Abteilung Umweltsozialwissenschaften

Innovationssysteme und Industriedynamiken in Clean-Tech Sektoren

Die Forschungsgruppe zu Innovationssystemen und Industriedynamiken verfügt über spezialisierte Kompetenzen in der Analyse von neuen Industrien im Bereich potenziell nachhaltigerer Technologien und den komplexen sektoralen Veränderungen, die damit verbunden sind. Innovationsprozesse werden aus der Perspektive sozio-technischer Systeme untersucht. Das umfasst die Analyse des Zusammenspiels zwischen unterschiedlichen Akteuren (Unternehmen, Universitäten, EndverbraucherInnen, PolitikerInnen, Verbände und Interessengruppen aus der Zivilgesellschaft), Netzwerken und  institutionellen Strukturen. Im Verlauf der letzten 30 Jahre haben sich Innovationssysteme zu einem breit akzeptierten Erklärungsansatz für Innovationspolitik und –management entwickelt. Die Anwendung dieser Konzepte auf Nachhaltigkeitsprobleme ist dagegen sehr viel jünger. Das Cirus-Team zeichnet sich durch eigenständige konzeptuelle und empirische Beiträge aus. Cirus zählt ausserdem zu den international führenden Expertengruppen im Bereich des nachhaltigen Wassermanagements in städtischen Gebieten in OECD-Mitgliedstaaten und Schwellenländern.

Eine der Kernkompetenzen der Gruppe bildet die Analyse räumlicher Dimensionen in Transformationsprozessen beziehungsweise „Transitionsgeographien“. Andere Schwerpunkte betreffen die Analyse institutioneller Strukturen, die umfangreiche Transformationsprozesse begünstigen oder verhindern, sowie die Entwicklung von Lebenszykluskonzepten von frühen Industriebildungsprozessen. Methodisch verfügt Cirus über ausgeprägte Kompetenzen in Interviewkampagnen, Diskursanalysen, Netzwerkanalyse, Strategische Früherkennung/Foresight, Diskursive Szenario-Methoden und Road-Mapping.

Hauptforschungsfragen

  • Welche Bedingungen begünstigen den Erfolg von radikalen Innovationen in Infrastruktursektoren?
  • Unter welchen Bedingungen und wo können stark dezentralisierte Systemstrukturen eine wichtige technologische Komponente der Siedlungswasserwirtschaft werden?
  • Welche Rolle spielen räumliche Beziehungen für die Erklärung von Erfolg und Misserfolg früher Industriebildungsprozessen?
  • Welches sind kritische Bedingungen für „Leapfrogging“ in Versorgungssektoren von Entwicklungsländern?
  • Wie würde eine umfassende Methodologie für die Analyse von Innovations- und Transformationsprozessen insbesondere in Versorgungssektoren aussehen?
  • Wie kann die Ko-Evolution von Technologien und Institutionen analysiert werden?
  • Wie können Kernkonzepte von Innovationssystemen operationalisiert werden (beispielsweise zur Messung der Leistung oder zum Vergleich unterschiedlicher Innovationssysteme?)

Kontakt

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Truffer Gruppenleiter, Gruppe: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5670 E-Mail senden
Dr. Christian Binz Gruppenleiter, Gruppe: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5030 E-Mail senden

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Kollaborationspartner

Aktuelle Projekte

Wir untersuchen die Herausforderungen modularer Infrastrukturen für die Schweizer Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft am Beispiel der Siedlungswasserwirtschaft.

COMIX: Modulare Wasserinfrastrukturen
We seek to understand how formal and informal institutions, planning procedures and resources drive or constrain informal settlements upgrading in Sub Saharan Africa cities.

SUSIS: Sanitation upgrading strategies for informal settlements

Team

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Truffer Gruppenleiter, Gruppe: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5670 E-Mail senden
Dr. George Wainaina Scientific Knowledge Broker Tel. +41 58 765 5331 E-Mail senden
Dr. Xiao Shan Yap Scientist, Cluster Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5420 E-Mail senden
Dr. Christian Binz Gruppenleiter, Gruppe: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5030 E-Mail senden

Publikationen (Auswahl)

Anchoring innovations in oscillating domestic spaces: why sanitation service offerings fail in informal settlements

