Bilateral Netherlands: The politics of low carbon innovation: towards a theory of niche protection
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sussex
Department Name: Sch of Business Management & Economics
Abstract
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Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Adrian Smith (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2010)
What is 'protective space'? : towards a politics of niche development in sustainability transition
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2013)
Spaces for sustainable innovation: solar photovoltaic electricity in the UK
in Technological Forecasting & Social Change
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2012)
Struggling for space : solar photovoltaic niche developments in the Netherlands and the UK
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2012)
Struggling for space: solar photovoltaic niche developments in the Netherlands and the UK
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2012)
Space travel: constructing and contesting a solar photovoltaic (PV) niche in the UK (1970-2012)
Adrian Smith (Author)
(2011)
Niche protection in transitions to sustainability. Towards a theory of niche protection
Bram Verhees (Author)
(2012)
The development of solar PV in the Netherlands: a case of survival in unfriendly contexts
in Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews
Bram Verhees (Author)
(2013)
Interrogating protective space: shielding, nurturing and empowering Dutch solar photovoltaics
Bram Verhees (Author)
(2011)
What is 'protective space'? Exploring niche construction in Dutch and British solar PV development
Jochen Markard (Author)
(2012)
Towards a research agenda on sustainability transitions. Introduction paper to special section on sustainability transitions
in Research Policy
| Description | Research into sustainability transitions emphasises the idea of 'protective niche spaces' as crucial to the cultivation of more sustainable technological alternatives compared to incumbent 'socio-technical regimes'. This is because emerging, inchoate technologies rarely perform as competitively or as conveniently as incumbent technologies, with the latter benefitting from many years incremental improvement, infrastructure provision, and institutionalisation. Protective niche spaces shield path-breaking technologies against premature market rejection in order to learn about their performance and desirability. However, the research literature has failed to really address what is meant by protection: what it is, where it comes from, how it is shaped and operates, and what the consequences are for the development of sustainability alternatives and their possibilities for seeding wider transformations to regimes. Our project developed a theory through review and synthesis of relevant literatures and empirical research into six case studies across two different countries (UK and the Netherlands). The case studies were three different low carbon technologies in each country: solar PV, offshore wind, and carbon capture and storage. The experience of each in each country was quite different. Comparison helped us nuance and finesse the theory developed in the project. Our theory contrasts an outsider-ontological framework with an insider-ontological framework. Essentially, the outsider position adopts an evolutionary approach to the development of technology systems, and niche protection is conceived as a set of measures and locations where the development of sustainable technologies were shielded, nurtured and empowered in relation to incumbent technologies. The insider-ontological framework focuses particularly on empowerment, which was a dimension of protection absent in the literature. We suggest niche technologies are able to exert greater influence either by fitting-and-conforming to prevailing regime-technological institutions, or by stretching-and-transforming those institutions into forms better adapted to the new technology. Both processes require substantial political work. This insider conceptualisation draws on more actor-network oriented ideas in technology studies, but also social constructivist ideas about the meanings and performance of technologies for different constituencies. Often this work is done through representations of niche technological performance and promise in broader narratives, and managing the boundary between the detailed material developments of the technology, and its projected significance to debates in the wider social world. Theory built through our empirically-grounded, insider-ontology enables analysis that explains the complex, often messy, socio-political work necessary for creating and maintaining protective niche conditions conducive for sustainable development, as identified in our outsider-ontological approach. As such, we have found a way to bring together in quite nuanced ways the kind of critical appreciation of political on-the-ground realities helpful for reflective technology advocates, with a more systematic, evolutionary appreciation of the development of technologies over time of relevance to policy decision-makers. |
| Exploitation Route | Scientific impact has been sought through the usual channels of publication, seminars, conferences (see Research Outcomes System for data), doctoral training, and teaching on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The work has been well received and is already becoming widely cited and used in other projects, especially in Europe. It is used in domains as diverse as innovation studies, science and technology studies, urban studies, energy studies, transporation studies, geography, environmental governance and health. We also convened a dedicated international, inter-disciplinary workshop of researchers in Eindhoven to explore further our ideas about the politics of providing and expanding spaces for low carbon innovation. We are now editing a special issue journal (Environmental Innovation & Societal Transitions) on the basis of the workshop. Policy impact has been sought through European training programmes under the EU 'Climate-KIC' (Knowledge and Innovation Community), in particular in the 'Pioneers into Practie' program. This is a Europe-wide program through which decision leaders and practitioners engage in an intra- and inter-regional exchange programmes. Dutch investigators of the current Bilateral project have been closely involved in designing and teaching a mentoring program on transitions, including 4 annual training workshops. Theories and examples of shielding, nurturing and empowering niche sustainable innovations are now used in these workshops, exposing up to 180 practitioners