http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/369/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39817/ 2013-04-09T00:00:00Z The role of agency in overcoming path dependence and enabling sustainability transitions is receiving increasing attention. Currently lacking are more empirically derived explanations of the co-evolutionary dynamics between actors and institutional change that could potentially provide guidance on facilitating such transitions into the future. This paper investigates these dynamics through a longitudinal case analysis of Melbourne's transition to improved stormwater quality treatment. The complex data collection, analysis and validation approach, which included oral histories, semi-structured interviews, industry workshops and documentary analysis, examined the nuances of the actor-related strategies and institutional enabling processes throughout the different phases of the transition over the last fifty years. The results revealed the importance of a small group of loosely connected frontrunners from across government, private, community and scientific sectors who, through a mix of creating and disrupting institutional strategies, managed to facilitate a growing and diverse actor-network that steered this transition over decades. The establishment of networked bridging organisations was also instrumental because they formed different types of networks and alliances over time for protecting and deepening the reach of the transition dynamics across the city. The findings suggest there is no single cause-effect relationship nor one dominant intervention or action that shifted the urban stormwater management regime. Rather, it showed that the co-evolutionary processes between the broader transitional dynamics were played into by frontrunners and their actor-networks in such a way that emerging new narratives diffused, giving meaning to the evolving scientific agendas and on-the-ground experiments, which led to new institutional structures and enabling administrative tools. It seems as though each one of these dimensions is as crucial as the other in explaining the outcomes of this successful sustainability transition. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34981/ 2012-03-13T00:00:00Z The Energy Transition, the inevitable shift away from cheap, centralized, largely fossil-based energy systems, is one of the core challenges of our time. This book provides a coherent and novel insight into the nature of this challenge and possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions. It brings together prominent European scholars and practitioners from the fields of energy transition research and governance to draw attention to the current complex dynamics in the energy domain, and offer elegant and provocative explanations for current crises and lock-ins. They identify multiple energy transition pathways that emerge and increasingly compete, and emphasize the need and possibilities for novel governance. By analysing the complexity of energy transition processes and the difficulties in shifting to sustainable pathways, this text questions the extent to which actually governing energy transitions is already reality, just an illusion, or a bare necessity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34989/ 2012-02-24T00:00:00Z Our paper addresses the inherent tension between the open-ended and uncertain process of sustainability transitions and the ambition for governing such a process. We explore this tension from two theoretical angles: the sustainability and the governance angles; by showing the implications of sustainability targets in governance processes and governance attempts. We propose transition management as a governance approach that has the potential to overcome this tension through selective participatory processes of envisioning, negotiating, learning and experimenting. Transition management includes a portfolio of tools that have a common objective to enable change in practices and structures directed towards sustainable development targets. We present the transition arena and the transition experiments as two transition management tools elaborating on their process design, expected outcomes and illustrating their application in the Dutch construction transition. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34964/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Iedere tijd vraagt om zijn eigen manier van innoveren. Onze tijd vraagt om burge(r)meesters: bijzondere burgers met lef die een heldere visie hebben op de toekomst. Het Burge(r)meesterboek maakt duidelijk hoe deze burge(r)meesters samen met bestuurders, beleidsmedewerkers, ondernemers en inwoners aan een duurzaam Nederland kunnen werken. Pepik Henneman en Derk Loorbach beschrijven een methode waarbij initiatieven en ideeën van koplopers uit het bedrijfsleven, overheid en samenleving verbonden worden tot een gezamenlijke visie en aanpak. Deze benadering is gebaseerd op de laatste inzichten uit transitiemanagement, co-creatie en ervaringen met diverse succesvolle lokale pioniersprojecten en helpt gemeentes, provincies en lokale pioniers om samen innovatieprocessen te versnellen. Een boek over en vooral voor bijzondere, betrokken burgers, beleidsmakers én burgervaders, die samen de slag om morgen willen winnen voor de nieuwe generaties. Met veertien portretten van Burge(r)meesters. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34973/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z The challenges facing developed countries in the coming decades require a fundamental reorientation and re-conceptualisation of our current socio-economic fabric. Resource scarcities, climate change concerns, ageing populations, economic shifts and globalisation are examples of trends that are increasing the pressure on various institutions and society in general, and will inevitably involve drastic changes. Necessary, and perhaps imminent, transformations in energy supply, production and consumption, welfare and health-care systems and mobility pose a significant challenge for governance scholars to develop an understanding of how such transitions arise, and how they may be influenced to engender more sustainable futures. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34979/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z A range of studies from Earth system scientists argue that human activities drive multiple, interacting effects that cascade through the Earth system. Recent contributions state and quantify nine, interacting 'planetary boundaries' with possible threshold effects. This article provides an overview of the global governance challenges that follow from this notion of multiple, interacting and possibly non-linear 'planetary boundaries'. Here we discuss four interrelated global environmental governance challenges, as well as some possible ways to address them. The four identified challenges are related to, first, the interplay between Earth system science and global policies, and the implications of differences in risk perceptions in defining these boundaries; second, the capacity of international institutions to deal with individual 'planetary boundaries', as well as interactions between them; third, the role of international organizations in dealing with 'planetary boundaries' interactions; and fourth, the role of global governance in framing social-ecological innovations. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35017/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Begin jaren negentig formeerde Jan Rotmans op het RIVM in Bilthoven de GLOBOonderzoeksgroep, die onderzoek deed naar mondiale verandering en duurzame ontwikkeling. Centraal in dit onderzoek stond het begrip transitie en de eerste serie transitie-experimenten werden gedaan met het TARGETS-model (Rotmans 1997). Ook bij de VN introduceerde Rotmans de notie van transities, bij de Commissie Duurzame Ontwikkeling, in wiens opdracht hij een evaluatie maakte van de UNCED-conferentie in Rio in 1992. Dit resulteerde in het rapport ‘Critical Trends’ (UN 1997), een mondiale, integrale trendanalyse waarin het begrip transitie de kern vormde. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35020/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z De meeste incidenten en problemen die het nieuws halen, zijn slechts de symptomen van een dieper liggende, meer fundamentele problematiek. Op de golven van groei, technologische vooruitgang en voortgaande specialisatie leken de bomen tot in de hemel te reiken, maar gaandeweg eroderen de peilers onder onze moderne samenlevingen. Als we niet snel en doortastend aan een duurzaam, lange-termijn alternatief gaan werken is de kans groot dat we langdurig met crises, onrust en chaos te maken gaan krijgen. Crises van ecologisch, economisch en sociale aard. Treurig genoeg is deze urgentie in het politieke en maatschappelijke debat volledig afwezig, terwijl in de samenleving wel degelijk allerlei alternatieven zichtbaar zijn. Juist de partijen aan de linkerkant van het politieke spectrum zouden in de alternatieven een kans moeten zien om in te zetten op een nieuwe vorm van solidariteit. Een solidariteit die niet door de staat afgedwongen, maar vanuit de samenleving zelf georganiseerd, als reactie op de ongrijpbaarheid van de grote crises die over ons heen komen. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35043/ 2011-11-01T00:00:00Z This article explores the links between agency, institutions, and innovation in navigating shifts and large-scale transformations toward global sustainability. Our central question is whether social and technical innovations can reverse the trends that are challenging critical thresholds and creating tipping points in the earth system, and if not, what conditions are necessary to escape the current lock-in. Large-scale transformations in information technology, nano- and biotechnology, and new energy systems have the potential to significantly improve our lives; but if, in framing them, our globalized society fails to consider the capacity of the biosphere, there is a risk that unsustainable development pathways may be reinforced. Current institutional arrangements, including the lack of incentives for the private sector to innovate for sustainability, and the lags inherent in the path dependent nature of innovation, contribute to lock-in, as does our incapacity to easily grasp the interactions implicit in complex problems, referred to here as the ingenuity gap. Nonetheless, promising social and technical innovations with potential to change unsustainable trajectories need to be nurtured and connected to broad institutional resources and responses. In parallel, institutional entrepreneurs can work to reduce the resilience of dominant institutional systems and position viable shadow alternatives and niche regimes. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20303/ 2010-10-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18365/ 2010-04-01T00:00:00Z In this article we present four different cases of transition management in which we were involved over the past 10 years. Transition management was developed in the course of this period in theoretical and practical sense, mainly in the Netherlands, as novel mode of governance for sustainable development. The theoretical debate about transition management is being increasingly published, but so far only few empirical examples were. In this article we present four cases that combined give a representative illustration of both the advantages and the difficulties of actually trying to manage transitions. The article ends by drawing lessons and formulating research questions for the future. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34892/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z This article introduces transition management as a new governance approach for sustainable development. Sustainable development is used here as a common notion referring to those persistent problems in (Western industrialized) societies that can only be dealt with on the very long term (decades or more) through specific types of network and decision-making processes. Based on interdisciplinary research into complex processes of long term, structural change in society, basic tenets for complexity-based governance are formulated. These tenets are translated into a framework that distinguishes between four different types of governance activities and their respective roles in societal transitions. This framework can be used for implementation of governance strategies and instruments. The approach and framework have been developed deductively and inductively in the Netherlands since 2000. This article presents the theoretical basis of transition management and will be illustrated by examples from transition management practice, especially the Dutch national energy transition program. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34901/ 2009-12-01T00:00:00Z Dit rapport is het resultaat van de activiteiten van de ‘Transitie arena Ruimtelijke Orde Zuidvleugel’ gericht op het perspectief ‘mobiliteit’. Eerder verscheen het rapport ‘Systeem Ruimtelijke Orde (vanuit Transitieperspectief)’ dat resultaten van de arena beschreef vanuit het perspectief ‘ruimtelijke ordening’. Onder leiding van onderzoekers van Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) werd een vernieuwingsnetwerk gevormd rondom het vraagstuk ruimtelijke orde in de Zuidvleugel van de Randstad. In verschillende arena sessies is gediscussieerd over de uitdaging van ruimtelijke orde in Nederland en met name de Zuidvleugel van de Randstad, in tweede instantie toegespitst op de relatie ruimte en mobiliteit. Er is een vernieuwingsagenda ontwikkeld en er zijn zogenaamde transitiepaden hiernaar toe verkend. Door DRIFT is daarnaast een analyse gemaakt om vast te kunnen stellen in hoeverre de activiteiten van het kennisprogramma Transumo (Transition to Sustainable Mobility) bijdragen aan deze transitiepaden en op welke punten Transumo nog actie zou kunnen ondernemen om de impact van het programma te vergroten. De door DRIFT uitgevoerde analyse heeft plaatsgevonden in 2008, en vond parallel plaats aan activiteiten die Transumo ondernam om haar programma verder uit te breiden. De vanaf medio 2008 ingezette ontwikkelingen in het Transumo programma zijn daardoor buiten de scope van de analyse van DRIFT gebleven. In dit rapport worden waardevolle suggesties gedaan voor vervolgactiviteiten binnen of buiten Transumo om de gesignaleerde ‘witte vlekken’ in te vullen. Omdat het kennisprogramma van Transumo al in de afrondende sfeer was ten tijde van het verschijnen van het rapport, konden nauwelijks meer nieuwe initiatieven gestart konden worden. Desalniettemin kon een aantal van de gesignaleerde ‘witte vlekken en stuursuggesties’ al wel meegenomen worden in een aantal kleinschalige, verkennende programma uitbreidingen die hebben plaatsgevonden in de loop van 2008 en 2009. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34986/ 2009-10-31T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34987/ 2009-10-28T00:00:00Z • our society faces a number of persistent problems • unsustainability is the symptom of the persistence of these problems • many examples: climate change, energy supply, water problem, mobility problem, agriculture, health care • persistence is due to system failures and requires a system break and system shift: transition http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34902/ 2009-08-12T00:00:00Z Innovations in public policy are difficult to realize if decision-making arrangements are not scrutinized at the same time. Rigid institutional arrangements often hinder the realization of policy breakthroughs. Consequently, in the day-to-day practice of public administration, more and more experiments with innovative arrangements towards realizing groundbreaking policy decisions are being seen. Two rather different examples of such arrangements in the Dutch context are transition arenas and pilot projects (proeftuinen). In this article we describe these arrangements from an innovation management perspective and evaluate their functioning by focusing on their approaches to two dilemmas: the dilemma between diversity and closedness within the innovation plans and the dilemma between openness and closedness of the plan in relation to its context, the outside world. From their comparison we can learn about the context-specific application of different innovation plans and the results of different ways of handling these innovation dilemmas. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37228/ 2009-05-28T00:00:00Z In this paper we present the transition approach as an integrated perspective to understand and possibly orient our society towards sustainable development. Transition management is based upon complex adaptive system thinking and seeks to deal with ongoing changes in society in an evolutionary manner so as to influence these ongoing changes in terms of speed and direction: towards sustainability. Since the concept of sustainability is inherently normative, subjective and ambiguous, we argue that (unlike some more traditional approaches to sustainable development) we should focus on an open facilitation and stimulation of social processes towards sustainability. Transition perspective poses novel challenges for research: there are no unequivocal answers, nor is it clear how these processes should be governed. We thus end this paper by formulating the basic research questions central to the search for governance for sustainability. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34895/ 2009-04-28T00:00:00Z Abstract The concepts of transition and transition management offer a fruitful context for cooperation and debate among scientists, policy makers, and corporate actors. Transition management and transition approach in general provide an integrative approach to analyze and formulate an unconventional pathway towards sustainability. Transitions’ approach is not to achieve fixed goals, but to gradually work towards common ambitions through innovation, integration, and co-evolution. A transition to sustainability is an open-ended societal process of fundamental change in structure, culture and practices that comply with the sustainability values. In this paper we address not only what is a transitions’ approach, but also what transition management can offer to policy makers who position sustainability at the core of the development. Process-oriented tenets of transition management as well as propositions in face of global and local challenges to sustainability are analyzed. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37231/ 2009-04-06T00:00:00Z This paper presents a framework for governance in the context of large scale and long term societal change (transitions). We argue that existing theories of governance offer interesting descriptive insights for such a framework, but do not present innovative prescriptive ideas for governance of transitions. In this paper we distill and abstract the basic and more generic notions in a number of key governance fields, and try to relate these to emerging theory on transitions and their governance. More specific, we build upon the interactive governance paradigm and link it to transition thinking and transition management. Our paper thus seeks to outline the contours of transitions governance and develop two operational links in the form of transition governance frameworks for detecting the societal potential for system’s change and for orienting the societal system towards transitions. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17532/ 2009-04-01T00:00:00Z This article presents a framework, transition management, for managing complex societal systems. The principal contribution of this article is to articulate the relationship between transition management and complex systems theory. A better understanding of the dynamics of complex, adaptive systems provides insight into the opportunities, limitations, and conditions under which it is possible to influence such systems. Transition management is based on key notions of complex systems theory, such as variation and selection, emergence, coevolution, and self-organization. It involves a cyclical process of phases at various scale levels: stimulating niche development at the micro level, finding new attractors at the macro level by developing a sustainability vision, creating diversity by setting out experiments, and selecting successful experiments that can be scaled up. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17531/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper develops a strategic perspective for business to contribute to the innovation of societal systems. Sustainability issues at the level of societal sectors cannot be addressed by single organizations but need to be thought of as systemic challenges in which business, government and civil society each play different roles. Sustainability involves structural changes over longer periods of time, and requires co-evolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and organizational forms. We propose that the transition management framework offers a fruitful way to analyze such co-evolutionary processes of social transformation and subsequently develop strategies to infl uence and accelerate such processes. We present the case of two firms working in this new context of transition management in The Netherlands. From these cases we conceptualize a more general approach for business to redefine and reframe the societal context in which it is operating and develop novel business strategies. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18366/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper reports on the research outcomes and practical experiences with transitions and transition management in the Netherlands. Transitions are phenomena that receive increasing interest from researchers, policy-makers and the business community as an integrated paradigm for dealing with persistent unsustainability problems as well as with structuring activities aiming at radical breakthroughs towards sustainability. Within the Netherlands, the Dutch research network on System Innovations and Transitions (KSI) and the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) have functioned as the core centres for research and practices in this area. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37234/ 2008-06-01T00:00:00Z A fundamental transformation of our current energy system in the future is inevitable. To this end, this paper presents a 'fresh' perspective on the Dutch energy field based on transition theory. From this perspective, a number of starting points are suggested for energy transition management in order to influence the speed and direction of the energy transition. In the second part of this paper, these principles are used to reflect upon the way the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs is currently applying transition management. As such, this paper itself is part of the ongoing co-production of knowledge between science and policy, that emerged over the past few years in the Netherlands with regard to transition management. Copyright http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35036/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37236/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Our society faces a number of persistent problems whose symptoms are becoming more and more apparent. Persistent problems are complex because they are: deeply embedded in our societal structures; uncertain because of the hardly reducible structural uncertainty they include; difficult to manage with a variety of actors with diverse interests involved; and hard to grasp, in the sense that they are difficult to interpret and ill-structured (Dirven et al. 2002). Persistent problems are the superlative form of what Rittel and Webber (1973) refer to as ‘wicked’ problems. Examples of persistent problems are: the energy problem with anthropogenic climate change as manifestation; the agricultural problem with symptoms such as animal diseases such as bird flu, mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease; the water problem illustrated by major floods and periods of drought; and the mobility problem with traffic congestion and air pollution due to increased mobility. Persistent problems could generally be considered to be symptoms of an unsustainable society. These persistent problems cannot be solved using only current policies (SER 2001). Persistent problems are related to the system failures that have crept into our societal systems which, contrary to market failures, cannot be corrected by the market or current policies. Existing policies are necessary but not sufficient; much more is needed. In order to combat system failures a restructuring of our societal systems is required: transitions. A transition is a structural change in a societal (sub)system that is the result of a co-evolution of economic, cultural, technological, ecological and institutional developments at different scale levels (Rotmans et al. 2000). Transitions cannot be steered in command and control terms, because they are too complex phenomena with many uncertainties and surprises. However, transitions can be influenced and guided, in terms of influencing the speed and direction of these processes. The latter we call transition management, which will be described below. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10887/ 2007-12-20T00:00:00Z This paper develops a strategic perspective for business to address persistent sustainability issues by contributing to the innovation of societal systems. Sustainability issues at the level of societal sectors or domains cannot be addressed by single organizations but require co-evolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and organizational forms. We present the case of transition management in the Netherlands – an approach combining systems analysis with new modes of governance to influence the direction and speed of structural changes towards sustainability – and the activities of two firms working in this new context. From the two specific cases we conceptualize business strategies at different levels to advance sustainable development. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18449/ 2007-09-01T00:00:00Z ABSTRACT In the Netherlands, the national government is committed towards altering the systems of energy, transport and agriculture in the name of sustainable development. A process of deliberation and change was started—aimed at achieving ‘transitions’—using a model of transition management. This paper examines how the new arrangements of governance for energy transition deal with six problems of steering: ambivalence about goals, uncertainty about cause–effect relations, distributed power of control, political myopia, determination of short-term steps for long-term change and the danger of lock-in to new systems. The Dutch experience shows that transition management is applied in ways different from the original model (established players play a too great role) but it appears a useful model of reflexive governance, combining advantages of incremental politics with those of planning. It helps to orientate innovation policy and sectoral policies to sustainable development goals and to exploit business interests in system innovations in a prudent manner. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37240/ 2007-09-01T00:00:00Z Transition management has rapidly emerged over the past few years as a new approach to dealing with complex societal problems and governance in the context of these problems. In the Netherland, UK and Belgium, serious efforts have been and are being undertaken to develop transition policies in areas such as energy, building, mobility and water management. This is the result of a much broader scientific development of transition research as an interdisciplinary field of study in which innovation studies, history, ecology and modeling are combined with sociology, political and governance studies and even psychology. Because of the focus on integrated sustainability problems and the applied nature of transition research, the natural interaction between science and policy has led to a continuous co-evolving theory and practice of transition management. The emergence of transition management as a new paradigm for governance and research has surprised many researchers and policy-makers, leading to skepticism and doubts as well as enthusiasm and new élan. How was it possible that a new approach that aims to promote transitions, in fact evolutionary revolutions fundamentally altering existing regimes, could be taken up so quickly by policy and was able to simultaneously develop scientifically into a, still very young, discipline? This paper describes the predevelopment phase leading up to the introduction of transition management as national policy in the Netherlands. It will explain the following development as a result of the co-production process between research and policy in which all elements that constitute the transition management approach were brought together. The paper will show that these basic elements were already being developed and implemented for years but had to come together in an active co-production process to become integrated and internalized. Since its introduction into the policy arena, transition management has been widely debated, challenged, tested, and because of this further developed, enriched and grounded scientifically. The debate concerning the ‘manageability’ and predictability of transitions has been picked up by Meadowcroft (2005, 2007), Shove and Walker (2007), who warn against possible pitfalls concerning transition management and raise interesting questions regarding scope, effectivity and legitimacy. In their commentaries, they thus touch upon relevant issues, but especially Shove and Walker seem unaware of most of the research and practical experiences of the last years. They for example seem unaware of the social systems approach underlying transition management, the focus on the role of immaterial elements and consumers in transitions, the reflexive use of sustainable development as guiding instead of prescribing notion and the new insights about the role of research and researchers in transition management. In all these areas, important progress has been made. The paper will explain how the transition management approach further evolved and how it necessarily will continue to do so in the future. We will discuss in-depth major points of criticism and concern as put forward by various authors over the past years. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34982/ 2007-06-28T00:00:00Z Our modern complex society and its problems of realizing long-term sustainable development necessitate new forms of governance. In recent years a number of publications have been made on transition management as a new mode of governance that explicitly deals with societal complexity (D. Loorbach, 2007; J. Rotmans, Grin, Schot, & Smits, 2004; J. Rotmans, Kemp, & Van Asselt, 2001). This approach towards dealing with governance and complexity explicitly links analysis of complexity to the governance hereof. Observed dynamics in society provide the basis for formulating governance strategies and instruments, while the implementation of transition management simultaneously leads to more precise or altered interpretations of observed reality. Transition management as formulated in (D. Loorbach, 2007) presents a framework for structuring governance processes directed towards societal innovation. This framework distinguishes between different types of activities (strategic, tactical and operational) and different phases (envisioning, agenda-building, experimentation and evaluation). The basic assumption is that this framework is generic and can be used to implement transition management within any specific context (being a specific policy domain or political culture). The proposed paper aims to illustrate how the framework can be used to implement transition management and under which conditions such an implementation of transition management can be successful. This will be done by analyzing the project ‘Sustainable Living and Housing in Flanders’, in which the two authors functioned as project leaders. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10200/ 2007-06-07T00:00:00Z This book introduces transition management as a new mode of governance for sustainable development. Transition management combines a conceptual approach on social complexity, governance and long-term structural societal change with an operational governance model to actually work towards sustainability through learning-by- doing and doing-by-learning. The basic rationale behind transition management is that we are faced with societal problems of such complexity and magnitude, that existing approaches do not suffice. Such persistent problems can be found in many areas of society: energy, mobility, agriculture, water management, but also in health care, education, construction and industry. In these areas agreement upon definitions of sustainability the best solutions is impossible to achieve so that top-down planning is impossible, while at the same time sustainability can also never be achieved solely through bottom- up innovation and liberalization: sustainable development re! quires taking into account collective goods, future needs and un certain future development. Transition management aims to deal with persistent societal problems through combining long-term envisioning, short-term experiments in a selective participatory process that supports policy integration, social learning and social innovation. It focuses on frontrunners, entrepreneurs, niche-actors and innovative individuals and organizations in general that are committed to sustainable development. More often than not, innovations that in the long-term could contribute to sustainable development are unable to break through because of for example fragmentation, lack of means and support, limited attention to external (socio-economic) factors or lack of exposure. By simultaneously raising awareness and political acceptance for sustainable development in a specific area and by developing more coherence, cooperation and strategic capabilities at the level of the innovations, a structured process of social experimentation and learning can evolve that gradually leads to fundamenta! l structures in our societal systems. The central instrument for transition management is the transition arena: a scientifically underpinned operational model for coordinating and structuring transition management processes (especially in the predevelopment phase). The transition arena is a mental, physical and institutional space for experimentation, envisioning and network-building that is legitimized by regular policy. In the transition arena, different types of innovators with various backgrounds, perspectives and ambitions are brought together and develop shared long-term perspectives and a transition agenda that increasingly will influence regular policy. This approach has been introduced into research and policy in the Netherlands in 2001 and since then successfully applied in areas of sustainable energy, mobility, agriculture and housing . It has also been adopted as a new paradigm and approach in multi-disciplinary research . This book covers offers insight into the first five years of development of theory and practice of transition management in the Netherlands. As such, it is a unique account of an innovative experiment in policy theory and practice that is highly relevant for sustainable development in the international context. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37237/ 2007-02-01T00:00:00Z Sustainable development requires changes in socio-technical systems and wider societal change - in beliefs, values and governance that co-evolve with technology changes. In this article we present a practical model for managing processes of co-evolution: transition management. Transition management is a multilevel model of governance which shapes processes of co-evolution using visions, transition experiments and cycles of learning and adaptation. Transition management helps societies to transform themselves in a gradual, reflexive way through guided processes of variation and selection, the outcomes of which are stepping stones for further change. It shows that societies can break free from existing practices and technologies, by engaging in co-evolutionary steering. This is illustrated by the Dutch waste management transition. Perhaps transition management constitutes the third way that policy scientists have been looking for all the time, combining the advantages of incrementalism (based on mutual adaptation) with the advantages of planning (based on long-term objectives). http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35018/ 