A persistent conundrum for practitioners and researchers in the development context is that, often, newly provided and improved basic services are not maintained by users despite seemingly superior functionality and user convenience. We argue that one major reason for this is an insufficient understanding of the context in which users have to manage their daily lives. We therefore propose an approach to analysing the embedding of basic services that focuses on the users' daily practices. We do so by borrowing insights from 'socio-technical transitions' and 'practice theory' in developing our concept of oscillating domestic spaces. The concept reflects the need for people to constantly respond to quickly changing and precarious circumstances by rearranging their daily practices in time and space and developing a multiplicity of alternative options and partial solutions. We illustrate the analytical approach in a case study of sanitation access in informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya. The analysis shows how the introduction of a container-based toilet resulted in partial embedding. The innovation anchored to only a part of the oscillating domestic spaces and was in disarray with the needs of users most of the time. The conceptual approach contributes to the understanding about how users take part in sustainability transitions as well as the added value of the time-space dimension in analysing practices in highly complex contexts. We conclude by reflecting on the potential applicability of the analytical approach to transition cases in the Global North.
Cherunya, P. C.; Ahlborg, H.; Truffer, B. (2020) Anchoring innovations in oscillating domestic spaces: why sanitation service offerings fail in informal settlements, Research Policy, 49(1), 103841 (16 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.respol.2019.103841, Institutional Repository

Global innovation systems - a conceptual framework for innovation dynamics in transnational contexts

This paper proposes a framework for the analysis of technological innovation processes in transnational contexts. By drawing on existing innovation system concepts and recent elaborations on the globalization of innovation, we develop a multi-scalar conceptualization of innovation systems. Two key mechanisms are introduced and elaborated: the generation of resources in multi-locational subsystems and the establishment of structural couplings among them in a global innovation system (GIS). Based on this conceptualization, we introduce a typology of four generic GIS configurations, building on the innovation mode and valuation system in different industry types. The analytical framework is illustrated with insights from four emerging clean-tech industries. We state that a comprehensive GIS perspective is instrumental for developing a more explanatory stance in the innovation system literature and developing policy interventions that reflect the increasing spatial complexity in the innovation process.
Binz, C.; Truffer, B. (2017) Global innovation systems - a conceptual framework for innovation dynamics in transnational contexts, Research Policy, 46(7), 1284-1298, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2017.05.012, Institutional Repository

The geography of sustainability transitions: contours of an emerging theme

Transition research has recently been criticized to lack of geographically sensitive concepts to address sustainability transitions and environmental innovation processes. This has generated a number of suggestions how space, place and scale can be better incorporated into transitions studies. Moreover, it has led to a quickly growing number of empirical studies that explicitly deal with geographical aspects of transition processes. This special issue takes stock of these recent developments by assembling a set of eight exemplary papers that illustrate the added value of an explicitly geographical perspective on sustainability transitions. The contributions include a conceptual paper, a literature review and six empirical papers that offer representative examples of recent work. Taken together, these contributions testify to the vitality of the emerging research on the geography of sustainability transitions. This introduction to the special issue provides an overview of the special issue and offers suggestions for future research.
Truffer, B.; Murphy, J. T.; Raven, R. (2015) The geography of sustainability transitions: contours of an emerging theme, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, 63-72, doi:10.1016/j.eist.2015.07.004, Institutional Repository

Path creation as a process of resource alignment and anchoring: industry formation for on-site water recycling in Beijing

Where and how new industrial paths emerge are much debated questions in economic geography, especially in light of the recent evolutionary turn. This article contributes to the ongoing debate on path creation with a new analytical framework that specifies the formation of generic resources in embryonic industries. It suggests that path creation processes are not only conditioned by preexisting regional capabilities and technological relatedness but also by the way firm and nonfirm actors mobilize and anchor key resources for industry formation. Our framework elaborates on the early industry development phase, extending the focus on regional knowledge spillovers in evolutionary economic geography (EEG) literature with recent insights on industry formation dynamics from innovation studies. It understands early path creation as conditioned by four systemic resource formation processes—knowledge creation, investment mobilization, market formation, and technology legitimation—that can be mobilized both from inside or anchored from outside the region. The use and value of the analytical framework is illustrated by a case study on on-site water recycling technology (OST), based on interviews with 40 experts in three Chinese city regions. The findings suggest that, despite possessing the least favorable initial conditions, a sizable OST industry developed only in Beijing. This is explained based on the specific anchoring process of the four key resources in the early development stage of the industry. Our results imply that EEG would profit from incorporating a broader set of variables than knowledge-based relatedness in explanations of regional industrial path creation.
Binz, C.; Truffer, B.; Coenen, L. (2016) Path creation as a process of resource alignment and anchoring: industry formation for on-site water recycling in Beijing, Economic Geography, 92(2), 172-200, doi:10.1080/00130095.2015.1103177, Institutional Repository

