The agency of incumbents has gained increasing attention in the study of transitions. Recent studies show that besides being inert and resistant to change, incumbents can also support transitions. We focus on the agency of a particular type of incumbent, grid operators. In several countries, these actors play an active role in institutional change in the energy domain. At the same time, they are engaging in activities to maintain the regime. This paper examines the actions of grid operators when performing institutional work, i.e. when creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of Dutch media to analyze the actions of grid operators while engaging with decentralized energy innovations. We conclude that grid operators are both subject and object of institutional work as part of a distributed, collective process of institutional change. Furthermore, our analysis reflects on their paradoxical position as embedded actors engaging in institutional change.

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Finding leverage points for sustainability transformation of industrial and infrastructure systems is challenging, given that transformation is emergent from the complex interactions among socio-technical system elements over time within a specific social, technical and geographical context. Participatory multi-modelling, in which modellers and stakeholders collaborate to develop multiple interacting models to support a shared understanding of systems, is a promising approach to support sustainability transformations. The participatory process of modeling can serve as a leverage point by facilitating social learning amongst stakeholders, in which models can function as boundary objects that facilitate dialogue between stakeholders from different social worlds. We propose that participatory multi-modeling allows for the creation of a boundary object ecology, which involves a set of interacting and co-evolving boundary objects emerging throughout the modeling process. To explore this, we analyse the participatory multi-modelling process in the Windmaster project in the Rotterdam Port industrial cluster to understand which design choices were key to the creation of boundary objects. Our analysis shows that two types of design choices were key: design choices that enabled translations between participants, and those between participants and their organisation. We conclude that conceptualising participatory multi-modelling as a process of an evolving boundary object ecology, creating and adapting multiple interacting boundary objects provides a novel perspective that is useful for analysis and design of future participatory multi-modeling processes.

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Most literature on community engagement (CE) focuses on why and how local communities respond to energy projects or technologies. There has been very limited attention to project developers and the way they shape CE in the literature. We address this gap by focusing on the work of professionals active within or for energy companies, who are responsible for engaging communities in the development of energy projects: so-called ‘community engagement professionals’ (CEPs). Using Q methodology, we explore how CEPs see their role as front-line workers operating on the boundary between their own organization and the local community.

Our analysis results in three perspectives of their own work amongst CEPs. Perspective 1 views CE as co-creation and their position as one of an intermediary between their organization and the community. Perspective 2 sees CE as an inherent part of project management, using it to remain in control of the process. Perspective 3 is all about project development, with CE as something that must be done as part of compliance with laws and regulations.

We show that CEPs have heterogeneous perspectives on community engagement. We discuss differences between these perspectives: 1) mode of engagement; 2) the position of the CEP between their organization and the community; 3) how conflict is viewed and dealt with; 4) the extent to which CEPs see themselves as responsible for the representation of communities; and 5) interaction with internal stakeholders. We end by discussing the implications of this study for project developers and the governance of energy infrastructures.@en

Nederland is op weg naar een CO2-neutrale samenleving in 2050. Zo ook het haven industrieel cluster van Rotterdam (HIC). Om dat te bereiken zal de energievoorziening de komende jaren moeten veranderen. Deze verandering heeft een grote impact op de energieinfrastructuur. In het Windmaster project wordt gefocust op de huidige aardgas-,H2- en elektriciteits infrastructuur binnen het HIC. Het plannen van infrastructuur kent lange implementatie- en afschrijvingstermijnen waardoor het voor de infrabeheerders bij wijze van spreken vandaag 2030 is en overmorgen 2050. Gezien de vele onzekerheden rondom de toekomstige energieconsumptie en -productie in het HIC en de rest van Europa vraagt dit om een nieuw investeringsparadigma. Een paradigma dat moet voorkomen dat groene industrie in de toekomst niet gefaciliteerd kan worden. Dat een nieuw investeringsparadigma nodig is, blijkt onder andere uit het feit dat zonneparken in het noorden van het land niet aangesloten kunnen worden op het elektriciteitsnet als gevolg van capaciteitsknelpunten. Zonder verandering in het investeringsparadigma is de kans groot dat andere groene industrie in de toekomst niet kan worden aangesloten op de benodigde energie-infrastructuur en als gevolg daarvan zich niet kan vestigen in het HIC. Het hoofddoel van het Windmaster project is om te onderzoeken of een participatieve multimodel aanpak inzicht kan creëren in welk investeringsbeleid tot een robuuste adaptieve investeringsstrategie voor de energie-infrastructuur leidt. Het investeringsbeleid is het reguleringskader waarbinnen infrabeheerders haar strategisch netplanningsproces moeten uitvoeren. Dit beleid is bepalend voor de uiteindelijke ontwikkeling van transportcapaciteit in energie-infrastructuur. Binnen het Windmaster project is samen met de stakeholders (TU Delft, Siemens, TenneT, Stedin, Gasunie, Havenbedrijf Rotterdam, Provincie Zuid-Holland, Deltalinqs en ISPT) gewerkt aan een multi-model dat inzicht geeft in de effectiviteit van investeringsbeleid voor de ontwikkeling van energie-infrastructuur. Het multi-model is tot stand gekomen door intensieve participatie van alle stakeholders tijdens verschillende workshops en interviews. De gekozen aanpak is verwant aan de modelleringsaanpak die het adaptief watermanagement beleid voor het Nederlandse Deltaprogramma ondersteunt1. Deze aanpak kenmerkt zich door het verkennen van veel verschillende mogelijke toekomsten en het ontwerpen van adaptief beleid op deze mogelijke toekomsten. De kernfunctionaliteit van het ontwikkelde multi-model bestaat uit een scenariogeneratie model en een geïntegreerd gedrags- en technisch model. Het eerste model is in staat om op een gestructureerde manier een grote hoeveelheid verschillende energietransitiepadscenario’s te genereren. Het laatste model representeert het strategisch netplanningsproces van infrabeheerders dat onder invloed van investeringsbeleid tot investeringen in de energie-infrastructuur leidt. Met het ontwikkelde multi-model kan de effectiviteit van verschillend investeringsbeleid worden onderzocht. Daarnaast leiden de simulaties met het multi-model tot identificatie van robuuste no regret investeringen. @en

Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a collective approach to competitive advantage in which separate industries create a cooperative network to exchange materials, energy, water and/or by-products. By addressing issues related to resource depletion, waste management and pollution, IS plays an important role in the transition towards sustainable development. In the literature, two conceptual perspectives on IS can be identified: the Industrial Ecology (IE) and the Circular Economy (CE) perspective. Despite the recognition of these two perspectives, their relationship remains unclear and explicit attempts to develop an integrated perspective have not been made yet. Consequently, the goal of this research is to highlight and start addressing this critical gap of knowledge in order to support future research and practice geared towards the design of new IS clusters. We pose the following research question: How can the IE and CE perspectives on IS be combined in order to support the design of IS clusters? To this end, we first investigate the two perspectives more in depth and compare them in terms of nature, features and relevance for the study of IS. This is done by applying them as conceptual lenses for the analysis of the same case study, an existing IS cluster. The comparative analysis provides insights into how the two perspectives differ, ultimately demonstrating that they are complimentary and both necessary to fully describe an IS cluster. While the CE perspective is more suitable to explain how a cluster functions from a business standpoint in the operating phase, the IE perspective is more suitable to explain its development over time and its impacts on the environment, the economy and society. Building upon the outcomes of the comparative analysis, we leverage on the discipline of Strategic Design and integrate the two perspectives into a process for designing new IS clusters. We suggest two directions for future research. First, improving our comparative analysis of the two perspectives by looking at a wider sample of IS clusters of different sizes and in different contexts. Second, focusing with more specificity on the issue of how IS clusters can be designed, potentially by trying to apply the process we propose on a real case aimed at designing a new IS cluster.

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The crowd increasingly plays a key role in facilitating innovations in a variety of sectors, spurred on by IT-developments and the concomitant increase in connectivity. Initiatives in this direction, captured under the umbrella-term ‘crowd-based innovations’ (CBI), offer novel opportunities in all domains of society by increasing the access, reach and speed of services and goods. At the same time, they signify important challenges because these innovations occur in a context of traditional, well-established institutional arrangements. CBI create an ‘institutional void’: existing rules, standards and practices are challenged and renegotiated. This raises questions about the safeguarding of public values such as quality, legitimacy, efficiency and governance of crowd-based innovations. The objective of this perspective piece is to present an interdisciplinary research agenda to address normative challenges for governing CBI. We will argue that such an agenda needs an integrated empirical-normative approach. We will detail three lines of empirical-normative research that together build up towards an interdisciplinary agenda.

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Gedreven door ontwikkelingen zoals klimaatverandering, verstedelijking en digitalisering zien we in het stedelijk watersysteem steeds vaker oplossingen ‘buiten de buis’. Oplossingen zoals publieke pleinen met een waterbergende functie, polderdaken met een dynamische waterberging, zwembaden verwarmd met warmte uit (afval)water; het zijn allemaal pogingen om antwoorden te vinden op de uitdagingen waar de watersector mee te maken heeft. Echter, de watersector is niet de enige in de stad die worstelt met uitdagingen die dergelijke ontwikkelingen met zich meebrengen. Doordat de ruimte in de stad beperkt is, zien we dat de grenzen van stedelijke infrastructuur steeds vaker worden opgezocht, opgerekt en verlegd, om zo oplossingen te kunnen vinden die in te passen zijn in bestaand stedelijk gebied. @en

With this paper, I want to raise attention to the value of social conflict in energy policy and planning, and the limitations of participatory processes for including different normative appraisals in energy policy and planning. I first discuss three perspectives on the value of social conflict. Although invited participation is generally considered as a way to ameliorate, or anticipate social conflict on energy projects, this ‘participatory reflex’ goes past the fact that social conflict can itself be considered a form of participation, i.e. self-organized participation. Second, I discuss two basic characteristics of social conflict that show the limitations of invited participation in identifying and including divergent normative appraisals: 1) social conflict challenges institutions, and 2) social conflict involves emergent positions and groups. I propose to see social conflict as self-organized participation that serves as an source for identification and inclusion of normative appraisals in energy policy and planning. This not only necessitates the study of these phenomena as such, but also suggests a different approach to deal with such phenomena in research and practice. I will lay out three directions for further research.

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This paper aims to contribute to understanding the dynamics of industrial symbiosis. More specifically, we focus on the dynamics of anchoring as they can be observed in the Chinese context of eco-industrial development. We define anchoring as those activities that (typically local) actors perform to create local physical and institutional conditions conducive to the emergence and further development of industrial symbiosis in a specific regional industrial system. We argue that, in the study of industrial symbiosis dynamics, it is conceptually more useful to focus on anchoring as an activity, rather than anchor tenants as actors. Based on a systematic literature review, we distinguish two types of anchoring activities: institutional and physical. We analyze anchoring dynamics in the case of Qijiang Industrial Symbiosis (Chongqing Municipality) in China. We have identified the physical and institutional anchoring activities, the actors responsible for these activities, and how different anchoring activities build on each other over time. Our case study shows that the attempt to bring about industrial symbiosis in the Qijiang industrial park can be described in a richer way than just 'governmental planning'.

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The crowd increasingly plays a key role in facilitating innovations in a variety of sectors, spurred on by IT developments and the concomitant increase in connectivity. Initiatives in this direction, captured under the umbrella term ‘crowd-based innovations’, offer novel opportunities in socio-technical systems by increasing the access, reach and speed of services. At the same time, they signify important challenges because these innovations occur in a context of traditional, well-established institutional and governance structures and practices. This dynamic is captured in the idea of the ‘institutional void’: the tension between traditional structures and (radically) new initiatives. Existing rules, standards and practices are challenged, which raises questions about the safeguarding of public values such as quality, legitimacy, efficiency and governance of crowd-based innovations. This article argues that understanding these tensions requires supplementing empirical research with an explicitly normative dimension to reach thorough and balanced conclusions to facilitate innovation while protecting the valuable elements in existing rules and regulations. Illustrated by a number of short examples, we propose a multidisciplinary research agenda towards formulating appropriate governance structures.@en

Societal controversies on the implementation of new energy technologies relate to public values that are affected by these new technologies. The process of specifying and articulating these values and assessing technologies based on those values follows both a formal and an informal trajectory. This chapter studies the interplay between such formal and informal assessment in the case of two plans for the implementation of energy technologies in the Netherlands, the project to develop carbon capture and storage in the municipality of Barendrecht and the project to have explorative drilling for shale gas in the municipality of Boxtel. What these studies reveal is that values that are specified by actors emerge from different discourses. These discourses do not emerge independently, but develop in mutual interaction, at times contributing to a progressive entrenchment of positions. To avoid such a situation, the symmetry between different claims for the public interest needs to be attended by policy makers.@en

The Transition Network is a global grassroots network that supports community-led resilience in the face of global change. This paper reports on an ethnographic study of one of its longest-running projects, Transition Town Lewes (TTL) in the United Kingdom. The aim of the study is to analyse TTL as a community. More specifically, we ask two questions: (1) what type of community is TTL? and (2) what are the challenges TTL faces as a community? With this, we contribute to the existing literature on local sustainability initiatives and in particular on Transition initiatives, by providing an in-depth understanding of the challenges and social dynamics at play in a day-to-day setting. We conducted three months of intensive ethnographic fieldwork using participant observation, interviews, and a focus group. Our analysis shows that TTL is a community that, on the one hand, is motivated by explicit intentions and goals, but that, on the other hand, leaves openness and flexibility regarding the level and specifics of participants’ engagement. We introduce the novel concept of ‘light intentional community’ to describe this type of community. We first investigate intentionality in TTL, finding that differences exist between individual participant motivations and stated TTL objectives. We go on to describe the ‘light’ aspect of TTL—the differences in levels of engagement between community participants. Our analysis shows that TTL and its participants face two main challenges. First, TTL participants experience ‘multi-dimensional liminality’: they operate in a liminal space between mainstream society and TTL practices, and additionally experience a continuous sense of transitioning toward a moving goal. Second, TTL as a community faces internal and external frictions. These challenges are interrelated and stem from the structure and dynamics of TTL as a light intentional community. We conclude by reflecting on our analysis of the nature and challenges of ‘light intentional communities’, identifying what opportunities this concept brings for overcoming the challenges of grassroots globalization initiatives amidst mainstream society.@en

In today's society a variety of challenges need attention because they are considered to affect our well-being. Many of these challenges can be addressed with new innovations, yet they may also introduce new challenges. Communication of these new innovations is vital. This importance is also addressed by the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation. In the present commentary we draw on a dataset of 196 research projects and discuss the two research streams of Science Communication and Responsible Research and Innovation and how they are complements to each other. We conclude with suggestions for practitioners and scientists.@en

While societal controversy is often seen as a barrier for technological development, we take the position that controversies can be useful for guiding and steering these developments. Controversies articulate the conflicting values at stake and reveal unanticipated societal and ethical risks. A common reaction to public controversies is to counter public responses to technology with facts and experts' conclusions. Formal assessment methods such as Environmental Impact Assessment, (social) Cost Benefit Analysis and Risk Assessment are often used as an expert-based approach to inform decisionmaking on large energy projects. These methods are, however, predominantly (and sometimes solely) warranting one single value, being sustainability, utility or safety. Due to their inability to address the wide and variable range of values, formal assessment methods often become debated, for instance because their scope and process is not considered appropriate for the project at hand. As such they can be seen as imperfect (and sometimes even counterproductive) in supporting socially responsible public-private decision-making for energy projects. We argue that project developers and policy makers need to enrich the assessment of energy projects by acknowledging the broad range of values that emerge from such controversies.

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