Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Over the last decade research on sustainability transitions has emerged as a dynamic frontier within the broad interdisciplinary field of innovation studies.As Coenen et al. (2012) note two conceptual frameworks, Technological Innovations Systems (TIS) and the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), have provided the dominant analytical heuristics shaping research into the dynamics of sustainability transitions.However, both approaches have been criticised for lacking an adequate conceptualisation of space.Indeed Coenen et al. (2012) have argued that transition research needs to take a closer conceptual, methodological and empirical look both at the global networks and local clusters of transition pathways.In responding to this call this paper engages with recent research on sustainability transitions, innovation studies and geography and theoretically speculates how a deeper engagement with the concepts of materiality (following Bakker and Bridge (2006)) and the regional level could provide useful insights in exploring low carbon innovation systems.The paper, in particular, proposes a theoretical framework which is distinctive in that it draws attention to: i) the importance of regional context, not just in terms of the broader institutional, economic and governance dimensions but also the importance of the natural and built environment as a source of competitive regional advantage (and constraints) shaping low carbon innovation and transition pathways and ii) the way in which spatial and scalar processes influence actors, networks and institutions in low carbon innovations.
Authors: Carla De Laurentis, Malcolm Eames
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G8499240164
OpenAlex ID: W2562921070