The structuration of socio-technical regimes - conceptual foundations from institutional theory

In recent years, socio-technical transitions literature has gained importance in addressing long-term, transformative change in various industries. In order to account for the inertia and path-dependency experienced in these sectors, the concept of the socio-technical regime has been formulated. Socio-technical regimes denote the paradigmatic core of a sector, which results from the co-evolution of institutions and technologies over time. Despite its widespread acceptance, the regime concept has repeatedly been criticized for lacking a clear operationalization. As a consequence, empirical applications tend to depict regimes as too 'monolithic' and 'homogenous', not adequately considering persistent institutional tensions and contradictions. These are however crucial for assessing transition dynamics. In this paper, we revisit two concepts from institutional theory that enable an explicit identification of socio-technical regimes and more generally a specification of the 'semi-coherence' of socio-technical systems. First, we will show that 'levels of structuration' can be conceptualized as degrees of institutionalization, thereby treating institutionalization as a variable with different effects on actors, the stability of the system and thus the potential for change. Secondly, we draw on the institutional logics approach to characterize the content of various structural elements present in a system and to trace conflicts and contradictions between them. We illustrate this approach with an empirical in-depth analysis of the transformation of the Australian urban water sector since the 1970ies.
Fuenfschilling, L.; Truffer, B. (2014) The structuration of socio-technical regimes - conceptual foundations from institutional theory, Research Policy, 43(4), 772-791, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2013.10.010, Institutional Repository

Technological innovation systems in contexts: conceptualizing contextual structures and interaction dynamics

This paper addresses interactions between technological innovation systems (TIS) and wider "context structures". While TIS studies have always considered various kinds of contextual influences, we suggest that the TIS framework can be further strengthened by a more elaborated conceptualization of TIS context structures and TIS–context interactions. For that purpose, we identify and discuss four especially important types of context structures: technological, sectorial, geographical and political. For each of these, we provide examples of different ways in which context structures can interact with a focal TIS and how our understanding of TIS dynamics is enhanced by considering them explicitly. Lessons for analysts are given and a research agenda is outlined.
Bergek, A.; Hekkert, M.; Jacobsson, S.; Markard, J.; Sandén, B.; Truffer, B. (2015) Technological innovation systems in contexts: conceptualizing contextual structures and interaction dynamics, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 16, 51-64, doi:10.1016/j.eist.2015.07.003, Institutional Repository

Toward technology-sensitive catching-up policies: insights from renewable energy in China

The voluminous literature on industrial catching-up in Southeast Asian countries has regularly argued that successful catching-up largely depended on a committed state, which orchestrated industry development with a relatively uniform set of policies, including R&D support, subsidies, trade restrictions, and local content requirements. In contrast, recent contributions from the technology lifecycle literature have argued that policies should be tailored to differing technological characteristics in industries for mass-produced standardized goods, complex engineered products, and—as we argue—complex product systems (CoPS). In this paper, we extend this argument by introducing a set of separate policy mixes for each industry type, which appears most capable of providing the key resources required for catching-up: knowledge, market access, financial investment and technology legitimacy. This framework is used to analyze catching-up patterns in China's wind, solar PV, and biomass power plant industries, drawing mainly on policy documents and 106 interviews with key industry actors
We find that traditional top-down catching-up policies played a decisive role in the development of China's wind industry, but were of limited importance in the early solar PV industry, and resulted only in a limited period of rapid growth in the biomass power plant industry. The relative progress achieved in these three industries is not related to top-down policy guidance alone, but also to private sector initiative, international interdependencies, and flexibility in adapting policy mixes to each industry's technological characteristics. These results suggest that policy makers in newly industrializing countries (NICs) should avoid drafting generic sector plans, but should tailor plans to individual industries, and respond to changing policy support needs as technological capacities and global competitiveness develop.
Binz, C.; Gosens, J.; Hansen, T.; Hansen, U. E. (2017) Toward technology-sensitive catching-up policies: insights from renewable energy in China, World Development, 96, 418-437, doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.03.027, Institutional Repository

To connect or not to connect? Modelling the optimal degree of centralisation for wastewater infrastructures

