Department Environmental Social Sciences

Cirus – Sustainability Transitions & Innovation Studies

Our research contributes to a better understanding of how and where radically novel, more sustainable technologies, products and services develop, how they diffuse in space, and how they may support sustainability transitions in locked-in sectors like energy, water, mobility, construction, or chemicals. 

Cirus explores how transformative technologies, such as renewable energies, decentralized water reuse, net-zero construction, low-carbon mobility or animal-free chemicals testing develop, diffuse, and turn into global standards. Our research at the interface of innovation studies, economic geography, and institutional sociology develops state of the art theories and methodologies for understanding how socio-technical systems shift toward more sustainable development trajectories and how these shifts may be supported by firms, policy makers and civil society. A focal interest of our work is exploring the geographies of innovation and transition processes.

Our take on sustainability transitions and innovation dynamics

Cirus’ theoretical home is socio-technical systems thinking. In this perspective, innovation and sectoral transitions depend on shifts in interdependent technological and social structures, instead of mere technological changes. The core assumption is that novel technologies only function properly if they are embedded in fitting institutional structures (e.g. regulations, value concerns, routines) and that social structures in turn shape the direction of technological change. Transitions and 'green' innovation dynamics are therefore not limited to the “adoption” of new, more sustainable products in existing markets, but require the active alignment of technologies with user practices, business models, laws, and complementary infrastructures. These alignments typically get established in long-term processes and require actors to strategically construct supportive 'innovation system' structures.

Our research agenda accordingly revolves around three conceptual building blocks. First, it aims at understanding innovation processes in newly emerging ‘green’ industries from an innovation system perspective. Second, it focuses on exploring the institutional dynamics and value shifts that accompany the creation of radically new solutions for addressing complex environmental challenges. And third, most of our work tackles innovation and transitions dynamics from a spatial perspective. It explores in depth how transitions are embedded in specific places, why they happen in some regions and not others and how multi-scalar linkages influence their dynamics.

Innovation and industrial dynamics in ‘green’ sectors

A key vantage point of our research focuses on technological innovation happening in newly emerging industries like decentralized water reuse, renewable energies, or environmentally benign chemicals. Typically, innovation dynamics in these ‘new-to-the-world' industries are not depending on firm-internal R&D alone, but rather on distributed networks with research institutes, governmental actors, financial investors and civil society. As such, our conceptual contributions in this field build strongly on innovation system theories. This approach allows us to analyze how firms interact with a systemic environment that supports them in mobilizing financial investment, constructing niche markets, or legitimizing radically novel solutions with decision makers and end users.

The innovation system lens allows us to explain how actors with complementary expertise need to team up for successfully launching new products and services, how they can strategically mobilize system resources needed to establish new clean tech industries and how they can jointly tackle systemic barriers that limit their development potential. A core question in our research agenda concerns how innovation system structures can be strategically built up. Other questions include: How and where do innovation activities in green sectors emerge, how do actors create joint strategies to overcome development barriers and at what places and scales do innovation system structures form in newly emerging industries?

More specific research questions focus on how the system resources needed for developing ‘green’ industrial paths can be mobilized both locally and through multi-scalar networks, how firms in peripheral regions can draw on resources developed elsewhere when developing green industrial paths or how transformative innovation moves from early niche applications to challenging taken-for-granted sectoral structures. A key question also revolves around understanding how supportive innovation system structures differ between industry types. Should e.g. policy strategies to support water reuse solutions differ from policies supporting low-carbon urban mobility?

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

Institutional dynamics and value shifts toward sustainability

A second major research theme of Cirus is exploring how institutional structures condition innovation processes, how they impact new technologies’ success or failure, as well as their development direction. By institutions we denote all those regulative, normative and cognitive rules that actors accept as relevant for selecting and/or justifying their actions. Institutions are a core explanatory factor for the success or failure of innovation processes and for understanding the legitimation or refutation of new solutions by users, regulators or society at large.

One of the core characteristics of institutional structures is that they are based on conventions among members of a society. This means that they must be constantly reproduced and sanctioned to serve as binding orientations for all actors. Due to this mutual reinforcement, institutions are in general very hard to change and may represent high barriers for socio-technical transitions. However, institutions may also be the target of strategic interventions by actors that aim at changing the rules of the game in a way that serves their own interests better. 

Specific research questions relate to how institutional structures shape the course of transitions in specific sectors like energy, urban water, chemicals, construction or transport. We analyze, more specifically, how legitimacy of new technologies is created, how early markets for radically new products are constructed, and how different actors can jointly change hindering institutional structures. We also investigate how visions and expectations of innovating actors shape the course of emerging technologies and analyze how specific portfolios of institutional structures provide advantages to particular regions trying to gain a head start as hosts of new industries.

Most recently, our focus has shifted to analyzing how processes of “valuation” impact the development of new technologies. By valuation we denote the specific institutional structures and processes by which technologies, products or services get associated with specific moral values.  Valuation is often enacted through so-called “valuation devices”, i.e. procedures that assess and communicate whether a specific product is congruent with a given set of values. An example for Cirus’ work is ecolabels for hydropower generated electricity in Switzerland or quality standards for wastewater treatment plants in Bangalore. By analyzing the construction principles of such valuation devices, we may anticipate future.

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

The geographies of transitions in a globalized world

A third overarching research theme focuses on the analysis of how trans-local or trans-national processes shape transitions. While conventional transition research tends to examine sectoral transformations mostly within particular regions (e.g., the Netherlands) and at given geographical scales (e.g., cities or nations), our research agenda explores how transitions depend on complex interactions across multiple locations and spatial scales. Our work on the geographies of sustainability transitions (GeoST) shows that the geographic dimension is not just another context condition, but a key explanatory factor in understanding how transitions come about, how relevant innovation processes are spread across the world and how and where structural change can be actively influenced by policy makers, firms and civil society.

We focus on two key questions. First, we examine the relevant structures and dynamics at different spatial scales that impede the emergence and adoption of transformative innovations. For example, our work on ‘global socio-technical regimes’, shows that unsustainable socio-technical configurations often get institutionalized at a global scale. Global regime configurations like centralized water infrastructures, car-centric urban mobility or fossil energy tend to diffuse widely in space, inhibiting the adoption of more sustainable, locally adapted solutions. Understanding the mechanisms through which global regimes impede the diffusion of more sustainable solutions and how innovative regions can shield themselves from global regimes is a key question for academia and policymaking.

Second, we explore the multi-scalar structures and dynamics that enable transformative change. Our work on ‘global innovation systems’ explores in depth how innovation processes in emerging clean tech industries such as solar energy, decentralized water reuse or low-carbon mobility benefit from interrelationships between different regions, countries, and international arenas. Particular contributions of our past research have been on providing a better understanding of how peripheral regions may develop into global leaders (electric vehicle batteries in China), how seemingly deprived regions can act as hotbeds for the development of radically new technologies (water reuse in Bengaluru), and what it would take for currently leading industrial regions to keep their position when their core technologies start to shift radically (electric vehicles in car manufacturing regions of Germany).

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

Methods

We employ a broad range of qualitative and semi-quantitative methods, with a strong expertise in conducting in-depth case studies using literature analysis, semi-structured expert interviews and qualitative content analysis. More recently, we have pioneered and are further refining a novel methodological approach to identify and measure shifts in socio-technical configurations over time and space. This approach named socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) is part of the family of social network analysis methods but focuses on semantic networks instead of actor collaboration networks. While STCA enables the retracing of socio-technical system dynamics, we typically combine it with more explanatory methods like expert interviews, qualitative case studies, process tracing or qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). For more information on this method, please visit our online STCA guidebook.

Our main methods:

- In-depth case studies

- Expert interviews

- Literature analysis

- Qualitative content analysis

- Socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA)

- Quantitative text analysis

Impact

The conceptual anchoring of Cirus’ research in innovation studies and economic geography provides a strong foundation for strategic consultancy for a broad range of actors dealing with ‘green’ innovation and transition phenomena. Cirus has accumulated strong expertise in advising strategic planning processes, technology roadmapping, regional infrastructure planning, innovation strategies of individual organizations (companies, NGOs, government offices, research organizations, etc.) or setting up intermediary structures fostering complex innovation processes (e.g. for the development of an ecolabel electricity from renewable resources).

Impact oriented methodologies

Specific impact-oriented methods encompass the conception and implementation of participatory foresight and scenario planning, developing multi-actor valuation devices, roadmapping for emerging technology fields and modelling of transition trajectories.

Real-World Labs

A very noteworthy recent initiative of Cirus researchers jointly with colleagues from other Eawag departments has been the set-up of a real-world research platform in Bangalore, India (the WaterReuseLab). This project operates as a collaboration platform for local actors developing innovative decentralized water reuse solutions. Cirus has initiated the platform and supports it through research projects that apply a systemic perspective on the key barriers to creating high-quality and scalable water reuse solutions. The platform is open to other research groups interested in conducting research in this highly dynamic urban context.

Management of national and global innovation networks

Beyond urban living labs, we also engage in the management of local, regional, national and even global actor networks aiming for sustainability transitions in specific sectors.

- Over the last years, we have initiated a global innovation network developing innovative urban water reuse solutions jointly with UC Berkeley, Eawag and BlueTech Research. The network combines leading technology companies, researchers and city officials from ‘lighthouse cities’ experimenting with transformative water reuse solutions like San Francisco, New York, Hamburg, Helsingborg, Bangalore and Sydney (see our white paper).

- At the national level, we have recently finalized a roadmapping process for the implementation of decentralized water management concepts across Switzerland resulting in a position paper for actors from the Swiss confederation, cantonal administrations, professional associations, utilities and consultancies.

- At the regional level, we supported strategic infrastructure planning processes in several catchment areas of wastewater treatment plants in Switzerland formulating a general methodology for infrastructure foresight.

- At a city level, we conducted research on new approaches to urban planning especially for countries in the Global South that struggle with upgrading rapidly growing informal settlements. We proposed new inroads to effectively leverage participation processes and to better understand barriers to the successful implementation of national and international infrastructure upgrading strategies (see our project SUSIS). Our results informed the national Kenian upgrading program KISIP in the development of its second major program phase. In another project we focused on how success of sanitation innovations in informal settlements may depend on joint activities by local policy makers, utilities, community-based organizations, but also international NGOs and donors (see our project SuSARA).

Academic community services

Besides supporting real-world innovation and investment strategies, we are very proactive in providing high-level academic community services. B. Truffer acts as the Editor in chief of the core journal of transition studies network (Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions). C. Binz leads the “geography of transitions” thematic group of the Sustainability Transitions Research Network). Finally, we have been selected to host the yearly International Sustainability Transitions Network conference in Zürich in 2026.

Team

Group Leaders

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Truffer Group leader, Group Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5670 Send Mail
Dr. Christian Binz Group Leader, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5030 Send Mail

Scientists / PostDocs

Dr. Johan Miörner Guest Researcher, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 6493 Send Mail
Dr. Meike Löhr Scientist, Group: Cirus, PEGO Tel. +41 58 765 6492 Send Mail

PhD Students

Djamila Lesch PhD Student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5660 Send Mail
Maximilian Hoos PhD Student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5481 Send Mail
Muhil Nesi PhD student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5905 Send Mail
Till Beer PhD Student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 6413 Send Mail

Research assistants & guests

Stefan Vollenweider Guest Researcher, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5427 Send Mail
Sofia Aalbu Research Assistant, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 6719 Send Mail
Pablo Banicles Tel. +41 58 765 6742 Send Mail
Jeanine Janz Research Assistant, Group: PEGO Tel. +41 58 765 5345 Send Mail
Claudia Tschan Tel. +41 58 765 6428 Send Mail

Teaching

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Truffer Group leader, Group Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5670 Send Mail

Bernhard Truffer lectures regularly in several courses at Utrecht University at the innovation studies section (methods and transitions in the global south) courses, and the economics and geography department (capita selecta of leading scholars).

Furthermore, he regularly supervises master students at Utrecht University.

Dr. Christian Binz Group Leader, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5030 Send Mail

Christian Binz is the main lecturer in a master's seminar at the University of Zurich: Geography of Sustainability Transitions.

He also acts as a guest lecturer in a master course at Lund University: Globalization and Innovation.

In addition, he has been actively involved as a guest lecturer in courses at the University of Bern, Florence, EPFL, and the University of Neuchatel.

He also regularly supervises master students at the University of Zurich and Lund University.

Dr. Johan Miörner Guest Researcher, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 6493 Send Mail

Johan Miörner is an associate senior lecturer at Lund University with extensive teaching experience at all levels. At the Department of Human Geography he coordinates and is the main teacher on three courses: Economic Geography (7,5 ECTS), Human Geography: Bachelor Thesis (15 ECTS) and Human Geography: Bachelor Thesis in Urban and Regional Planning (15 ECTS). At the Department of Service Studies, he coordinates and teaches one course: Economic Geography of the Service Sector (7,5 ECTS).

He is also a guest lecturer in courses at the National PhD Program in Human Geography: Economic Geography (7,5 ECTS) and Future Geographies (7,5 ECTS).

In addition, he continuously supervising bachelor- and master students in Human and Economic Geography and Economic History.

Till Beer PhD Student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 6413 Send Mail

Till Beer supports Christian Binz in the master's seminar at the University of Zurich: Geography of Sustainability Transitions.

Djamila Lesch PhD Student, Group: Cirus Tel. +41 58 765 5660 Send Mail

Djamila Lesch supports Christian Binz in the master’s seminar at the University of Zurich: Geography of Sustainability Transitions.

Furthermore, she has been engaged in mentoring tasks for a bachelor’s seminar at the University of Zurich.

Dr. Meike Löhr Scientist, Group: Cirus, PEGO Tel. +41 58 765 6492 Send Mail

Meike Löhr has been teaching several courses on energy transitions for social scientists at the University of Oldenburg.

She also supervises theses in social sciences and transition studies at the University of Oldenburg and University of Zurich.

Publications

Binz, C., Sedlak, D., O’Callaghan, P., Truffer, B., Nesi, M., Morgenroth, E., … Wellauer, S. (2024). Mainstreaming decentralized urban water management solutions for sustainable cities. doi:10.55408/eawag:33039, Institutional Repository

Climate change, rapid urbanization and other grand challenges increasingly force cities to rethink their urban (water) infrastructure. In particular, decentralized urban water management solutions, which can recover valuable resources close to the source are increasingly applied to remediate water scarcity, sanitation or environmental pollution challenges. Yet, although interesting demonstration projects with decentralized solutions (from here on labeled ‘decentralized UWM solutions’) are underway in several world regions, actors developing and implementing this transformative innovation are not effectively coordinating their efforts and sharing the latest knowledge. While effective technologies, business models, or regulative frameworks increasingly exist that could inform, inspire and improve similar activities elsewhere, details of local successes and failures are still (too) rarely shared or transferred across space. Drawing from experience on the mainstreaming of other transformative infrastructure solutions (like renewable energies, electric mobility or circular waste management), we posit that the global diffusion of decentralized UWM solutions has been significantly slowed down by this lack of interaction among key stakeholders, and the resulting lack of an effective innovation ecosystem.
Binz, C., & Castaldi, C. (2024). Toward a normative turn in research on the geography of innovation? Evolving perspectives on innovation, institutions, and human well-being. Progress in Economic Geography (PEG), 2(2), 100018 (8 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.peg.2024.100018, Institutional Repository

Research on the geography of innovation (GeoInno) has become a well-established scientific field, including heterogeneous but complementary theoretical approaches. We reflect upon its evolution in light of an emerging "normative" turn in innovation and regional policy, which is challenging established approaches and providing opportunities for developing new ones. In this discussion paper, we explore how an imminent normative turn impacts three foundational notions of the field: innovation, institutions, and well-being, and then outline three research avenues that would allow GeoInno research to address them in a broadened and policy-relevant manner.
Gong, H., Yu, Z., Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2024). Beating the casino: conceptualizing an anchoring-based third route to regional development. Economic Geography, 100(2), 107-137. doi:10.1080/00130095.2023.2276474, Institutional Repository

The development of new industries in peripheral regions has gained renewed attention recently. Yet, the processes through which peripheral regions can mobilize external resources and capabilities, and turn them into locally sticky resources for structural change and longer-term economic prosperity, have not been sufficiently conceptualized. This article proposes anchoring-based regional system building as a third route, which stands between conventional globalist and regionalist approaches. Based on a case study of the emergence of a globally leading electric vehicle battery industry in Ningde, China, the article explores in depth the system resource-mobilization processes and dynamic capabilities by anchor tenants and regional stakeholders that allow peripheral regions to make long jumps in the product space. We show that if the anchoring process is smartly managed, developing emerging industries in peripheral contexts is not necessarily a casino strategy but can be a strategic approach for quickly and deeply transforming the industrial fabric of regional economies.
Wainaina, G. K., & Truffer, B. (2024). The missing link for effective informal settlement upgrading: appropriation shaping the outcome of new infrastructure. Urban Studies, 61(12), 2309-2327. doi:10.1177/00420980241236077, Institutional Repository

Infrastructure investments, a core element of slum upgrading, play a role in improving the livelihoods of over 1 billion slum residents globally. Established planning practices often successfully deliver functional infrastructure but evidence shows that their contribution to improved livelihoods often either is absent or declines sharply after some time. To explain this limited effectiveness, this article identifies the missing link between infrastructure delivery and livelihood improvements as lying in the appropriation process, that is, the uptake and embedding of infrastructures into the daily practices of residents. Recent insights from sociotechnical transitions studies help to conceptualise appropriation. The authors use Munyaka informal settlement in Eldoret town, Kenya as a case to investigate the mechanisms of new infrastructure uptake. Findings indicate that appropriation is a social process that proceeds in three steps: reception, domestication and institutionalisation. This process is driven by the need to maintain or adjust residents' livelihood practices relative to prevailing socioeconomic and spatiotemporal conditions. The study concludes that appropriation is a significant process that planners should try to anticipate. Prevalent approaches to participation have to be modified accordingly. This is essential for planning to improve livelihoods in slums.
Afghani, N., Schelbert, V., Lüthi, C., & Binz, C. (2023). On-site water reuse systems in San Francisco, United States. Lighthouse synthesis report. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

San Francisco is spearheading the city-wide installation of onsite non-potable water reuse systems (ONWS). Through a city ordinance, local authorities have induced a quickly growing ONWS market and initiated stakeholder networks that support the diffusion of ONWS solutions in San Francisco and beyond. [...]
Binz, C., & Miörner, J. (2023). Normierung für transformative Innovation? Chancen und Risiken anhand des Fallbeispiels der ISO 30500 für netzunabhängige Sanitärsysteme. In A. Gertschen (Ed.), Räderwerke der Normalität. Wie Normen und Standards Vertrauen schaffen (pp. 217-231). Basel: NZZ Libro. , Institutional Repository

Normen und Standards haben das Potenzial, neuen Lösungen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung zu einer raschen Verbreitung zu verhelfen. Das Beispiel einer ISO-Norm für innovative Sanitärsysteme zeigt jedoch, dass es nicht einfach ist, dieses Potenzial zu nutzen. Einerseits wehren sich mögliche Verlierer des Wandels. Andererseits ist nicht einfach abzuschätzen, welche Lösung die «richtige» ist, die es verdient, normiert zu werden.
Gong, H., & Binz, C. (2023). Cumulative causation in regional industrial path development - a conceptual framework and case study in the videogame industry of Hamburg and Shanghai. Geoforum, 141, 103729 (13 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103729, Institutional Repository

While broad evidence has been generated on the forces leading to divergent regional industrial path development, we still do not fully understand how initial structural differences between regions are dynamically attenuated in industrial path development processes. In other words, the cumulative causation processes instigating such differences are not well explored. In this paper, a process model is developed, which conceptualizes industrial path development as an iterative build-up of innovation system resources, which is conditioned by firm- and system-level agency. We argue that the specific configuration of system resource stocks, as well as firm- and system-level agency jointly condition the further evolution of a path each time a regional industry reaches a “critical moment”. Unpacking the cumulative system building process across development phases allows exploring how positive or negative cumulative causation patterns emerge in the path development process and how early interventions in the system building process may have knock-on effects at later stages.
Hacker, M. E., & Binz, C. (2023). Hybrid governance arrangements for urban infrastructure transitions: comparing the adoption of onsite water reuse in San Francisco and New York City. ACS ES&T Water, 3, 3916-3928. doi:10.1021/acsestwater.3c00327, Institutional Repository

Decentralized water reuse technologies are increasingly being explored as a transformative approach for complementing centralized water and wastewater infrastructure. A transition to onsite water reuse requires a better understanding of how urban infrastructures are governed. While governance tends to be discussed within ideal types─i.e., hierarchy, market, and network─researchers increasingly recognize that infrastructure transitions often depend on hybrid mixtures of two or all three of those ideal types. This study draws on literature on the governance of infrastructure transitions as well as on the geography of sustainability transitions to introduce an analytical framework for assessing how the same technology─in this case, onsite water reuse─is implemented with different hybrid governance arrangements in different cities. By juxtaposing the transition trajectory to onsite water reuse in San Francisco and New York City, we empirically illustrate two ideal-type hybrid governance arrangements that systematically differ in terms of key actor types and coordination mechanisms.
Janz, J., Binz, C., Fischer, M., & Hänggli, A. (2023). Paradigmenwechsel im Gewässerschutz. Illustriert durch die Wasser-Timeline der Schweiz. Aqua & Gas, 103(1), 64-68. , Institutional Repository

Die online verfügbare Wasser-Timeline «Schweizer Gewässerschutz seit 1800» illustriert Ereignisse und Paradigmenwechsel im Umgang mit natürlichen Ressourcen. In der jüngeren Geschichte des Schweizer Gewässerschutzes lassen sich zwei grosse Paradigmenwechsel identifizieren, in denen sich die ökologischen, gesellschaftlich-politischen und technologischen Dynamiken grundlegend verändert haben. Der Artikel fasst diese Paradigmenwechsel zusammen und gibt einen Einblick in die Wasser-Timeline.
Lesch, D., Miörner, J., & Binz, C. (2023). The role of global actors in sustainability transitions – tracing the emergence of a novel infrastructure paradigm in the sanitation sector. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 49, 100787 (22 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.eist.2023.100787, Institutional Repository

The literature on sustainability transitions increasingly recognizes that sectoral structures transcending national boundaries can both hinder and promote sustainability transitions. Yet there is only limited evidence on the roles of global actors in transforming entrenched socio-technical structures directly at the global scale. To explore the mechanisms of agency at the global scale, we develop a conceptual framework and illustrate it with a case study of the World Bank's engagement in the sanitation sector. Based on a Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis of World Bank project documents combined with expert interviews, we demonstrate how a paradigm shift in the global sanitation sector was initiated by a coalition of global advocates and subsequently promoted by the World Bank in its role as an amplifier. The paper thus further conceptualizes and illustrates a multi-scalar transition trajectory that depends strongly on advocacy by global actors.
Miörner, J., Schelbert, V., Lüthi, C., & Binz, C. (2023). On-site water reuse systems in Bengaluru, India. Lighthouse synthesis report. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

Bengaluru represents a globally unique context for the diffusion of on-site wastewater treatment and reuse systems (ONWS). Local authorities have introduced a series of mandates that triggered a dynamically evolving mass-market for ONWS. [...]
Pakizer, K., Lieberherr, E., Farrelly, M., Bach, P. M., Saurí, D., March, H., … Binz, C. (2023). Policy sequencing for early-stage transition dynamics - a process model and comparative case study in the water sector. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 48, 100730 (20 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.eist.2023.100730, Institutional Repository

Sustainability scholars increasingly recognize that policy mixes can positively impact socio-technical transitions. However, the temporal dimension of policy interventions remains under-researched, especially in the context of early transition dynamics that typically emerge in niche contexts. In this article, we explore how policy sequencing can play a key role in supporting the scaling-up of early-stage transition dynamics to drive wider system change. We contribute to transition research by proposing a process model for analyzing policy sequences by focusing on the interplay between policy instruments and institutional barriers. We conceptualize two ideal-type policy sequencing patterns - strategic and reactive - which we illustrate with empirical examples from early transition dynamics in the urban water sector of San Francisco (United States) and Sant Cugat del Vallès (Spain). Applying the process model to these case studies reveals how different sequences of policy (instrument) mixes can assist in overcoming institutional barriers, thus supporting transition trajectories.
Schelbert, V., Lüthi, C., Binz, C., & Miörner, J. (2023). "Tre-Rör-Ut" in Helsingborg, Sweden. Lighthouse synthesis report. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

The H+ area in Helsingborg, Sweden, is a sustainable city development project, served by "Tre-Rör-Ut" (Three-Pipes-Out), a world-unique source-separation and resource-recovery system for water, wastewater and food waste. [...]
Schelbert, V., Lüthi, C., & Binz, C. (2023). Hamburg water cycle in the Jenfelder Au, Hamburg, Germany. Lighthouse synthesis report. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

The Jenfelder Au in Hamburg, Germany is a sustainable city development project, served by the "Hamburg Water Cycle" (HWC), a spearheading template for resource-recovery from source-separated water and wastewater, first of its kind at neighbourhood scale. [...]
Schelbert, V., Binz, C., & Lüthi, C. (2023). Lighthouse initiatives in the urban water & sanitation sector. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

Climate change, rapid urbanization and other grand challenges increasingly show that urban water and wastewater man-agement needs to be deeply rethought. A transformative shift is needed away from linear end-of-pipe to more circular system designs. Actors around the world have thus started developing decentralised urban wastewater treatment and reuse systems (DUWTRS). DUWTRS improve the flexibility, resilience and circularity of water and sanitation infrastructure and can thus play a key role in developing more sustainable cities. Yet, despite their high potential in solving multiple urban development challenges at once, only a few cities worldwide have successfully implemented them at scale. We thus lack well-documented templates and best practices of successful DUWTRS implementation. The Lighthouse Project aimed at filling this gap by assessing promising examples from around the world. To generate practice-oriented lessons, we compared six projects at different scales (city-wide vs. neighbourhood), in different contexts (high-income vs. low-/middle-income) and using different technological set-ups. We selected four neighbourhood-scale and two city-scale projects, equally distributed across high- and middle-income contexts. Data was collected between November 2021 and August 2022 through an extensive literature review and more than 100 semi-structured expert interviews. An integrative assess-ment framework was developed and used to derive key success conditions for DUWTRS implementation.
Schelbert, V., Lüthi, C., Binz, C., & Mitra, A. (2023). On-site water reuse systems in Nirvana County, Gurugram, India. Lighthouse synthesis report. Dübendorf: Eawag. , Institutional Repository

Nirvana Country Township is a high-end residential colony in Haryana State, which reuses treated effluent from on-site wastewater treatment facilities for urban greening in several residential areas. [...]
Wagner, T. R., Nelson, K. L., Binz, C., & Hacker, M. E. (2023). Actor roles and networks in implementing urban water innovation: a study of onsite water reuse in the San Francisco Bay Area. Environmental Science and Technology, 57(15), 6205-6215. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c05231, Institutional Repository

As climate change and rapid urbanization stress our aging water infrastructure, cities are under increasing pressure to develop more flexible, resilient, and modular water management systems. In response, onsite water reuse practices have been adopted by several cities globally. In addition to technological innovation, these novel water treatment systems also require new stakeholder collaborations, relationships, and processes to support them. There are, however, few models for stakeholder arrangements that support and encourage the adoption and success of such infrastructure. In this paper, we use interviews with stakeholders involved in onsite water reuse projects in the San Francisco Bay Area to create a social network map that describes the interactions between stakeholders at large and during specific phases of project implementation. Using qualitative content analysis of expert interviews and social network analysis, we identify four actor roles that are key to the functioning of this novel water infrastructure paradigm─specialists, continuity providers, program champions, and conveners - and discuss the importance of each role through the course of project implementation. These findings can be helpful for policy interventions and outreach efforts by other cities and communities looking to implement onsite water systems.
Wainaina, G. K., Truffer, B., & Murphy, J. T. (2023). Structural tensions limiting success of infrastructure upgrading: a multi-regime perspective. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 48, 100747 (13 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.eist.2023.100747, Institutional Repository

Unfettered growth of slums is a daunting transition challenge and many upgrading programs fail to sustainably improve the livelihoods of slum residents. This paper elaborates a transitions perspective on structural tensions that may lead to success or failure of slum upgrading programs. We conceptualize slums as urban subsystems, governed by sociotechnical (infrastructure) and socioeconomic livelihood regimes (related to production and social reproduction). The framework permits examination of the tensions due to mis/alignments of rules associated with newly introduced infrastructures, and those that regulate existing production and social reproduction practices of slum residents. This approach extends transition studies by accounting for the multi-system interactions between different infrastructure regimes (e.g., transportation, sanitation) and livelihoods within a local sociotechnical system. We apply this framework to an in-depth analysis of a slum upgrading project in Naivasha, Kenya, which was part of a national urban upgrading program covering a total of 80 slums.
Wainaina, G. K., Truffer, B., Lüthi, C., & Mang’ira, P. K. (2023). The lack of organizational learning in slum upgrading success: the case of the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Programme 2011–2020. Environment and Urbanization, 35(2), 490-507. doi:10.1177/09562478231175041, Institutional Repository

Not all the challenges of informal settlement upgrading programmes can be anticipated from the start. It calls for cumulative learning within the programme's timeline. This paper investigates the role of organizational learning in influencing programme outcomes. The analysis of the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Programme (KISIP) shows that a lack of organizational learning routines can lead to reduced programme success, and that programme learning can improve programme outcomes. Well-conceptualized processes that include participation, coordination, communication and the synthesis of information are essential, though insufficient alone. Additional barriers, including a sudden increase in the number and diversity of actors and projects, their deteriorating commitment, inequitable incentives and inadequate tools to support programme learning, can further exacerbate the absence of established programme learning routines. There is a need for explicit and transparent programme learning procedures across organizational levels in order to improve overall programme success.
Yap, X. S., Heiberg, J., & Truffer, B. (2023). The emerging global socio-technical regime for tackling space debris: A discourse network analysis. Acta Astronautica, 207, 445-454. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2023.01.016, Institutional Repository

The global space sector has to increasingly consider sustainability concerns in the orbit, given the rising challenge of space debris. In which direction the management of space debris will develop in terms of technological solutions, policies, and actor strategies remains still unclear. This paper applies the concept of ‘global socio-technical regimes’ to better understand how actors in the global space sector frame, conceive, and legitimize the space debris problem. More specifically, we apply a discourse network analysis method – sociotechnical configuration analysis – to identify and map different value orientations by core actors over the last fifteen years. This analysis reveals three development stages in the discourse: a problem identification period (2007-2011), followed by the rise of national interests amidst increasing promises of space-based infrastructures (2012–2015), and finally, the emergence of a global socio-technical regime that increasingly connects space sustainability with Earth-bound sustainability (2016-2019). Based on our analysis, we expect that ensuring future earth-space sustainability will include a broader mix of challenges. Future approaches to space debris management will have to consider a broader and clearer problem framing to help inform effective policy making.
Binz, C., & Gong, H. (2022). Legitimation dynamics in industrial path development: new-to-the-world versus new-to-the-region industries. Regional Studies, 56(4), 605-618. doi:10.1080/00343404.2020.1861238, Institutional Repository

While economic geography has contributed deep insights into the knowledge-related determinants of industry emergence, less is known about the legitimacy that people confer to the new industries. Based on a comparative case study in the potable water reuse industry (California, United States) and the video games industry (Hamburg, Germany), this article explores the legitimation dynamics in regional industrial path development. We elaborate on how system-building/reconfiguration and institutional work processes differ between industries that are new-to-the-world versus new-to-the-region. Our framework contributes to specifying the embedded agency that supports legitimation and thus path development in these two distinct industry formation trajectories.
Gong, H., Binz, C., Hassink, R., & Trippl, M. (2022). Emerging industries: institutions, legitimacy and system-level agency. Regional Studies, 56(4), 523-535. doi:10.1080/00343404.2022.2033199, Institutional Repository

Economic geographers have studied emerging industries in regions from various perspectives, such as life cycle, evolutionary economic geography and systemic approaches. However, so far they have insufficiently conceptualized the effects of institutional structures on new industry emergence. This special issue on 'Emerging Industries: Institutions, Legitimacy and System Building' therefore shows recent work that seeks to advance the analysis of emerging industries by drawing on institutional approaches. The present introductory article identifies key characteristics of 'emerging industries', establishes a heuristic for the conceptualization of the institutional dynamics in emerging industries, applies it to the special issue papers and outlines a future research agenda.
Heiberg, J., Truffer, B., & Binz, C. (2022). Assessing transitions through socio-technical configuration analysis – a methodological framework and a case study in the water sector. Research Policy, 51(1), 104363 (19 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.respol.2021.104363, Institutional Repository

Classic accounts of transitions research have predominantly built on reconstructions of historical transition processes and in-depth case studies to identify and conceptualize socio-technical change. While such approaches have substantively improved our understanding of transitions, they often suffer from methodological nationalism and a lack of generalizability beyond spatial and sectoral boundaries. To address this gap, we propose a novel methodology – socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) – to map and measure socio-technical alignment processes across time and space. STCA provides a configurational and dynamic perspective on how social and technical elements get aligned into "configurations that work", allowing for the identification of differentiated transition trajectories at and across spatial and sectoral contexts. The methodology's value is illustrated with the empirical case of an ongoing shift from centralized to more modular infrastructure configurations in the global water sector. Building on this illustration, we outline potential contributions of STCA to configurational theorizing in transition studies, sketching the contours of what we believe could become a generative epistemological approach for this field.
Heiberg, J., & Truffer, B. (2022). Overcoming the harmony fallacy: how values shape the course of innovation systems. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 411-428. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.01.012, Institutional Repository

The technological innovation systems (TIS) framework is one of the dominant perspectives in transitions studies to analyze success conditions and system failures of newly emerging technologies and industries. So far, TIS studies mostly adopted a rather harmonious view on the values of actors and by this were unable to address competition, conflicts and, in particular, battles over diverging directionalities within the system. To empirically assess this potential “harmony fallacy”, we identify values as part of underlying institutional logics of major organizations in the field of modular water technologies in Switzerland by means of 26 expert interviews. We show how logics may condition collaboration patterns and technological preferences. This analysis inspires key conceptual tasks of innovation system analysis, like the identification of system failures, the setting of appropriate system boundaries and the formulation of better policy recommendations.
Heiberg, J., & Truffer, B. (2022). The emergence of a global innovation system – A case study from the urban water sector. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 43, 270-288. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.04.007, Institutional Repository

Innovation studies is increasingly acknowledging the multi-scalar nature of the systemic contexts, in which innovations are being developed and deployed. This paper builds on and further develops a recently proposed framework for studying global innovation systems (GIS). It aims at explaining the emergence of a GIS by outlining the specific local resource-related conditions that lead to the creation of structural couplings, i.e. actors, networks and institutions that allow for multi-scalar resource flows. Deploying a qualitative case study, the paper investigates the interrelated developments of eight demonstration sites of innovative wastewater treatment technology in North-Western Europe. It shows how resource-related deficits lead actors to draw on resources generated outside of their local context. The paper contributes to the literature on the Geography of Transitions by highlighting the importance of resource complementarities among different local contexts, as well as the crucial role of trans-local systemic intermediaries in shaping an emergent GIS.
Hohmann, C., & Truffer, B. (2022). The infrastructure transition canvas: A tool for strategic urban infrastructure planning. Nature-Based Solutions, 2, 100039 (10 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.nbsj.2022.100039, Institutional Repository

Increasing pressures resulting from global environmental and societal changes urge cities to adapt their infrastructures. Strategic planning in local governments and utilities has to anticipate these challenges and translate them into innovation and investment strategies. In this setting, a multitude of actors, their interests, and value orientations have to be considered in decision-making. Else, innovation projects are likely to meet resistance and fail. We outline how business model thinking can help navigate the roles and interests of a variety of stakeholders in nature-based infrastructure implementation. This leads to proposing the tool of 'Infrastructure Transition Canvas' (ITC), which draws on insights from business model innovation, and its recent uptake by transition scholars. Potential benefits of applying the ITC are illustrated by the case of urban stormwater management in Germany. We discuss how the ITC may support complex investment decisions, and pave the way to sustainable urban infrastructure transitions.
Miörner, J., Truffer, B., Binz, C., Heiberg, J., & Yap, X. S. (2022). Guidebook for applying the Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis method (GEIST working paper series, Report No.: 2022(01). sine loco: GEIST - Geography of innovation and sustainability transitions. , Institutional Repository

This working paper is part of the Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis (STCA) guidebook for beginners (see stca.guide). It serves as Chapter 1 of the guidebook, and introduces the conceptual and methodological foundations for the different analytical steps that are explained in subsequent chapters. We elaborate on the theoretical contexts in which socio-technical configurations, their dynamics and geographical variation play a key role and how this epistemological approach relates to well-established conceptual frameworks from innovation and transition studies. In STCA, statements or actions of actors that are reported in document stocks are aggregated into different forms of network or proximity map graphs, which can be interpreted as coherent storylines or strategies reflecting institutionalized socio-technical configurations shared by various actors. Shifts over time of these networks can then be interpreted as depicting transition dynamics, and comparisons across space as local variations of regime or innovation system structures. The paper introduces a coherent terminology to help researchers navigate through the different steps and software programs. It furthermore elaborates on a typology of research problems that can be analyzed through STCA and an overview on the generic steps that a researcher has to conduct when applying the method.
Miörner, J., Heiberg, J., & Binz, C. (2022). How global regimes diffuse in space - Explaining a missed transition in San Diego's water sector. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 44, 29-47. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.05.005, Institutional Repository

Socio-technical regimes are highly institutionalized rationalities that have co-evolved with actors, technologies and institutions over extended periods of time and become taken for granted across geographical contexts. Transition studies feature an extensive focus on regime dynamics within specific territorial contexts. However, we know surprisingly little of how regime rationalities are constructed, diffused and reproduced across space. This is a key gap in the geography of sustainability transitions literature. This paper introduces a conceptual model to analyze transformative opportunities in regions and how regime actors strategically diffuse and implement global regime solutions through combinations of discursive and substantive system reconfiguration activities. The empirical analysis draws upon a combination of Socio-Technical Configuration Analysis (STCA) of 354 newspaper articles and 10 in-depth expert interviews to illuminate how regime actors prevailed in diffusing and legitimizing the water sector's dominant socio-technical configuration in San Diego during a period of substantial transformative opportunities.
Schippl, J., Truffer, B., & Fleischer, T. (2022). Potential impacts of institutional dynamics on the development of automated vehicles: towards sustainable mobility?. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 14, 100587 (11 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.trip.2022.100587, Institutional Repository

Most experts agree that automated vehicles (AV) will be commercialized sooner or later and that this will lead to far-reaching changes in the mobility system. However, it is still open whether these developments will lead to more sustainable transport systems. AVs may render private car ownership more attractive and therefore intensify car-oriented mobility patterns, or may increase the attractiveness of public transport when mostly used as robo-taxis. Once development has started to move in a specific direction, self-reinforcing dynamics and path-dependencies may unfold. Therefore, it is important to analyze which factors may influence the direction of path-dependencies. We argue that understanding emerging path-dependencies requires an understanding of the interrelated technical, economic and societal dynamics. We draw on recent insights into societal dynamics in sociotechnical regimes, drawn from sustainability transition research, to identify potential development trajectories of automated driving due to changes in what is conceptualized as normative-cognitive institutions. We introduce an approach to map such institutional dynamics based on recent data from developments in the German mobility sector. Results demonstrate that the direction of future AV pathways may depend on such institutional developments. Both a reinforcing and a disruptive pathway are plausible. Governance strategies that aim to tap the potential of AVs in supporting sustainable urban mobility should consider institutional dynamics more explicitly.
Truffer, B., Rohracher, H., Kivimaa, P., Raven, R., Alkemade, F., Carvalho, L., & Feola, G. (2022). A perspective on the future of sustainability transitions research. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 331-339. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.01.006, Institutional Repository

The journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Its development represents a great success, contributing substantially to the consolidation and maturation of the research field of sustainability transitions. However, being content with past successes will not be sufficient for tackling emerging challenges. In this perspective paper, we take stock of recent dynamics in the field by analyzing the evolving knowledge structure of the papers published in the journal. Based on these insights, we share the editorial priorities of the new editorial team and elaborate how we want to position the journal in the rapidly changing landscape of academic publishing. This is in the hope to align expectations with future authors and readers and to serve our quickly growing research field even better as it increasingly gains academic recognition and policy relevance.
Truffer, B., Maurer, M., & Heiberg, J. (2022). Modulare Wasserinfrastrukturen. Optionen für eine Zukunftsfähige Siedlungswasserwirtschaft. Aqua & Gas, 102(9), 60-65. , Institutional Repository

Modulare Systeme ermöglichen eine dezentralere und damit flexiblere Gestaltung der Siedlungswasserwirtschaft. Im Rahmen des Nationalen Forschungsprogramms 73 «Nachhaltige Wirtschaft» untersuchte das Forschungsteam des Projekts COMIX die zu erwartenden Chancen und Risiken, die sich aus diesen Entwicklungen für einen nachhaltigeren Umgang mit der Ressource Wasser in der Schweiz ergeben könnten.
Wainaina, G. K., Truffer, B., & Lüthi, C. (2022). The role of institutional logics during participation in urban processes and projects: insights from a comparative analysis of upgrading fifteen informal settlements in Kenya. Cities, 128, 103799 (12 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.cities.2022.103799, Institutional Repository

The academic literature largely acknowledges participation as a key condition for the successful upgrading of informal settlements. However, how individual participative actions of different actor groups and reactions of dwellers combine to influence project outcomes of upgrading processes has not been studied. This article posits that different combinations of presence or absence of collaborative interactions between dwellers and other actors will decisively predict the success and failure of projects. Specifically, we argue that interactions between different groups of implementers and dwellers are conditioned by distinctive value systems - institutional logics - , which provide specific challenges to establishing collaborative interactions with dwellers as the actors conduct their roles. We identify sufficient combinations of participative actions that may lead to successful upgrading using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on 15 informal settlements in Kenya's secondary towns that were recently upgraded. Our findings indicate that participation has to consider a multiplicity of actors, who are guided by different logics; it has to span over the whole implementation cycle. It also has to deal reflexively with the issue of representation of the community. This extends the understanding of participation to a perspective that emphasizes the capabilities of implementers to enact collaborative relationships by bridging between their own and the community's institutional logic.
Yang, K., Schot, J., & Truffer, B. (2022). Shaping the directionality of sustainability transitions: the diverging development patterns of solar photovoltaics in two Chinese provinces. Regional Studies, 56(5), 751-769. doi:10.1080/00343404.2021.1903412, Institutional Repository

This paper investigates how actors across spatial levels shape the directions of transition. We examine two Chinese provinces, Inner Mongolia and Jiangsu, with contrasting directionalities of solar photovoltaic (PV) development. The former developed PV as part of the large-scale centralized power system, and the latter focused on PV development as a core element of an alternative distributed form of power generation. We argue that three aspects have been key for understanding the divergent patterns: the specific portfolio of enacted institutional work; the type of interactions between niche and regime actors; and the selective leveraging of national institutional conditions by provincial actors.
Yap, X. S., & Truffer, B. (2022). Contouring 'earth-space sustainability'. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 44, 185-193. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.06.004, Institutional Repository

There have been increasing calls in transition research for a global view of sustainability challenges. We argue that this focus should be expanded from a concentration on the Earth's surface and stratosphere to include outer space. The substantial growth of the space sector over the past decade has seen huge increases in the number of rocket launches, the diversity of actors, and the availability of new essential services that depend on space-based infrastructure. In particular, the rise of satellite-based infrastructure could drive the need for inter-related multi-system transitions across a wide range of Earth-bound sectors. These developments, however, cause diverse new sustainability pressures, such as atmospheric pollution, increased energy consumption, and the accumulation of space debris. To address these challenges, this article proposes earth-space sustainability as a new frontier for sustainability transition research, requiring the expansion of conceptual and analytical tools at the interface of transition and global governance research.
Yap, X. S., Truffer, B., Li, D., & Heimeriks, G. (2022). Towards transformative leapfrogging. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 44, 226-244. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.07.003, Institutional Repository

Latecomer countries are increasingly confronted with the simultaneous challenge of achieving industry competitiveness and sustainability transitions. We revisit the long-standing debate on how latecomers may break free from the trajectories of the developed countries and leapfrog into more sustainable directions. Connecting insights from the fields of catching-up, socio-technical transitions, and economic geography, we propose a heuristic typology of four development pathways for latecomers. While the catching-up literature has focused on knowledge development as a main strategy, we posit that to address grand challenges, it is imperative for latecomers to implement valuation-focused strategies, which include shaping technology legitimacy, markets, and finance flows at the systemic level. We showcase the shifting trajectory of the Chinese solar photovoltaic industry from technology catching-up to forging ahead in pre-existing global value chains, and eventually towards transformative leapfrogging aimed at reconfiguring the entire socio-technical system of the electricity sector. We conclude with a research agenda for latecomer development.
van der Loos, A., Langeveld, R., Hekkert, M., Negro, S., & Truffer, B. (2022). Developing local industries and global value chains: the case of offshore wind. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 174, 121248 (15 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121248, Institutional Repository

Renewable energy sectors are becoming increasingly globalized with lead firms appropriating value on a global scale: This creates challenges for nations seeking to anchor some of the value locally through indigenous industrial development. Since lead firms select their suppliers for a given deployment project, national governments can set incentives for these firms to opt for local suppliers. We use the case of offshore wind in Europe to quantitatively measure the origin of suppliers across three global value chain governance modes: market, modular and relational. Suppliers can originate from the windfarm country, the lead firm's country or the global market. We test supplier selection across the modes of governance, domestic market size and local content push using a database of over 12,000 supplier contracts. The results indicate that lead firms mostly draw from the global market for market-coordinated segments, while favoring local suppliers under local content regulations. Local lead firms have a higher tendency to source locally for both market and relationally coordinated suppliers. However, local content push reduces the tendency of local lead firms to select local relational suppliers. Therefore, local content requirements seem to be broadly successful to stimulate locally sourced suppliers of the market-coordinated type; on the other hand, our results show that national governments should have local lead firms commission projects without imposing local content regulations to increase the odds that local relational suppliers are selected.
Cherunya, P. C., Truffer, B., Samuel, E. M., & Lüthi, C. (2021). The challenges of livelihoods reconstruction in the context of informal settlement upgrading. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 53(1), 168-190. doi:10.1177/0308518X20926514, Institutional Repository

Community involvement is recognized as a core condition for success in informal settlements upgrading. However, the wider ramifications of this requirement are not well understood. Mostly, community involvement has been equated with a narrow interpretation of participation, largely focusing on the elicitation of dwellers’ preferences at the planning stages. We argue that this approach overlooks the actual needs for livelihoods reconstruction in the course of upgrading. To better conceptualize these requirements, we propose to analyse the time–space configuration of practices, which we frame as constituting Oscillating Domestic Spaces. The concept illustrates the contingent nature of daily activities to meet livelihoods needs and how people navigate these conditions. Challenges associated with reconstructing new domestic spaces are illustrated using the Kenyan Slum Upgrading (Kensup) initiative in Nairobi, Kenya. The findings suggest that an inadequate understanding and consideration of livelihoods reconstruction reduced legitimacy of the initiative, resulted in rapid deterioration of physical amenities and relegated most of the alleged ‘beneficiaries’ deeper into poverty. We suggest that, for successful settlements upgrading, livelihoods reconstruction should be a core process in the planning, implementation and post-implementation stages.
Hacker, M. E., & Binz, C. (2021). Institutional barriers to on-site alternative water systems: a conceptual framework and systematic analysis of the literature. Environmental Science and Technology, 55(12), 8267-8277. doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c07947, Institutional Repository

Scientists are increasingly exploring on-site water systems to supplement conventional centralized water and wastewater infrastructure. While major technological advancements have been achieved, we still lack a systematic view on the non-technical, or institutional, elements that constitute important barriers to the uptake of on-site urban water management systems. This paper presents a conceptual framework distinguishing between institutional barriers in six key dimensions: Equity, Knowledge and Capabilities, Financial Investment, Legal and Regulatory Frameworks, Legitimacy, and Market Structures. The analysis of the existing literature covering these barriers is translated into a typology of the socio-technical complexity of different types of alternative water systems (e.g., non-potable reuse, rainwater systems, and nutrient recovery). Findings show that socio-technical complexity increases with the pollution load in the source water, correlating to potential health risk, and the number of sectors involved in the value chain of an alternative water system. For example, greywater reuse for toilet flushing might have systematically less complex institutional barriers than source separation for agricultural reuse. This study provides practitioners with easily accessible means of understanding non-technical barriers for various types of on-site reuse systems and provides researchers with a conceptual framework for capturing socio-technical complexity in the adoption of alternative water systems.
Hacker, M. E., & Binz, C. (2021). Navigating institutional complexity in socio-technical transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 40, 367-381. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2021.09.003, Institutional Repository

Transitions from one socio-technical regime configuration to another entail long phases of institutional complexity, where two or more field logics co-exist in a sector and induce incompatibilities and frictions. This paper presents a dynamic phase model, which characterizes the types of institutional complexity that may build up and settle across various phases of a transition, illustrated with a case study from the diffusion of onsite water reuse in San Francisco. Results from semi-structured expert interviews and a focus group demonstrate that different forms of institutional complexity may follow each other in a transition trajectory and that formidable strategic agency is needed by the actors in a field in navigating prolonged phases of competing cultural demands. Gaining a more balanced perspective of both organizational and field-level reconfigurations may help better explain why transitions succeed in some places and fail in others.
Larsen, T. A., Gruendl, H., & Binz, C. (2021). The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda - a review of the progress so far and future development options. Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology, 7(7), 1161-1176. doi:10.1039/D0EW01064B, Institutional Repository

Sanitation and wastewater management are highly relevant for reaching a number of interconnected sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially SDG 6, the provision of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for all as well as protection of water resources against pollution, and SDG 14.1, reducing nutrient emissions to the marine environment. Recent evidence increasingly shows that conventional sewer-based wastewater management will not be able to reach these targets. Rather than further optimizing and diffusing this ageing infrastructure paradigm, radical innovations like urine source separation technologies could help to leapfrog towards faster achievement of the SDGs. The technology would simplify on-site sanitation and develop a closed-loop nutrient cycle, thereby allowing for exceptionally high nutrient removal from wastewater and direct reuse in agriculture from the first day of implementation. Radical innovations, however, need decades to materialize. Based on a review of relevant academic and grey literature, we show how the past three decades of development of urine source separation have brought breakthroughs in toilet design and treatment processes, enabling the technology's value chain to reach the brink of maturity. In a short outlook, we discuss how the technology may reach global diffusion over the next decade, with the main remaining challenges relating to the creation of mass-markets for urine-diverting toilets, automation and mass-production of treatment systems, and the legitimation of fertilizer produced from urine in the agricultural sector.
Miörner, J., & Binz, C. (2021). Towards a multi-scalar perspective on transition trajectories. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 40, 172-188. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2021.06.004, Institutional Repository

This paper contributes to the geography of transitions literature by conceptualizing transition trajectories from a multi-scalar perspective. It combines an institutional perspective of transitions with conceptions of scale from human geography to derive a framework which explicates how (de-)institutionalization and re-scaling mechanisms condition different transition trajectories. Our conceptual elaborations show that the traditional local-global niche cumulation and upscaling trajectory can be complemented with two alternative trajectories that build on analytically different sequences of institutionalization and re-scaling processes. This is illustrated through a case study of technology standardization in the sanitation sector, more specifically the development of the ISO 30500 standard for non-sewered sanitation systems, which was initiated by a consortium led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The observed transition trajectory departs from key assumptions of the local-global niche model, with actors engaging in direct institutionalization at the global level, followed by re-scaling global rationalities into different (sub-)national contexts.
van den Bergh, J., Kivimaa, P., Raven, R., Rohracher, H., & Truffer, B. (2021). Celebrating a decade of EIST: What's next for transition studies?. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 41, 18-23. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2021.11.001, Institutional Repository

This editorial introduces a special issue with 27 short viewpoints about future research on transition studies, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of this journal.
Binz, C., Gosens, J., Yap, X. S., & Yu, Z. (2020). Catch-up dynamics in early industry lifecycle stages - a typology and comparative case studies in four clean-tech industries. Industrial and Corporate Change, 29(5), 1257-1275. doi:10.1093/icc/dtaa020, Institutional Repository

The literature on catch-up cycles has not yet systematically conceptualized how catch-up dynamics differ between the various industries that are emerging in the green techno-economic paradigm. We address this gap by connecting catch-up cycle theory with an industry typology from global innovation systems (GISs) literature, which distinguishes four generic industry types with footloose, spatially sticky, market-, and production-anchored innovation system characteristics. Catch-up patterns in early industry lifecycle stages are expected to systematically differ between these four industry types. This assumption is explored based on a comparative case study of the solar photovoltaics, wind power, solar water heaters, and membrane bioreactors industries, each of which exemplifies one of the four generic GIS configurations. We find that the speed and disruptiveness of early leadership changes differ significantly between the four industries, and that the effectiveness of capability upgrading strategies and catching-up policies are contingent on the innovation and valuation characteristics of each industry’s underlying GIS type.
Binz, C., Coenen, L., Murphy, J. T., & Truffer, B. (2020). Geographies of transition - from topical concerns to theoretical engagement: a commentary on the transitions research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 1-3. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2019.11.002, Institutional Repository

