News

Minister Cramer supports Urgenda

On the 15th of October 2007 more than 1000 signatures of people supporting the Urgenda were handed over to the Minister of Environment, Cramer, by the core group of the Urgenda (Jan Rotmans, Marjan Minnesma, Jan Stuip and Pier Vellinga). People from CEOs to individuals working for NGOs and from farmers to scientists support the idea of a long term agenda for a more sustainable country, and a concrete action plan to reach the necessary transition. The Minister also supports the Urgenda and stated that she cannot wait to see the concrete results. She would like to stay in close contact with the organisers and welcomes this initiative from society.

On the website you can read the full text of the plan and sign in if you agree.

Major career moves in the sub-programme 'Historical Transitions'

Johan Schot has won the prestigious Fernand Braudel fellowship (European University Institute) and is on sabbatical in Florence, Italy (since 1 september 2007).

Marko Hekkert has become Professor at Utrecht University (chair: 'Dynamics of innovation systems') (since 1 September 2007).

Frank Geels has become part-time (0.5 fte) Professor at Brunel University, London, UK (chair: "Innovation, socio-technical change and sustainability') (since 1 October 2007).

Midterm review

Along with the other Bsik programmes, the KSI programme was evaluated in the past year by an independent evaluation committee, consisting of both a group of high standing scientists, and a group of users of the transition knowledge developed by KSI. KSI received a very good review, including many useful suggestions for further research and activities in practice. KSI’s own evaluation, comparing its results to the baseline and to previously defined goals and milestones, also showed that the output of KSI is in all respects much higher than expected after the first 2 years of its existence. The board and directors are very pleased with the positive outcome and use the results to guide their planning for the next three years.

Science

Annual conference

On June 1st KSI held its third annual conference, this time in Eindhoven. One of the tangible results was the collection of all KSI publications on one CD-ROM, distributed to all participants. In the meantime, all publications were also added to the online database on our website.

On the occasion also a contest was organised for free expression in the form of a column. The incontestable winner was Hans de Haan. You can find his speech on the similarities between transitions and early socialism in this newsletter.

Workshop on Governance (Berlin)

Transitions and systems innovations studies are increasingly gaining international attention. This was the implicit but clear message from a recent workshop, co-organised by Adrian Smit, Jan-Peter Voß and myself in Berlin, September 19-21. There were three days of intensive discussion on a variety of papers, to be published in one or two special issues.

Some of them comprised comments from non-Dutch authors on work produced within KSI. This included Elizabeth Shove’s pledge not to forget social practices, like households, as loci for transitions and system innovations; James Meadowcroft’s and Carolyn Hendriks’ warnings to pay due attention to the politics necessarily involved in system innovations and transitions; and Mike Howlett’s references to some crucial classical insights from the policy sciences.

Other papers discussed applications of transition management (TM) in Flanders (paper by Erik Paredis), Austria (Philip Späth) and Finland (Eva Heiskanen). It was particularly learnsome to see how the concepts travel to foreign settings. This indicates that it is wrong to say, as some do, that a) TM is a uniquely Dutch enterprise and b) ideas need to be adapted when applied in different national settings.

There was intense exchange during the many discussions, both during sessions and during breaks in the wonderful Schloß Blankensee. The occasion showed an eagerness to learn from each other and the recognition that ours is a fascinating subject area “where you find all big issues from social science”, as Frank Fischer put it.

Special Issue

The peer-reviewed journal Industrial Ecology will edit a special issue about transitions to sustainability.

The deadline of the Call for papers is February 1st 2008. More information about the scope and submission here.

Practice

Useful advice for project leaders on 4th NetWORKing day Transitions

During a well visited Networking day Transitions on 30 October in Driebergen, co-organised by 13 (!) organisations, the project leaders received loads of useful advice of the participants. Networking and cooperating on how to overcome barriers to transitions and innovation, were the main objectives of the fourth Networking day. At the end of the day it resulted in many thankful and satisfied persons. “I learned to day that I have to view the same issue from very different perspectives”, said Hannie Vonk of Rijkswaterstaat (Department of Public Water Works) Future Center at the end of the day.