The strong reliance of most utility services on centralised network infrastructures is becoming increasingly challenged by new technological advances in decentralised alternatives. However, not enough effort has been made to develop planning tools designed to address the implications of these new opportunities and to determine the optimal degree of centralisation of these infrastructures. We introduce a planning tool for sustainable network infrastructure planning (SNIP), a two-step techno-economic heuristic modelling approach based on shortest path-finding and hierarchical-agglomerative clustering algorithms to determine the optimal degree of centralisation in the field of wastewater management. This SNIP model optimises the distribution of wastewater treatment plants and the sewer network outlay relative to several cost and sewer-design parameters. Moreover, it allows us to construct alternative optimal wastewater system designs taking into account topography, economies of scale as well as the full size range of wastewater treatment plants. We quantify and confirm that the optimal degree of centralisation decreases with increasing terrain complexity and settlement dispersion while showing that the effect of the latter exceeds that of topography. Case study results for a Swiss community indicate that the calculated optimal degree of centralisation is substantially lower than the current level.
Eggimann, S.; Truffer, B.; Maurer, M. (2015) To connect or not to connect? Modelling the optimal degree of centralisation for wastewater infrastructures, Water Research, 84, 218-231, doi:10.1016/j.watres.2015.07.004, Institutional Repository

Informal institutions matter: professional culture and the development of biogas technology

Institutions play a crucial role for the development and diffusion of novel technologies. Many studies have analyzed the role of formal institutions such as support policies or specific R&D programs, while informal institutions have received less attention. With this paper, we contribute to the institutional analysis of emerging technological fields as we examine how the effects of formal institutions depend on informal institutional structures. We present findings from a comparative study of biogas technology in selected Austrian regions. Our findings suggest that the professional culture in which farmers are embedded modulates the effects of feed-in tariffs and investment subsidies to a considerable extent. This explains regional differences in the diffusion as well as variations in the design and operation of biogas plants. We argue that studies on emerging technologies benefit from a systematic analysis of the interplay of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions. We also argue that socichnical variation is an important indicator to look at in addition to diffusion rates.
Wirth, S.; Markard, J.; Truffer, B.; Rohracher, H. (2013) Informal institutions matter: professional culture and the development of biogas technology, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 8, 20-41, doi:10.1016/j.eist.2013.06.002, Institutional Repository

Institutional dynamics and technology legitimacy – a framework and a case study on biogas technology

Legitimacy is central for both novel and established technologies to mobilize the resources necessary forgrowth and survival. A loss of legitimacy, in turn, can have detrimental effects for an industry. In thispaper, we study the rise and fall of technology legitimacy of agricultural biogas in Germany over a periodof more than 20 years (1990–2012). The field witnessed impressive growth and professionalization formany years and has become one of the key technologies in Germany’s energy transition. In recent years,however, it has been confronted with major criticism, which finally resulted in a substantial cut-backof public and political support. The aim of our study is twofold. In empirical terms, we will explainthe technology’s loss of legitimacy despite its compliance with original policy objectives: growth andmaturation. In theoretical terms, we work toward a more general framework to understand technologylegitimacy and to explain the institutional dynamics of technological innovation systems.
Markard, J.; Wirth, S.; Truffer, B. (2016) Institutional dynamics and technology legitimacy – a framework and a case study on biogas technology, Research Policy, 45(1), 330-344, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2015.10.009, Institutional Repository

The thorny road to technology legitimation — Institutional work for potable water reuse in California

Technological innovation that is incongruous with established social rules and practices is often confronted with strong skepticism and a lack of societal legitimacy. Yet, how the early actors in a new technological field create legitimacy for new products is not well researched. This paper addresses this gap by proposing an analytical framework for the early technology legitimation phase that combines recent insights from innovation studies and institutional sociology. Both literatures agree that technology legitimation depends on a complex alignment process in which the technology and its institutional context mutually shape each other. Innovation system studies recently proposed to explore these processes in more detail. So far, this literature has mainly treated legitimacy as an outcome of overall system maturation and has not ventured into assessing legitimation as an active process. The framework we put forward in this paper conceptualizes technology legitimation as being enacted by different actors in a technological innovation system through specific forms of institutional work. This framework is illustrated with a case study on potable water reuse, in this case the injection of treated wastewater into drinking water reservoirs — a technology most consumers confront with revulsion. California is among very few regions worldwide where this technology is becoming common practice. Interviews with 20 key stakeholders and content analysis of 124 newspaper articles reveal how technology proponents worked on legitimizing this controversial technology by engaging in system building and institutional work at various levels. We outline how the legitimation process interrelates with other core development processes of a technological innovation system and discuss how our framework informs recent work in innovation and transition studies.
Binz, C.; Harris-Lovett, S.; Kiparsky, M.; Sedlak, D. L.; Truffer, B. (2016) The thorny road to technology legitimation — Institutional work for potable water reuse in California, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 103, 249-263, doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.10.005, Institutional Repository