This viewpoint takes stock with the 'geography of sustainability transitions' (GOST) as it is presented in the transitions research agenda. GOST has been a relatively recent addition to transition theorizing, addressing the need for greater sensitivity and attention to the scales, spatialities, and context-specific factors that shape transitions. In our view, the agenda represents a rather narrow perspective on GOST, which is geared to two empirical themes, namely urban transitions and transitions in developing countries. While these are relevant and topical issues, the section lacks sufficient acknowledgement of the increasing engagement of geographers with transitions studies and the theoretical approaches they have brought to bear on the field. This short commentary thus aims at complementing the agenda paper by outlining a theoretical research agenda that is emerging in this field, framed around the conceptualization of scales, places and spaces in which transitions unfold.
Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2020). The governance of global innovation systems: putting knowledge in context. In J. Glückler, G. Herrigel, & M. Handke (Eds.), Knowledge and space: Vol. 15. Knowledge for governance (pp. 397-414). doi:10.1007/978-3-030-47150-7_17, Institutional Repository
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

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.
Gosens, J., Binz, C., & Lema, R. (2020). China's role in the next phase of the energy transition: contributions to global niche formation in the Concentrated Solar Power sector. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 61-75. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2019.12.004, Institutional Repository

The role that emerging economies, and China in particular, play in the global energy transition appears to be transforming. Transition literature to date characterizes the formation of cleantech sectors in emerging economies as being heavily dependent on foreign inputs of knowledge and other key resources. This article argues that in the, currently unfolding, next phase of the global energy transition, Chinese actors may play a more central role in global niche development for high-tech industries, including in constructing innovative and effective socio-technical configurations. This argument is illustrated with a case study of the Chinese Concentrated Solar Power industry, which is found to have developed largely independently of foreign resources. The case is used to highlight a number of specificities of the Chinese environment that set it apart from niche formation environments in OECD countries, and may allow China to open up technological trajectories unlikely to develop in those OECD countries.
Heiberg, J., Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2020). The Geography of technology legitimation: how multiscalar institutional dynamics matter for path creation in emerging industries. Economic Geography, 96(5), 470-498. doi:10.1080/00130095.2020.1842189, Institutional Repository

Research in economic geography has recently been challenged to adopt more institutional and multiscalar perspectives on industrial path development. This article contributes to this debate by integrating insights from (evolutionary) economic geography as well as transition and innovation studies into a conceptual framework of how path creation in emerging industries depends on the availability of both knowledge and legitimacy. Unlike the extant literature, we argue here that not only the former but also the latter may substantially depend on nonlocal sources. Conceptually, we distinguish between multiscalar export, attraction, and absorption of legitimacy. Coupled with conventional knowledge indicators, this approach enables us to reconstruct how not only external knowledge sourcing but also multiscalar institutional dynamics contribute to a region or country’s ability to leverage its potential for path creation in an emerging industry. Methodologically, we develop legitimation indicators from a global media database, which was built around the case of modular water technologies. Cross-comparing the evidence from six key countries (India, Israel, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, the US) with differing path creation constellations for this emerging industry, allows us to hypothesize how multiscalar legitimation influences a country’s prospects for creating a radically new industrial path.
Hipp, A., & Binz, C. (2020). Firm survival in complex value chains and global innovation systems: evidence from solar photovoltaics. Research Policy, 49(1), 103876 (16 pp.). doi:10.1016/j.respol.2019.103876, Institutional Repository

Economic globalization and the modularization of value chains increasingly challenge long-held conceptual models explaining the spatial evolution of industries. This paper seeks to re-interpret early industry life cycle dynamics by disintegrating an industry's value chain into upstream, core and downstream parts and characterizing each part according to its underlying global innovation system (GIS) configuration. We distinguish between firms in parts of the value chain that depend on formalized, science-based innovation and cater for globally standardized mass markets ('footloose' GIS) and firms in parts of the value chain that rely on spatially more stable GIS structures, in which either the innovation activities or the valuation dynamics (or both) depend on spatial embedding in given territorial contexts. Our hypothesis is that firms which occupy parts of the value chain with footloose GIS characteristics will have shorter survival times than firms which operate in spatially more stable GIS types. Demand-side policies will accordingly produce stronger competitive advantages for firms operating in GIS with spatially stable valuation structures. The empirical context of our study is the solar photovoltaics (PV) industry. We analyze market entry and exit of 129 German and 127 Japanese PV firms from 1960 to 2016 using a Cox Proportional Hazards model. The results support the hypotheses that firm survival and policy effects depend on a value chain part's underlying GIS configuration.
Hoffmann, S., Feldmann, U., Bach, P. M., Binz, C., Farrelly, M., Frantzeskaki, N., … Udert, K. M. (2020). A research agenda for the future of urban water management: exploring the potential of non-grid, small-grid, and hybrid solutions. Environmental Science and Technology, 54(9), 5312-5322. doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b05222, Institutional Repository

Recent developments in high- and middle-income countries have exhibited a shift from conventional urban water systems to alternative solutions that are more diverse in source separation, decentralization, and modularization. These solutions include non-grid, small-grid, and hybrid systems to address such pressing global challenges as climate change, eutrophication, and rapid urbanization. They close loops, recover valuable resources, and adapt quickly to changing boundary conditions such as population size. Moving to such alternative solutions requires both technical and social innovations to co-evolve over time into integrated socio-technical urban water systems. Current implementations of alternative systems in high- and middle-income countries are promising, but they also underline the need for research questions to be addressed from technical, social, and transformative perspectives. Future research should apply a transdisciplinary research approach through socio-technical "lighthouse" projects that apply alternative urban water systems at scale. Such research should leverage experience from lighthouse projects in a range of socio-economic contexts, identify their potentials and limitations from an integrated perspective, and share their successes and failures across the urban water sector.
Schippl, J., & Truffer, B. (2020). Directionality of transitions in space: diverging trajectories of electric mobility and autonomous driving in urban and rural settlement structures. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 37, 345-360. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2020.10.007, Institutional Repository

How does the spatial context shape early innovation trajectories and how will this influence the directionality of transitions? We elaborate these questions for the case of transitions in personal mobility, focusing on emerging trajectories of electric vehicles and autonomous driving. We analyze how the dynamics depend on whether innovation and transition strategies are primarily geared towards urban or rural contexts. In order to identify potentially diverging trajectories, we specify socio-technical regime structures at two levels: the level of service regimes (i.e. rules that relate to specific means of transport, like the car) and the level of the sectoral regime (i.e. rules that regulate the interplay between the different service regimes). We will show that depending on whether the early innovation strategies are oriented at rural or urban contexts, quite different directionalities can result both regarding the technological trajectory of the new service option, but also regarding the overall sector configuration.
van Welie, M. J., Boon, W. P. C., & Truffer, B. (2020). Innovation system formation in international development cooperation: the role of intermediaries in urban sanitation. Science and Public Policy, 47(3), 333-347. doi:10.1093/scipol/scaa015, Institutional Repository

The transformation of urban basic service sectors towards more sustainability is one of the 'grand challenges' for public policy, globally. A particular urgent problem is the provision of sanitation in cities in low-income countries. The globally dominant centralised sewerage approach has proven incapable to reach many of the urban poor. Recently, an increasing number of actors in international development cooperation has started to develop alternative safely managed non-grid approaches. We approach their efforts as an emerging 'global innovation system' and investigate how its development can be supported by systemic intermediaries. We analyse the activities of the 'Sustainable Sanitation Alliance', an international network that coordinates activities in the sanitation sector and thereby supports this innovation system. The findings show how demand ing it is to fulfil an intermediary role in a global innovation system, because of the need to consider system processes at different scales, in each phase of system building.
Gebauer, H., & Binz, C. (2019). Regional benefits of servitization processes: evidence from the wind-to-energy industry. Regional Studies, 53(3), 366-375. doi:10.1080/00343404.2018.1479523, Institutional Repository

By studying servitization processes and service competencies in the wind-to-energy industry in European regions, this paper provides a framework for territorial servitization. The framework resonates with the concepts of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and industry life cycles, and its elements can be embedded into concepts of regional development (e.g., lead-market models, sustainability transitions, territorial innovation models). The framework suggests that regions benefit from servitization processes via the interplay of generating employment opportunities, enabling an efficient allocation of technology resources, opening up new markets, strengthening territorial competitiveness, raising the odds of securing employment in the consolidation period and enabling technological leaps.
Meelen, T., Truffer, B., & Schwanen, T. (2019). Virtual user communities contributing to upscaling innovations in transitions: the case of electric vehicles. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31, 96-109. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2019.01.002, Institutional Repository

Users are increasingly acknowledged as important actors fostering those fundamental socio-technical innovations needed to achieve a sustainable society. In the literature, users have so far been portrayed mostly to play a role in early phases of technology formation. However, more recently users have become important players in the upscaling of various innovations. With the advent of new social media, users may interact effortlessly across large distances, exchange knowledge and so increase their contribution to upscaling. We investigate the new potential of virtual user communities. Conceptually, we build on recent insights from socio-technical transition studies to identify different upscaling dimensions. We conduct an internet ethnography of a large virtual community that formed around the Electric Vehicle (EV). Based on these data, we present virtual community characteristics and core mechanisms of participation in upscaling. We find that the community plays an important and distinctive role in fostering electric vehicle use.
Worch, H., Kabinga, M., Eberhard, A., Markard, J., & Truffer, B. (2019). Why the lights went out: a capability perspective on the unintended consequences of sector reform processes. In N. Gil, A. Stafford, & I. Musonda (Eds.), Duality by design. The global race to build Africa's infrastructure (pp. 33-68). doi:10.1017/9781108562492.003, Institutional Repository

In this chapter we advance the argument that regulatory policies can have a far-reaching impact on the organizational capabilities and, ultimately, on the performance of public utilities. Once capabilities are lost, it may be hard to regain them in the short term. Our insights are based on a qualitative-comparative analysis of capability-losing processes at Eskom, South Africa's national electric utility. South Africa experienced severe power outages between 2005 and 2008, which are commonly explained as having been caused by inadequate generation capacity, badly maintained power plants and insufficient coal supply. In this chapter, we go a step further and examine the underlying reasons at the organizational level. We show that a variety of new regulations led to a substantial loss of critical competences and skills at Eskom. This caused a deterioration of planning, operation and maintenance procedures, and made swift reactions to the crisis difficult. The 'capability perspective' presented in this chapter complements traditional theoretical explanations of utility and sector performance.
Yap, X. S., & Truffer, B. (2019). Shaping selection environments for industrial catch-up and sustainability transitions: a systemic perspective on endogenizing windows of opportunity. Research Policy, 48, 1030-1047. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2018.10.002, Institutional Repository

