Track 5c. Sustainability Transitions, Innovation Systems and Social Inclusion

Track Chairs:

Pieter van Heyningen. Senior Research Associate, Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. South Africa.

Manoj Joshi. Professor of Strategy, entrepreneurship and Family Business, Amity Business School, Amity University Lucknow Campus, India.

Contacts: pieter.vanheyningen@gsb.uct.ac.za; mjoshi@lko.amity.edu

Goals and objectives of the track

 A recent report by Oxfam suggests that the world has never been as unequal in terms of income disparities as it is now. Can inclusive and sustainability-oriented innovation systems, become the tool for achieving sustainability transitions? The work on STs has been primarily concerned with the transition of ‘socio-technical’ transitions, and has neglected the mechanisms of transition in wider socio-economic contexts. This track seeks to open this debate, by understanding how the goals of STs can include:

• A wider analytical focus on socio-economic transitions to sustainability.
• The critical analysis of existing innovation systems, to understand their abilities to enhance sustainability transitions.
• Unpack and critically debate the notion of contexts of STs (i.e. between developing and developed nations)
• How can sustainability transitions include the notion of ‘inclusiveness’ as the social ‘goal’ in the transition to sustainability.

Two conceptual frameworks have been analytically dominant in researching innovation dynamics in sustainability transition processes, namely technological innovation systems (TIS) and the multi-level perspective (MLP). Both approaches conceptualize socio-technical systems as interrelated sets of actors, networks, institutions and technologies/artifacts. The innovation systems concept as applied to sustainability transitions has been principally concerned with emerging new technologies and their potential contribution to future sustainability, whereas MLP has been more strongly oriented toward reconstructing historical processes of sectoral change. There is a need however, for a more in-depth understanding of how these concepts can be applied as a wider analytical and policy tool for capacity building of transitions through institutional enablement and sustainability-oriented innovation policies across different spatial contexts.

Scholars of sustainability transitions have only recently shown an increased interest in spatial aspects of sustainability transitions. Recent contributions have started to look into the impact of globalization processes and the governance of transitions in urban and regional contexts. Still, the conceptual vocabulary to deal with these aspects is underdeveloped. Also for capacity building, it is crucial to generate and compare empirical insights about the distinctive local conditions shaping transitions, making clear at the same time the wider relations of control, dependency, competition and cooperation, which influence what can be locally achieved.

This track seeks to strengthen theoretical development through finding complementary approaches to transitions towards sustainability. The managers of this track are seeking academic papers that deal with these theories from a critical stance, but also show insight from a practical case study level.

KEYWORDS: Sustainability Transitions; Socio-economic transitions; Innovation Systems; Spatial Innovation; Inclusiveness; Localized Learning; Geography of Transitions.

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