Beyond user acceptance: a legitimacy framework for potable water reuse in California

Water resource managers often tout the potential of potable water reuse to provide a reliable, local source of drinking water in water-scarce regions. Despite data documenting the ability of advanced treatment technologies to treat municipal wastewater effluent to meet existing drinking water quality standards, many utilities face skepticism from the public about potable water reuse. Prior research on this topic has mainly focused on marketing strategies for garnering public acceptance of the process. This study takes a broader perspective on the adoption of potable water reuse based on concepts of societal legitimacy, which is the generalized perception or assumption that a technology is desirable or appropriate within its social context. To assess why some potable reuse projects were successfully implemented while others faced fierce public opposition, we performed a series of 20 expert interviews and reviewed in-depth case studies from potable reuse projects in California. Results show that proponents of a legitimated potable water reuse project in Orange County, California engaged in a portfolio of strategies that addressed three main dimensions of legitimacy. In contrast, other proposed projects that faced extensive public opposition relied on a smaller set of legitimation strategies that focused near-exclusively on the development of robust water treatment technology. Widespread legitimation of potable water reuse projects, including direct potable water reuse, may require the establishment of a portfolio of standards, procedures, and possibly new institutions.
Harris-Lovett, S. R.; Binz, C.; Sedlak, D. L.; Kiparsky, M.; Truffer, B. (2015) Beyond user acceptance: a legitimacy framework for potable water reuse in California, Environmental Science and Technology, 49(13), 7552-7561, doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b00504, Institutional Repository

Why space matters in technological innovation systems-mapping global knowledge dynamics of membrane bioreactor technology

Studies on technological innovation systems (TISs) often set spatial boundaries at the national level and treat supranational levels as a geographically undifferentiated and freely accessible global technological opportunity set. This article criticizes this conceptualization and proposes instead to analyze relevant actors, networks and processes in TIS from a relational perspective on space. It develops an analytical framework which allows investigating innovation processes (or 'functions') of a TIS at and across different spatial scales. Based on social network analysis of a co-publication dataset from membrane bioreactor technology, we illustrate how the spatial characteristics of collaborations in knowledge creation vary greatly over relatively short periods of time. This finding suggests that TIS studies should be more reflexive on system boundary setting both regarding the identification and analysis of core processes as well as in the formulation of policy advice.
Binz, C.; Truffer, B.; Coenen, L. (2014) Why space matters in technological innovation systems-mapping global knowledge dynamics of membrane bioreactor technology, Research Policy, 43(1), 138-155, doi:10.1016/j.respol.2013.07.002, Institutional Repository

The innovation deficit in urban water: the need for an integrated perspective on institutions, organizations, and technology

Interaction between institutional change and technological change poses important constraints on transitions of urban water systems to a state that can meet future needs. Research on urban water and other technology-dependent systems provides insights that are valuable to technology researchers interested in assuring that their efforts will have an impact. In the context of research on institutional change, innovation is the development, application, diffusion, and utilization of new knowledge and technology. This definition is intentionally inclusive: technological innovation will play a key role in reinvention of urban water systems, but is only part of what is necessary. Innovation usually depends on context, such that major changes to infrastructure include not only the technological inventions that drive greater efficiencies and physical transformations of water treatment and delivery systems, but also the political, cultural, social, and economic factors that hinder and enable such changes. On the basis of past and present changes in urban water systems, institutional innovation will be of similar importance to technological innovation in urban water reinvention. To solve current urban water infrastructure challenges, technology-focused researchers need to recognize the intertwined nature of technologies and institutions and the social systems that control change.
Kiparsky, M.; Sedlak, D. L.; Thompson Jr., B. H.; Truffer, B. (2013) The innovation deficit in urban water: the need for an integrated perspective on institutions, organizations, and technology, Environmental Engineering Science, 30(8), 395-408, doi:10.1089/ees.2012.0427, Institutional Repository