Transitioning economic sectors towards more sustainable futures is a major global challenge, in particular for non-OECD countries. Policymakers in these countries are confronted with a double challenge: how to implement cleaner technologies and infrastructures while at the same time promoting rapid industrial development. In catch-up studies, this trade-off has been increasingly interpreted as providing windows of opportunity for gaining strong leadership in new generations of cleantech industries. In this paper, we maintain that in order to specify how these windows of opportunity can be endogenized, a deeper understanding is needed about whether, how and by whom the directionality of innovation systems can be influenced. For this purpose, we propose an analytical approach that draws on the technological innovation system framework extending the current understanding of directionality in two ways: first, we complement the prevalent top-down perspective with a bottom-up view exemplified by the institutional entrepreneurship literature. Second, we posit that the focus has to be shifted from the manufacturing of single technologies to the transformation of entire socio-technical systems. The presented framework is validated by a case study on recent shifts in the dominant technology in China's urban water management sector. Major changes in the country's sectoral selection environment led membrane bioreactor technology to become the dominant design in urban water management - a development that is unmatched in any other country in the world. Owing to these transformations, China's technology firms outcompete multinational players and therefore they show strong potentials for industrial leapfrogging. However, although the promise to solve environmental problems played a decisive role in the shaping of the selection environment, it remains unclear whether the observed transformation leads the way to a more sustainable sector structure in the longer run. The case, however, still enables us to specify how windows of opportunity can be endogenized through the interplay of different actors trying to shape different layers of the selection environment in a specific sector.
van Welie, M. J., Truffer, B., & Gebauer, H. (2019). Innovation challenges of utilities in informal settlements: combining a capabilities and regime perspective. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 33, 84-101. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2019.03.006, Institutional Repository

The provision of basic services is falling short in informal settlements of cities in the Global South. In particular, public utilities have had difficulties expanding their services to the urban poor. Why is this the case despite utilities having improved their capabilities substantially over the last years? This paper investigates how innovation strategies of utilities are aligned or misaligned with the broader contexts in informal settlements, which are populated by different socio-technical regimes. We propose a framework to identify new capabilities needed by utilities to deal with these different regimes. The paper reconstructs pro-poor initiatives of a water and sewerage utility in a large East-African city and explains why they tended to fail in terms of livelihood improvement. We show how the alignment between capability portfolios and specific regime structures have set limits to the success of pro-poor innovation strategies in informal settlement contexts.
van Welie, M. J., Truffer, B., & Yap, X. S. (2019). Towards sustainable urban basic services in low-income countries: a Technological Innovation System analysis of sanitation value chains in Nairobi. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 33, 196-214. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2019.06.002, Institutional Repository

The provision of basic services suffers from a multitude of sustainability challenges in many cities of low-income countries. Sanitation provision faces particular challenges in the form of environmental contamination, high costs, and large inequalities among urban residents. In recent years an increasing number of innovations in on-site systems have been developed, which have not yet evolved into fully functional alternatives to the existing regimes. We study three prominent recent on-site sanitation initiatives in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya that aimed at developing entire "sanitation value chains", which we conceptualize as an emerging Technological Innovation System (TIS). The analysis leads us to propose alternative governance modes for the TIS to overcome system failures such as capability, coordination and institutional barriers. Conceptually, the paper extends conventional TIS analyses towards entire value chains, enabling a wide range of transition processes to be addressed beyond informal settlements and low-income countries.
Binz, C., Razavian, N. B., & Kiparsky, M. (2018). Of dreamliners and drinking water: developing risk regulation and a safety culture for direct potable reuse. Water Resources Management, 32(2), 511-525. doi:10.1007/s11269-017-1824-1, Institutional Repository

Direct potable water reuse (DPR), the injection of highly purified wastewater into drinking water systems, is among the newest, and most controversial, methods for augmenting water supplies. DPR is garnering increasing interest, but does not come without risks. This paper examines the notion that emerging regulation of DPR may lack sufficient attention to a particular class of risks: catastrophic risks with low probabilities of occurrence, but high consequences. It may be instructive for proponents of DPR that such consequences have materialized in other industries, with damage to human welfare and to the industries themselves. We develop brief histories of risk regulation from the aviation, offshore oil, and nuclear industries, drawing out relevant lessons for the emerging DPR field.We argue that proponents of DPR could benefit from proactively developing a safety culture in DPR utilities and establishing an effective industry-wide auditing organization that investigates unanticipated system failures. Developing independent oversight for DPR operation could ensure that stringent quality and management requirements are set and enforced, and that any system failures or "near misses" are investigated and adequately responded to.
Binz, C., & Anadon, L. D. (2018). Unrelated diversification in latecomer contexts - the emergence of the Chinese solar photovoltaics industry. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 28, 14-34. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2018.03.005, Institutional Repository

New industries emerge in increasingly complex spatial patterns that challenge existing explanations of industrial path creation. In particular, the case of latecomer regions building up industries in fields that are unrelated to their previous industrial capabilities is not well understood in the literature. This paper aims to address this gap by expanding on an analytical framework that draws on innovation studies and catching-up literature to characterize unrelated diversification processes in latecomer contexts. A case study in the Chinese solar photovoltaics (PV) sector reveals an industry formation process that differs from traditional models of industry formation. The PV industry emerged from a highly internationalized entrepreneurial project in which Chinese latecomer firms directly mobilized knowledge, markets, investment and technology legitimacy developing outside China and combined them with the country’s generic capabilities in mass-manufacturing. In some industries, globalization thus enables a new model of industry formation that heavily draws on extra-regional system resources.
Eggimann, S., Truffer, B., Feldmann, U., & Maurer, M. (2018). Screening European market potentials for small modular wastewater treatment systems – an inroad to sustainability transitions in urban water management?. Land Use Policy, 78, 711-725. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.07.031, Institutional Repository

Urban water management represents a core economic sector exposed to global water-related challenges. Recently, small modular system configurations have been identified to enable a potential sustainability transition in this lasting and rather conservative sector. The identification of current market potentials of decentralised wastewater treatment is a first step to assess whether decentralised treatment technologies could potentially be deployed on a larger scale in Europe, which would allow current decentralised wastewater treatment technologies to develop and mature. The paper elaborates a method to assess the market potential for decentralised wastewater treatment systems by starting from a raster-based geospatial modelling framework, to determine the optimal degrees of centralisation for the case of Switzerland. The resulting market potential is shown to be twenty times higher than the current market share of decentralised systems. In order to extrapolate these findings to other countries, the calculated optimal degrees of centralisation were correlated with different spatial density measures to determine a reliable and widely available proxy: population density. Based on this indicator, the European market potentials for decentralised treatment systems are estimated to be about 100,000 units per annum serving around 35 million population equivalents. The paper concludes by discussing implications for future sustainability transitions in urban water management by large-scale installation of small modular wastewater treatment systems.
Fuenfschilling, L., & Binz, C. (2018). Global socio-technical regimes. Research Policy, 47(4), 735-749. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.003, Institutional Repository

This paper addresses the question why socio-technical transitions follow similar trajectories in various parts of the world, even though the relevant material preconditions and institutional contexts vary greatly between different regions and countries. It takes a critical stance on the implicit methodological nationalism in transition studies' socio-technical regime concept and proposes an alternative 'global' regime perspective that embraces the increasingly multi-scalar actor networks and institutional rationalities, which influence transition dynamics beyond national or regional borders. By drawing on globalization theories from sociology and human geography, we show that socio-technical systems often develop institutional rationalities that are diffused via international networks and thus become influential in various places around the world. In so doing, we shed light on the multi-scalar interrelatedness of institutional structures and actors in socio-technical systems and elaborate on the implications for the conceptualization of transition dynamics. The paper illustrates this with the case study of an unsuccessful transition in the Chinese wastewater sector. Recent studies indicate that key decisions on wastewater infrastructure expansion were not only influenced by path-dependencies stemming from China's national context, but equally (or even more critically) by the dominant rationality of the water sector's global socio-technical regime. We conclude by discussing the contours of a new research agenda around the notion of global socio-technical regimes.
van Welie, M. J., Cherunya, P. C., Truffer, B., & Murphy, J. T. (2018). Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: the case of Nairobi's splintered sanitation regime. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 137, 259-271. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.059, Institutional Repository

Today's rapid global urbanization highlights the need for long-term transformations of basic service sectors in developing cities in order to improve the livelihoods of the urban poor. Sustainability transitions frameworks have proven fruitful for addressing these sort of challenges. However, they have been at pains so far in accounting for the heterogeneity and complexities that typically characterize informal settlements in the Global South. We therefore propose a conceptual framework that extends the conventional analysis of socio-technical regimes by distinguishing the two levels of sectoral regime and service regime. Challenges for sustainability transitions may then be identified by missing alignments within and among the two regime levels. The framework is applied to the sanitation sector of Nairobi, Kenya, a city experiencing rapid population growth and a highly uneven provision of basic services. Drawing on a set of 152 in-depth interviews, observations, and five focus group discussions, the paper reconstructs the prevailing service regimes and shows how they suffer from misalignments and dysfunctionalities creating all sorts of problems at a sectoral level. We conclude that Nairobi's sanitation sector can best be characterized as representing a splintered regime. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the new conceptualization of socio-technical regimes suggests some new sustainable transition pathways and how this framework might also be instructive for transition challenges in cities of the Global North.
Binz, C., & Truffer, B. (2017). Anchoring global networks in urban niches. How on-site water recycling emerged in three chinese cities. In N. Frantzeskaki, V. Castán Broto, L. Coenen, & D. Loorbach (Eds.), Routledge Studies in Sustainability Transitions: Vol. 5. Urban Sustainability Transitions (pp. 23-36). doi:10.4324/9781315228389, Institutional Repository
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

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., 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

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.
Boschma, R., Coenen, L., Frenken, K., & Truffer, B. (2017). Towards a theory of regional diversification: combining insights from evolutionary economic geography and transition studies. Regional Studies, 51(1), 31-45. doi:10.1080/00343404.2016.1258460, Institutional Repository

Towards a theory of regional diversification: combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies. Regional Studies. This paper develops a theoretical framework of regional diversification by combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies. It argues that a theory of regional diversification should not only build on the current understanding of related diversification but also account for processes of unrelated diversification by looking at the role of agency in processes of institutional entrepreneurship, and at enabling and constraining factors at various spatial scales. This paper proposes a typology of four regional diversification trajectories by cross-tabulating related versus unrelated diversification with niche creation versus regime adoption, and it develops a number of propositions.
Pohl, C., Truffer, B., & Hirsch Hadorn, G. (2017). Addressing wicked problems through transdisciplinary research. In R. Frodeman, J. Thompson Klein, & R. C. S. Pacheco (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of interdisciplinarity (pp. 319-331). doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198733522.013.26, Institutional Repository