to these ideas annually. We have also made sure that our theory and cases are included in a post-academic training program on transition management, in which one of the Dutch investigators has been a lecturer for almost ten years, teaching ideas about niches and experiments in socio-technical transitions to 20-40 Dutch practitioners annually. Project results have also been presented to non-academic audiences by the UK invesitgators at various stakeholder occusions such as bilateral meetings and policy and industry events in both the UL and at European level. We were also authors for the section on energy transitions for IIASA Global Energy Assessment. We believe our empirically-informed theory could have tremendous impact on the formulation of more effective policies and business strategies for addressing sustainable development and climate change. We provide a more politically-realistic and innovation-informed approach to developing more sustainable technologies and the wider 'socio-technical' configurations that make those technologies work. In the context of the Pioneers-into-Practice program, for examples, ideas about shielding, nurturing and empowerment have been translated into practical assignments as part of a toolkit for doing transitions in practice. Our theory is of relevance not just to the energy domain, but to any economic sector confronting increasing demands to transform radically in order to become lower carbon and more sustainable. So we expect these ideas to become of growing interest as pressure builds over time. An ambition of the new SPRU-based Centre for Innovation and Energy Demand is to try and get socio-technical transitions ideas into policy debates and discussions. This follow-on funding gives us an opportunity to get these new theories about protective space into those debates. We will also promote our theory through the Sustainable Transitions Research Network in which we are involved internationally. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Communities and Social Services/Policy Construction Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Energy Environment Government Democracy and Justice Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Transport |
| URL | http://lowcarbonpolitics.wordpress.com/ |
| Description | Our findings, and in particular our novel analytical framework, have been presented to practitioner audiences and used in training materials. In particular, we have participated in the Climate KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community), Pioneers into Practice programme of the European Commission. We were also invited to participate in a World Trade Organisation event on Carbon Capture and Sequestration in November 2012. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2012 |
| Sector | Energy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Sustainability transitions : rethinking everyday practives, livelihoods and identities |
| Amount | £17,570 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/I00145X/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2010 |
| End | 09/2012 |
| Description | Sustainability transitions : rethinking everyday practives, livelihoods and identities |
| Amount | £17,570 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/I00145X/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2010 |
| End | 09/2012 |
| Description | A second wind? British and Dutch offshore wind energy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Case studies form the project |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Constructing and contesting spaces for low-carbon energy innovation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | International research workshop we organised. With 17 papers from researchers in Europe and US. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Governing low carbon transitions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Keynote presentation to the British Sociological Association Climate Change Study Group launch event |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Niche protection in transitions to sustainability : towards a theory of niche protection |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation for the Research Seminar Strategy Department, University of Toulouse, School of Management |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Niche protection in transitions to sustainability : towards a theory of niche protection |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | EnPath seminar on Change and Stability in Energy Systems, SYKE, Helsinki |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Niche protection in transitions to sustainability : towards a theory of niche protection |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Seminar paper |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Social innovation and participation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Participation in niche spaces |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Space and scale in socio-technical transitions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Lecture on our protective space theory |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Space and scale in socio-technical transitions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | geography of protective spaces |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Systems innovation, strategic niche management and esteem : designing strategic experiments for system innovation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited seminar presentation |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | The politics of low-carbon innovation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to Past and Prospective Energy Transitions workshop, ESMW, Cardiff University and Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy Research Consortium |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | The politics of low-carbon innovation : towards a theory of niche protection |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Innovation seminar, University of Utrecht |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | Theoretical perspectives on energy system change |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to the Fletcher School workshop on Achieving decarbonisation: transforming national energy systems, Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA, 10-11 March |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | What is protective space? : shielding, nurturing and empowering Dutch solar PV |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Seminar presentation |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |