niche protection in transitions to sustainability
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Niche protection in transitions to sustainability
Towards a theory of niche protection
EnPath Seminar on Change and Stability in Energy Systems
SYKE, Helsinki, 15-11-2010
Rob Raven (TU/e)
Overview• Introduction and background
• Starting point: transitions perspective/SNM
• Protection: multi-functional
• Protection: multi-dimensional
• Protection: a political perspective
• Research design
Introduction
‘Green power is as expensive as gray power’ (NRC; June 12, 2010)
Line of reasoning• Netherlands is lagging behind, but still good opportunities (off-shore wind
and solar)
• Need for:
• Stable supportive environment (e.g. German feed-in system)
• Removal of support for fossil energy
• Institutional changes (grid-connection rules; local/municipal energy cooperatives)
• Renewable energy niches are still on a learning curve less support needed in the future
• Niches are likely to compete as well as collaborate for public and other non-market support
Conclusion
“The choice for green or grey is no longer an economic but a
political one”
Background• New 3-year research project funded by ESRC/NWO
(SPRU, Tue – October 2010 – 2013)
• Basic idea: temporary (and dynamic) ‘protective space’ is a central concept in niche theory (and contemporary policies), but we now little about:
• what it consists of empirically
• how it is built up, and then withdrawn
• what the relation is between protection and the development of socio-technical practice within the niche
• who is involved in protection and how
Niches in a transitions perspective
Geels 2004
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.
SNM• Background
• Evolutionary theories (quasi-evolutionary)
• Constructivist methodology in Science and Technology Studies (STS)
• Argument:
• Many radical environmental innovations never make it to the market, because of adverse selection environment (regime).
• Protected spaces (niches) are critical in pre-competitive development - until the niche practice either becomes competitive in existing markets or helps influence changes to markets
Experiments• Niches do not pre-exist, waiting to be filled, but rather they
materialise as the result of social action
• ‘Experiments’ as main vehicle for niche creation and development (bridging variation and selection)
• “Initiatives that embody a highly-novel socio-technical configuration likely to lead to substantial sustainability gains and hold a promise for radical, system-level change” (Berkhout et al, 2009)
• Key processes: articulating new expectations, networking and learning
From experiments to niche
Geels and Raven, 2006Raven et al, 2008
Redefining niches?• Early niche studies:
• Protected spaces were empirically defined in terms of public financial resources and protective expectations
• Later niche studies:
• Protected spaces are conceptually defined as emerging socio-institutional environments (proto-regimes)
• In neither case is protection scrutinised systematicaly
• How does ‘protective space’ permit path-breaking novelties to flourish; and how does it contribute to systems innovation?
after Geels and Raven, 2006; Markard and Truffer, 2008
Protective spaceA. Shielding - alternative selection criteria:
- socio-cognitive / heuristics- markets- institutions- infrastructures- users- cultural associations- policy
B. Nurturing niche development:- expectations- networks- learning
C. Empowering the niche:-mutual identities-niche interests- challenge and reform regime
Protection: shielding, nurtering, empowering
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)
Protection: fit, capture, stretch
Protection is multi-dimensional
• Economic protection: most common notion. Subsidies, investment grants and so on.
• Institutional protection: alterations to norms and rules. E.g. temporarily suspending normal rules for grid connection
• Socio-cognitive protection: supporting new knowledge production. E.g. handbooks, best practice publications, R&D investments.
Protection is multi-dimensional
• Political protection: technologies become part of political agenda’s, e.g. the green economy
• Geographical protection: certain geographical locations provide specific resources or conditions for experimentation. E.g. depleting oil and gas wells in the Netherlands
• Cultural protection: mobilising wider cultural notions. E.g. large-scale innovationis resonate with engineering identities and business cultures in modern societies
Protection is multi-dimensionalForm of
protectionShielding Nurturing Empowering
Economic Temporary price support measures to create a level-playing field
Provide financial resources such as public grants for investment.
Taxing incumbent products to reflect external costs
Institutional Temporary rule exemptions such as certain land use planning requirements
Development of supporting norms and standards
Institutionalising new norms and standards in mainstream policies such as grid connection rules
Socio-cognitive Articulating promising claims and expectations
Training schemes and best practice publications
Establishment of dedicated research bodies or industry platforms
Cultural Statements that link prevailing social values of dedicated social group such as environmentalists to the niche-innovation
Art such as images, movies and books that positively portrait the niche innovation
Niche-innovation becomes part of societal identity
Geographic Physical limitations to extent of incumbent systems and infrastructures (e.g. mountain ranges)
Articulating fit with local (socio-economic) problem agendas
Changing physical landscapes and infrastructures to improve fit with niche-innovation
Political Statements that link technologies to political goals
Explicit mentioning of niche innovations in white papers
Cross-party commitment to the niche as a desirable component in various political visions for the future
Piecemeal protection and niche development
actual
expected
unrealised
Time 1
Cultu
ral
Time 2
Socio-cognitive
Cultu
ral
Socio-cognitiveTime 3
Cultu
ral
Geographic
Economic
Mobilising protections from the regime and against the regime
Regime t1 Regime t2 Regime t3
Protection: multi-dimensional• How do these protections interrelate?
• Some are ‘given’/prior; others are actively built up; all are socially constructed?
• How do combinations help or hinder the development of greener socio-technical practices?
• How do protections become ‘normal practice’ (e.g. privileges enjoyed by regimes, such as coal subsidies)
• How do niche advocates mobilise and draw upon protective resources? How do advocates shape protections?
• What drives the dynamics of these protective processes over time?
The politics of protection• Tendency to treat niche theory as a singularly rational
and consensual processes that achieves social learning
• Yet as more and more political and economic attention and public resources are committed to low carbon transitions, so a growing variety of technology advocates will lobby for those resources, and try and realise their own interests in lower carbon ways
• How to study the politics of niche protection?
Protective space through networks and narratives
• Starting point: follow heterogenous networks of niche advocates through time (‘global networks’; Law and Callon, 1994)
• When and which protections do they mobilise (process reconstruction)?
• How are they mobilised?
• Political/discursive analysis
• How do (references to) protections enter niche narratives, for what audiences and with which interests?
• How do the resulting global network structures and narratives shape socio-technical experimentation in local projects and vica versa?
Research design
UK NL
Discussion?
Can we really distinguish empirically different dimensions of protection?
Can we really distinguish empirically global from local networks? How?
!?Which methods are best here?
www.lowcarbonpolitics.org
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