed embracing a shift towards a culture of policy experimentation in government at scale by the STI policymakers and assessing and evaluating impacts of these policy experiments. Dierk provided an input to the session “Beyond the hype: When and how can sandboxes succeed in fostering breakthrough moonshot innovations?