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• how it is built up, and then withdrawn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?

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