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z Sustainable development is rapidly moving from the periphery to the mainstream of politics, business, and science. Over the past several years, a strong consensus has started to emerge that some of the major global problems can only be overcome through large-scale concerted action. Recent additions to the debate include the reports by the International Panel on Climate Change, the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and, perhaps less known, the Potsdam Memorandum1. The latter communication was recently presented by a broad group of Nobel laureates and is titled “The Great Transformation.” The statement pleads for fundamental changes in our economies and societies and asks, http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37248/ 2006-09-01T00:00:00Z This paper describes a participatory foresight method developed and tested by the authors. The method of cultural perspective images, rooted in grid-group of cultural theory, was used in an experimental dialogue among companies and a selection of other stakeholders directly or indirectly involved in the food chain of farmed salmon. The method is used to map different future outlooks based on distinct worldviews and management styles present in the food chain and its social environment. Drawing cultural perspective images helps to foresee when cultural perspectives are commensurable or not. Its use also supports efforts to define a shared future beyond the immediate concerns of competition and cost pressures and to enhance strategic transparency between the cultures in food chains and society. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37247/ 2006-07-11T00:00:00Z This discussion paper sets out to compare two different, yet related, approaches to achieve sustainable development and (technological) innovation. Strategic Niche Management (SNM) (Kemp, Schot et al. 1998; Weber 1999) emerged as a novel concept by the end of the 1990’s and is presented as a research model and policy tool to manage technological innovation within so-called niches. SNM is based on the multi-level conceptualization of socio-technical regimes, embedded in a slowly changing landscape and influenced by emerging niches. Transition management (TM) (Rotmans, Kemp et al. 2000; Rotmans, Kemp et al. 2001; Rotmans 2003; Loorbach and Rotmans 2006) was for the first time defined in 2000 as a policy or governance approach and later developed into a policy model to deal with long-term desired change and sustainable development. TM is based on the analytical concept of transitions as structural changes in complex (societal) systems and has been developed into an operational policy-approach. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7770/ 2006-06-02T00:00:00Z Over the past decades the Dutch people have been confronted with severe waterrelated problems, which are the result of an unsustainable water system, arising from human interventions in the physical infrastructure of the water system and the water management style. The claims of housing, industry, infrastructure and agriculture have resulted in increasing pressure on the water system. The continuous subsidence of soil and climate change has put pressure on the land. Hence, the nature and magnitude of water-related problems have changed. Longitudinal research of relevant national policy documents reveals that the water management regime has changed its water management style over the past thirty years from a technocratic scientific style towards an integral and participatory style. We have investigated if the historical development in Dutch Water management can be characterized as a transition. Based on longitudinal research through an integrated systems analysis, document research and expert interviews, we have reconstructed the historical narrative by using the transition concepts of multi-level and multi-phase. This research indicates that the shift in Dutch Water management can be characterized as a transition. This transition is currently in the take-off stage and near the acceleration stage. This is a crucial stage as long as the considerable differences between the strategic macro-vision and the practical implementation at the micro-level remains. As long as these levels are not compatible (modulation), the transition will not be completed successfully. Transition management as multi-level governance model should therefore be adopted to facilitate the modulation. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7629/ 2006-03-24T00:00:00Z Many countries are committed to sustainability but are struggling with how to do this. Most countries opted for sustainability councils and the development of sustainability indicators. The Dutch government followed a different track. It believed that sustainability requires some fundamental changes in functional systems of for example energy, transport and agriculture. It conceptualised the quest towards sustainability as an issue of managing transitions in functional systems. In this paper we examine why the Dutch government became interested in transitions. We will see that transition management was attractive because it allowed different ministries to pursue their own agenda but in a different way: with more attention to innovation and learning. We will look at the model of transition management and the Dutch policies for managing the energy transition. The model is believed to be an interesting model of governance, employing an integrative and multi-scale framework for policy deliberation, choice of instruments, and actions by individuals, private and public organizations, helping society to escape lock-in while avoiding new evolutionary traps. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7630/ 2006-03-24T00:00:00Z The challenge of sustainable development presents our society with the need for longterm, structural changes or transitions in sectors such as energy-supply, mobility, agriculture and health-care. Based on a multi-phase and multi-level framework for transitions, we ask whether managing transitions is possible and then outline an operational method for transition management. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7631/ 2006-03-24T00:00:00Z This article presents a promising governance framework for 'persistent societal problems', based on the concept of transition management. This framework is based on the common notions from complexity theory and new forms of governance, that are folded into a new management paradigm. This management paradigm starts from complexity and uncertainty as drivers of societal innovation, not as obstacles that have to be fully controlled. Essential feature of transition management is the explicit coupling of content and process. The analysis (based on the presented analytical concepts) determines the transition management process: the management possibilities and instruments that are employed with regard to the presented management framework. The framework entails goals, activities, instruments and competences for the strategic, tactical and operational level. Which activities and actors are being involved depends on the phase of the transition. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35019/ 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z Over the last decades, we have witnessed a shift from the centralized government-based nation-state, towards liberalized, market based and decentralized decision-making structures. Due to societal developments the power of central government to make policies and implement these has decreased, leading to increasingly diffuse policy-making structures and processes stratified across sub-national, national and supra-national levels of government (Hooghe and Marks 2001). Generally referred to with the term ‘governance’ (Kooiman 1993), the current practice of government in making policy is in interaction with a diversity of societal actors. At the European level, this development has led to multi-level, participatory decision-making structures in which for example regions are dealing directly with EU-offices, NGO’s and businesses are involved in the development of policies and top-down decisions are limited to the politically most controversial issues. But governance has also become common practice at the global as well as on a regional scale, where influence of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), business and science slowly becomes part of policy-making. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37250/ 2005-05-19T00:00:00Z Society has become increasingly complex on three levels: the level of society itself, of the problems facing our society and of dealing with these problems (governance). Trends such as internationalization, informatisation, integration and individualization have led to the emergence of the network-society (Castells, 1996) and an increasing societal complexity. This development has led to the emergence of a new type of problems at the societal level that cannot be solved with simple, short-term solutions. These problems are defined as persistent problems: they are unstructured (Hisschemöller, 1993, Hisschemöller and Hoppe, 1996) and highly complex because they are rooted in different of societal domains, occur on different levels and involve different actors with different perspectives, norms and values. Solutions to such problems are not given and purely analytical approaches will not suffice. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/34985/ 2005-01-01T00:00:00Z The term transition is a key term of the fourth national environmental policy plan (NMP4, 2001), which put forward transition management (Rotmans et al, 2000) as a new policy approach for dealing with persistent and highly complex societal problems such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, overexploitation of resources and health risks related to the use of dangerous, non-natural substances. The NMP4 selected the energy supply, mobility, agriculture and the use of biodiversity and natural resources as priorities for developing transition management activities. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (holding responsibility over energy and innovation policy) has since the NMP4 been the leading actor in the so-called ‘energy-transition’. Several activities have been undertaken, based on the basic principles underlying transition management; long term visions as framework for short-term action, a multi-actor approach and a focus on learning and experiments. The approach has stimulated the involvement of a large number of stakeholders and led to the developments of shared visions, ambitions and strategies, experiments and projects. Besides, the approach itself has generated questions regarding regular policies, for example innovation and technology policies, and led to debates on policy integration and barriers in existing regulations. This discussion has been actively picked up by the Ministry and governmental advisory boards for energy and environment (Energieraad and VROM-raad 2004). It is an example of policy learning in which it was believed that sustainability requires some fundamental changes in functional systems, which in turn require policy-innovation. In this paper we will look at why the Ministry was interested in fostering an energy transition (where we will see that economic reasons, notably the willingness to create green energy business, was an important consideration). The paper will describe the policies and stakeholder process, which will be assessed from a transition management perspective. This means that the paper uses the multi-level, multi-phase transition management framework (Loorbach 2004b) to evaluate the energy-transition approach as developed by the ministry of Economic Affairs, in terms of content (what types of visions and experiments are developed?) and in terms of process (what kind of actors are involved, what instruments are used?). Special attention will be given to the nature of the policies developed and their difference with and implications for ‘regular’ policies. We will compare the difference with past policies and the changes in the system of governance. The paper will also seek to answer a more speculative issue: What are the prospects of the Dutch approach to achieve a transition and a flourishing sustainable energy business?