how can local decisions about global issues in science and technology have im...
Aps easst presentation 2010
1. Niche protection in transitions to
sustainability
Paper for the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology
Annual Conference at the University of Trento, Italy
2-4 September 2010
Adrian Smith (SPRU) and Rob Raven (TU Eindhoven)
2. A sustainability transitions problem framing
Path-breaking innovations originate in niche settings that provide a ‘protective
space’ where some regime-derived selection processes do not operate
Regime selection environments / processes are multi-dimensional:
Evolutionary economics Socio-technical transitions
- socio-cognitive / heuristics - institutions
- markets - infrastructures
- institutions? - users
- cultural associations
- policy
How does ‘protective space’ permit path-breaking novelties to flourish; and
how does it contribute to systems innovation?
From:
incrementally innovating
‘regimes’ of socio-technical
practices (enduring trajectories,
yet troubling /destabilising)
Towards:
radically more environmentally
sustainable and socially just
regimes.
3. Protective space as a shield
Selection factors in dominant regime
Niche; partial shielding
after Hoogma( 2000)
socio-cognitive / heuristics
markets
institutions
infrastructures
users cultural associations
policy and power
4. after Geels and Raven, 2006; Markard and Truffer, 2008
Protective space as an alternative selection environment
Protective space
B. Nurturing niche
development:
- expectations
- networks
- learning
C. Empowering the niche:
-mutual identities
-niche interests
- challenge and reform
regime
A. Shielding - alternative selection criteria:
- socio-cognitive / heuristics
- markets
- institutions
- infrastructures
- users
- cultural associations
- policy
5. Removing or institutionalising protection?
Protectionism Sustainability transitions
Protection removed as
niche adapts and becomes
competitive under regime
selection pressures (fitting)
Protection institutionalised as part
of a new regime largely based on
innovative sustainability practices
in the niche (stretching)
Infant industries
Protection is perpetuated by
beneficiaries, so little
pressure to continue
innovating (capture)
6. Different types of protection
Source of protection Empirical indicators
Economic Public grants; price support; purchase
obligations; RD&D funding; feed-in systems;
long-term private investment commitments;
Institutional Planning rules; grid connection rules; insurance
schemes; rule exemptions (e.g. for
environmental reporting); development of
supporting norms and standards
Socio-cognitive Promising claims; feasibility studies; training
schemes; research programmes; conferences;
best practice publications; establishment of
intermediary organisations;
Cultural References to the technology in wider symbolic
context; statements of what the technology
signifies for prevailing social values (of group or
society); art such as images, movies and stories
that positively portrait the technology;
Geographic Locations of experiments with respect to
resource endowments; proximity to existing
infrastructures; articulated fit with local (socio-
economic) problem agendas;
Political Statements that link technologies to political
goals; explicit mentioning of technologies in
white papers; Ministerial commitments.
7. Piecemeal protection and niche development
actual
expected
unrealised
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Regime t1 Regime t2
Regime t3
Mobilising protections from the regime and against the regime
8. The social construction of protective space
Expectations
Social learning
Networks
Resources Actor interests
Narratives
9. The social construction of protective space
Expectations
Social learning
Networks
Resources Actor interests
Narratives
10. The social construction of protective space
Expectations
Social learning
Networks
Resources Actor interests
Narratives
11. Protective space as network building
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Global niche network
Local experimentation
Niche representations
Resource flows
Regime developments over time, windows of opportunity
Design expectations, resources
and lessons flow between global niche
and local experiments
Global niche
grows,
becomes
more robust
and
empowered
12. Towards an analysis of the politics of protective space
1. Start with the niche – what is the state of learning / performance, network and
expectations
2. What further protective measures are niche advocates seeking, and why?
3. What narratives are being engaged to argue for these protections?
4. Who are the target audiences and how are their interests being re-defined (if at all)?
5. What resources are being mobilised behind new protective measures (and with what
new interests and narratives coming to bear)?
6. How are regime dynamics (and contending niches) structuring the ability of advocates
to mobilise resources?
7. How does this influence the next phase of niche development?
8. Are any protective measures proving unnecessary, or becoming institutionalised?
13. Summarising: questions for future research
Isn’t protection
harmful for
innovation?
What is
protective
space?
How do the dynamics of
protection influence
niche development, and
vice versa?
Who is involved in the
construction of
protection, and how
do they do it?
Where might we
find answers?!
How is protection
built up, and then
withdrawn?