The Networking day started off with an introduction by Rob Weterings of the Competence Center Transitions, who proudly presented the book (in Dutch) “Transitiesuccessen – over durfdoeners, renovatiebuiken en prikkelwegen” (successes in Transitions). In this book 11 successful projects and the persons involved were picked out. “These persons are the so-called dare-doers, people who, on base of their inspiration and thanks to their courage and their perseverance, have gained success. They themselves are already three steps ahead, but it is important to share the success, to help other dare-doers”, claimed Weterings.

In the workshops around existing projects the following solutions to barriers were found: increase the sense of urgency, believe in and look actively for openings, deal with emotions, build in flexibility about the goals of the project, use images rather than words to cummunicate about projects, or imply a famous person who stands for the project. You can find a (Dutch) report of the day on the website of the >> Transitienetwerk .

Transition in the health sector

In the newsletter of February this year I reported on the plan that KSI was to design for investing 50 million Euro in innovative experiments where the transition approach is the starting point for the design, distinguishing between optimisation experiments, innovation experiments and transition experiments in the area of chronic care ('AWBZ').

At this point the Dutch Program Transitions in Health care has been developed with the assistance of Drift. It aims at creating suitable conditions for a long term transition, first of all in the care, possibly to be followed by the cure later onwards. After approval by the Dutch ministry of Health care (VWS) and the related branche organizations (Actiz, VGN, BTN en GGZ Nederland), the focus was on helping develop ten transition experiments covering different topics and subsectors. These experiments were finally approved mid September 2007 and now receive assistance, both financial (for in total 13 M.€) and otherwise (a.o. transition management expertise, including monitoring instruments). Presently a new round of transition experiments is being developed (maximum 15 M.€) as well as a transition arena.

Update on the project for a sustainable Port of Amsterdam

On November 30 I organised the final workshop of a project I lead, 'Regiodialoog haven Amsterdam Duurzaam', a co-operation between the Vrije Universiteit and the University of Amsterdam. After two previous workshops, in which the problematic had been explored and future visions had been formulated, this workshop focused on designing strategies to realise a sustainable port.

Participants - including Harbour employees, firms in the area, social groups and knowledge – invested real energy in drafting ways to realise a different future. Discussed were projects to produce sustainable energy from waste streams; a hydrogen network; an urban farm; and different modes of space use. We also discussed what actors, in what roles and mutual relations, are needed to realise such projects.

It was interesting to see how the climate on these issues has changed, since we first started to discuss these issues some two years ago. It has become clear to the municipality of Amsterdam that not only environmental groups, but also may firms strongly favour a more sustainable harbour; that there is a real interest from citizens to ‘bring the harbour back into the soul of the city’, especially if it is a sustainable harbour.

Harbour Director Hans Gerson responded to the recommendations, showing sincere interest in considering what they might mean to practice. Meanwhile, he has raised a discussion within the harbour on one of the suggestions: adopting different ground pricing strategies so as to promote more efficient use of space. Early 2008, the final report will be presented.

Column

Transitions, Early Socialism Revisited?

Bottom up

Derk Loorbach obtains PhD

Derk Loorbach (32) just obtained his PhD last June. He is not an ordinary KSI member. He started his PhD on transition management in 2002 at ICIS in Maastricht. At the same time, he was secretary of the founding group of KSI, and enjoyed the rich disussions between professors of varying disciplines preparing the KSI programme. When KSI was finally endorsed in 2004, he moved to the Erasmus University Rotterdam with his promotor, Jan Rotmans. He wrote KSI project II.3, Multi-level governance, on which he has been working and will continue to do so until the end of KSI.

Derk has always been at the interface between theoretical and action research. His ability to translate abstract concepts into practice and backwards has been crucial. Also his social skills have been indispensible. The challenge in writing up his PhD thesis has been to bring all his numerous experiments and theory together in one whole logical story. One of the surprises was that he actually explored the research methodology itself, and he is about to write an article on this.