14. Answers between now and September 2013 (perhaps )!?
www.lowcarbonpolitics.org
Editor's Notes
Note: slight simplification it the title, and which matches the paper.
Purpose: to flag up some issues we are thinking through in the opening stages of a new research project. The project will look at ‘protective space’ for three energy niches in the UK and NL, each chosen for their relative ‘distance’ or ‘disruptiveness’ relative to incumbent electricity regimes. The cases are solar PV, offshore wind, and CCS.
Here, we simply discuss flag up some conceptual issues for discussion and advice from the audience. A collection of thoughts. Not yet an analysis.
It is striking how little explored is the concept of ‘protective space’ in the sustainability transitions literature, despite it being foundational to the multi-level framework.
Whilst the broad features of sustainability are identifiable in a set of environmental, social and economic values based in futurity, resilience, equity and justice, the specific details are ambiguous and open to contestation. This includes the way those values manifest in proposals for different technologies.
As sustainability transitions become bigger and bigger business, so a greater variety of advocates will be arguing for support for their niches. The environmentalists have long been joined by a veritable army of entrepreneurs, investors, leading corporations, technology developers, consultants, venture capitalists, politicians, and others; all pushing various solutions for realising sustainable development.
Technological, economic and institutional arguments are needed to make the case for protecting niches. Ultimately, however, this means mobilising others to commit to the niche and its development, by persuading them that their interests lie in its development. Securing and withdrawing protective space for niche sustainability solutions is a political endeavour. We return to this point later.
Selection environments constituted by regime path-dependencies and lock-ins that disadvantage sustainable novelties
Q: how does protective space operate and permit certain novelties to flourish?
Protective space is a shield from some or all of the dominant selection environment processes constituting regimes and reproducing them.
What is the blue line in this diagram, where does it come from, and how does it operate?
Leads to a number of questions for future research – next slide
Alternative selection environment – Markard and Truffer
Lesson from infant industries literature (protection a big topic there) – protective measures need to be temporary and conditional upon the build up of (internationally) competitive capabilities in the industry
Regimes are privileged – highly institutionalised protective measures, such as the path-dependencies that make development along continued trajectories easier (though increasingly problematic for our environments) than path-breaking innovation.
Where does protective space come from?
Each of these has to counter-pose the regime selection environment (shield) but also embody sustainability values that support innovation in the niche.
Protective spaces are unlikely to arise fully formed.
Question of mobilising whatever protections are to hand, and realising whatever developments are possible in absence of the specific selection processes being suspended by the protection.
Blue nodes and connections are actual network processes
Green are those sought by niche activists
Red are those sought, but which do not happen due to changed protective space – though other (blue) links arise instead
Solar PV as an illustration?
Build up of protection takes place in context of regime / selection environment. Claims need to be made in relation to the regime in order to secure additional, or more focused protection over time.
Move from general protections to more specific over time?
Protective space is really about the contexts in which radically different networks can be configured, and then spread?
Follow niche advocates, in the first instance.
What kinds of additional protective space are they seeking, on the basis of experience with niche development to date, and expectations for future development?
Such protections imply the mobilisation of resources from other actors
Resources can be material, technological, economic, political, authoritative, legitimacy, institutional (resource dependency theory)
Those other actors have their own economic and political interests
Narratives can help re-define and relate different interests, and secure the resource interdependency needed to build the protective measure
So, niche advocates have to represent historic and projected niche development in the forms of narratives meaningful to key, resourceful actors.
They have to be persuaded to commit to the niche, and to do this by furnishing resources
Engagement with narratives and mobilisation of resources is in relation to actors situated in the focal regime or associated regimes.
Regimes imply power relations – hegemonic discourse, structurally privileged actors, access to large resources and privileges. This structures the ability of advocates to mobilise resources, and forces them into conflicts (with regimes and with contending niches).
Actor perspectives upon the dynamics in those regimes will influence the receptiveness of the same actors to the narratives being deployed by niche advocates. E.g. is the regime troubled, declining profitability, socially and politically problematic, a new line of business or research endeavour etc
This conceptualisation sees protective space as a political endeavour: convincing others to see their particular future in the collective future of the niche
3 cases: PV, offshore wind, CCS
2 countries: NL and UK
The idea is that each case is of varying ‘distance’ and ‘fit’ with the regime, and so different in the kinds of protection required, whilst differing in their abilities to mobilise powerful actors to support protective measures.