Defending his PhD was a real joy to him, and resulted in high level discussions with the jury members. Although it is not possible to prove that Transition Management works in the sense that a full transition to sustainabiltiy is achieved, for sure it now has a scientific base and has proven to work in certain cases. The exact role of the public sector and of the researcher in the process need further investigation, so that is food for a future research agenda.

For now Derk is glad to continue to work for KSI at Rotterdam, and in the future he would like to go to a foreign country to test his theory there. Perhaps within Europe, as there are probably more connections with policies for sustainability. Or maybe further away, where the challenge would be bigger. Like Japan, where he has been invited as keynote speaker for a conference on Nov 26?!

Suzanne van den Bosch evaluates impact of sustainability projects

Suzanne evaluated whether projects in the programme 'Leren voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling (LvDO)', Learning for Sustainable Development, contributed to a transition to a more sustainable Dutch society. She closely studied 6 out of the 150 projects that where funded over the last 3 years. These projects thus serve as case studies for her PhD research at DRIFT and KSI.

As requested, Suzanne looked at the LvDO programme from the perspective of transition experiments. Although the programme did not start on this base, its direction has become increasingly interested in the subject. A transition experiment is defined as a project that comprises deepening, broadening and scaling up. The projects of LvDO proved to be essentially deepening, and were successful in broad, reflexive and social learning. However, they often lack broadening (link and spread to other functions, projects or regions) and scaling up (embed the project into society). Another missing element is a guiding vision on sustainability. As the managers of the projects by definition focus on running their local case (deepening), it would be a specific task of the overall LvDO programme managers to ensure the complementary tasks of linking, spreading and embedding of the projects.

The next (3rd) round of the LvDO programme is about to start, and will run from 2008 to 2011. It will certainly take into account the lessons learnt. For instance, specific themes (e.g. climate change, sustainable building) will be determined to improve the linking of different projects. These themes can also be used to build up societal pressure and to influence dominant practices. The time seems ripe for a shift from learning to putting into practice solutions for sustainable development.

To get a copy of the report that is about to be published, please contact Suzanne van den Bosch.

Publications

Geels, F.W., 2007
Analysing the breakthrough of rock ‘n’ roll (1930-1970): Multi-regime interaction and reconfiguration in the multi-level perspective
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74(8), 1411-1431

Geels, F.W. and Kemp, R., 2007
Dynamics in socio-technical systems: Typology of change processes and contrasting case studies
Technology in Society, 29(4), 441-455

Geels, F.W. and Schot, J.W., 2007
Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways
Research Policy, 36(3), 399-417

Geels, F.W. and Schot, J.W., 2007
Comment on 'Techno therapy or nurtured niches?' by Hommels et al. [Res. Policy 36(7) (2007)]
Research Policy, 36(7), 1100-1101

Hendriks, C.M. and Grin, J., 2007
Contextualizing Reflexive Governance: the Politics of Dutch Transitions to Sustainability
Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, Volume 9 (3 & 4),333-350

Grin, J. & van Staveren, A., 2007.
Werken aan systeeminnovaties; Lessen uit de praktijk van InnovatieNetwerk
Van Gorkum, ISBN 9789023242598

Van Raak, R. and Van der Brugge, R., 2007
Facing the adaptive management challenge: insights from transition management
Ecology and Society

Raven R.P.J.M. and Verbong G.P.J., 2007
Multi-regime interactions in the Dutch energy sector. The case of combined heat and power in the Netherlands 1970-2000
Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(4), 491-507

Reuzel,R, Grin, J & Akkerman, T., 2007
Shaping power, trust and deliberation: The role of the evaluator in an interactive evaluation of cochlear implantation
Int. J. Foresight & Innovation Studies, vol. 3 (1), 76-94.

Rotmans, J., 2007.
Duurzaamheid: van onderstroom naar draaggolf; op de rand van een doorbraak Download here
DRIFT, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Schot, J.W. and Geels, F.W., 2007
Niches in evolutionary theories of technical change: A critical survey of the literature
Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 17(5), 605-622

  Agenda