ADDRESSING real-world problems is one of the purposes of integrative and collaborative research. Transdisciplinary research (TR) is a family of concepts and approaches that aims at better fitting academic knowledge production to societal needs for solving, mitigating, or preventing problems such as violence, disease, and environmental pollution. Transdisciplinary research strives to grasp the relevant complexity of a problem, taking into account the diversity of both everyday and academic perceptions of problems, linking abstract and case-specific knowledge, and developing descriptive, normative, and transformative knowledge for the common interest. Integration is a core feature and major challenge of TR. Practitioners of TR also call for a recursive approach to addressing problems, focusing on problem identification and structuring, investigation, and bringing results to fruition as the three phases of the TR process.
In this chapter we first describe the context in which TR and kindred approaches emerged in the second half of the twentieth century and the steps in developing TR as a form of research (Section 23,1). We then present a definition of TR that focuses on its role in addressing wicked real-world problems (Section 23.2). Next we explain challenges that come along with research on real-world problems (Section 23.3) and with providing knowledge for addressing such problems (Section 23.4). Tools for tackling challenges of the TR process appear after that (Section 23.5), illustrated by the example of the Sustainability Foresight project. The conclusion highlights open questions and ongoing debates requiring clarification for the next steps forward in TR (Section 23.6).
Truffer, B., Schippl, J., & Fleischer, T. (2017). Decentering technology in technology assessment: prospects for socio-technical transitions in electric mobility in Germany. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 122, 34-48. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2017.04.020, Institutional Repository

Sustainability transitions of sectors like energy, transport or water have become explicit goals of national policy programs in several parts of the world. The governance of associated innovation and transformation processes requires an integrated assessment on how new and seemingly superior technologies will interact with manifold societal, economic, industrial and political contexts. Failing to do so is likely to quickly undermine political support for these ambitious and long term projects. Part of the program of technology assessment is to anticipate the impacts of new technologies on society and the environment. However, in order to address the challenge of sustainability transitions, institutional dynamics have not been considered explicitly enough in existing approaches. We elaborate a methodological proposal on how to analyze the interaction between technological and institutional developments in specific technology fields. We identify potential future variations of core institutional structures of a socio-technical regime, construct matching regime constellations, and elaborate on interactions with technological design alternatives. The framework will be applied to recent developments in the field of electric mobility in the context of the German Energiewende. The results provide some fresh perspectives for academics and policy makers on how to better consider interactive dynamics in socio-technical systems.
Weber, K. M., & Truffer, B. (2017). Moving innovation systems research to the next level: towards an integrative agenda. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 33(1), 101-121. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grx002, Institutional Repository

The concept of innovation systems has been a guiding paradigm of innovation research and strongly influenced research and innovation policy since the early 1990s. In spite of this success, criticisms have been raised in recent years about whether it is still a suitable framework for addressing the innovation-related challenges of the future. In the present paper we claim that systemic explanations of innovation success have still a very important role to play. In order to address the rising criticism, however, we have to reconsider the conceptual core of the family of innovation systems (IS) approaches and sketch out a path for renewal. The paper retraces the conceptual roots of IS approaches, assesses their uptake in different policy circles around the world, discusses the conceptual core and explanatory ambition, and finally formulates a future-oriented research agenda for a more integrative innovation systems framework.
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

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., 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

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.
Eggimann, S., Truffer, B., & Maurer, M. (2016). Economies of density for on-site waste water treatment. Water Research, 101, 476-489. doi:10.1016/j.watres.2016.06.011, Institutional Repository

Decentralised wastewater treatment is increasingly gaining interest as a means of responding to sustainability challenges. Cost comparisons are a crucial element of any sustainability assessment. While the cost characteristics of centralised waste water management systems (WMS) have been studied extensively, the economics of decentralised WMS are less understood. A key motivation for studying the costs of decentralised WMS is to compare the cost of centralised and decentralised WMS in order to decide on cost-efficient sanitation solutions. This paper outlines a model designed to assess those costs which depend on the spatial density of decentralised wastewater treatment plants in a region. Density-related costs are mostly linked to operation and maintenance activities which depend on transportation, like sludge removal or the visits of professionals to the plants for control, servicing or repairs. We first specify a modelled cost-density relationship for a region in a geometric two-dimensional space by means of heuristic routing algorithms that consider time and load-capacity restrictions. The generic model is then applied to a Swiss case study for which we specify a broad range of modelling parameters. As a result, we identify a ‘hockey-stick’-shaped cost curve that is characterised by strong cost reductions at high density values which level out at around 1 to 1.5 plants per km2. Variations in the cost curves are mostly due to differences in management approaches (scheduled or unscheduled emptying). In addition to the well-known diseconomies of scale in the case of centralised sanitation, we find a similar generic cost behaviour for decentralised sanitation due to economies of density. Low densities in sparsely populated regions thus result in higher costs for both centralised and decentralised system. Policy implications are that efforts to introduce decentralised options in a region should consider the low-density/high-cost problem when comparing centralised and decentralised options.
Eggimann, S., Truffer, B., & Maurer, M. (2016). The cost of hybrid waste water systems: a systematic framework for specifying minimum cost-connection rates. Water Research, 103, 472-484. doi:10.1016/j.watres.2016.07.062, Institutional Repository

To determine the optimal connection rate (CR) for regional waste water treatment is a challenge that has recently gained the attention of academia and professional circles throughout the world. We contribute to this debate by proposing a framework for a total cost assessment of sanitation infrastructures in a given region for the whole range of possible CRs. The total costs comprise the treatment and transportation costs of centralised and on-site waste water management systems relative to specific CRs. We can then identify optimal CRs that either deliver waste water services at the lowest overall regional cost, or alternatively, CRs that result from households freely choosing whether they want to connect or not. We apply the framework to a Swiss region, derive a typology for regional cost curves and discuss whether and by how much the empirically observed CRs differ from the two optimal ones. Both optimal CRs may be reached by introducing specific regulatory incentive structures.
Eggimann, S. J. (2016). The optimal degree of centralisation for wastewater infrastructures. A model-based geospatial economic analysis (Doctoral dissertation). doi:10.3929/ethz-a-010811248, Institutional Repository

Efficient infrastructure planning is essential to achieve a more sustainable future. This includes aiming for optimal and economically more efficient infrastructures in the field of urban water management (UWM). Especially network-based infrastructures need special attention as they are generally very cost intensive and have distinctly demanding planning characteristics. Today’s historically evolved UWM practices tend to be network-based as in the last century enormous investments have been made to build-up vast sewer networks and large central wastewater treatment plants which centrally connect very high population percentages in many countries. The construction of large network infrastructures has resulted in a dominant centralised planning paradigm and heavily centralised wastewater management systems (WMS). However, this strong central planning paradigm is increasingly being questioned with respect to sustainability challenges and the call is becoming louder for innovative and radical approaches to address future challenges in the field of UWM. One such innovative approach is the decentralised treatment of wastewater by decentralised WMS, although in countries with high central connection rates this has so far been seen mainly as a stopgap solution. Today, connection rates differ significantly across countries: Great differences exist not only between high-income and low-income countries but also within OECD countries. It is unclear to what degree centralised or decentralised WMS should be installed in a region from the point of view of economic efficiency. Whereas the UWM literature presents specific cost assessments, there is a paucity of tools and methods to assess the costs of WMS consisting of centralised and decentralised systems (hybrid WMS). There are also few cost assessments of decentralised WMS with respect to their operation and maintenance costs. This dissertation uses an economic geospatial model-based approach to address the challenging research question of the optimal degree of centralisation. Conceptually, especially the spatially explicit full-cost modelling and the socio-technical conceptualisation of WMS are of special relevance. The basic trade-off between wastewater transportation and treatment is modelled in a geographically explicit way, economies of density for decentralised systems are assessed and a framework is presented to assess different optimal connection rates for hybrid systems. This framework is then used to assess economically sustainable connection rates in order to promote the economic argumentation for a possible sustainability transition in UWM. [...]
Fuenfschilling, L., & Truffer, B. (2016). The interplay of institutions, actors and technologies in socio-technical systems: an analysis of transformations in the Australian urban water sector. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 103, 298-312. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.11.023, Institutional Repository

Literature on socio-technical transitions has primarily emphasized the co-determination of institutions and technologies. In this paper, we want to focus on how actors play a mediating role between these two pillars of a socio-technical system. By introducing the theoretical concept of institutional work, we contribute to the conceptualization and empirical assessment of agency processes in socio-technical systems. We illustrate this approach by analyzing recent developments in the Australian urban water sector, where seawater desalination technology has experienced an unexpected, but rapid diffusion to all major cities, often interpreted as a reaction to a major multi-year drought. However, the drought broke and left all but one plant unused. This has led many commentators wonder how such a massive investment – which is likely to limit alternative development trajectories in the sector for the coming decades – could have happened so quickly and why other, potentially more sustainable technologies, have not been able to use the momentum of the crisis to break through. A comparative analysis between seawater desalination and its main rival wastewater recycling in regard to processes of institutional work provides valuable insight into how technology, actors and institutions mutually shaped each other.
Kiparsky, M., Thompson Jr., B. H., Binz, C., Sedlak, D. L., Tummers, L., & Truffer, B. (2016). Barriers to innovation in urban wastewater utilities: attitudes of managers in California. Environmental Management, 57(6), 1204-1216. doi:10.1007/s00267-016-0685-3, Institutional Repository

In many regions of the world, urban water systems will need to transition into fundamentally different forms to address current stressors and meet impending challenges—faster innovation will need to be part of these transitions. To assess the innovation deficit in urban water organizations and to identify means for supporting innovation, we surveyed wastewater utility managers in California. Our results reveal insights about the attitudes towards innovation among decision makers, and how perceptions at the level of individual managers might create disincentives for experimentation. Although managers reported feeling relatively unhindered organizationally, they also spend less time on innovation than they feel they should. The most frequently reported barriers to innovation included cost and financing; risk and risk aversion; and regulatory compliance. Considering these results in the context of prior research on innovation systems, we conclude that collective action may be required to address underinvestment in innovation.
Larsen, T. A., Hoffmann, S., Lüthi, C., Truffer, B., & Maurer, M. (2016). Emerging solutions to the water challenges of an urbanizing world. Science, 352(6288), 928-933. doi:10.1126/science.aad8641, Institutional Repository

The top priorities for urban water sustainability include the provision of safe drinking water, wastewater handling for public health, and protection against flooding. However, rapidly aging infrastructure, population growth, and increasing urbanization call into question current urban water management strategies, especially in the fast-growing urban areas in Asia and Africa. We review innovative approaches in urban water management with the potential to provide locally adapted, resource-efficient alternative solutions. Promising examples include new concepts for stormwater drainage, increased water productivity, distributed or on-site treatment of wastewater, source separation of human waste, and institutional and organizational reforms. We conclude that there is an urgent need for major transdisciplinary efforts in research, policy, and practice to develop alternatives with implications for cities and aquatic ecosystems alike.
Lieberherr, E., Truffer, B., & Dominguez, D. (2016). Innovation and public management. Comparing dynamic capabilities in two Swiss wastewater utilities. In M. Finger & C. Jaag (Eds.), Routledge companions in business, management and accounting. The Routledge companion to network industries (pp. 389-402). Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315768984-37/innovation-public-management-comparing-dynamic-capabilities-two-swiss-wastewater-utilities-eva-lieberherr-bernhard-truffer-damian-dominguez?context=ubx&refId=d80e4bc7-1ccd-47a0-9f4c, Institutional Repository

Potable water and flushing toilets in households are taken for granted in today's Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Close to 100 percent of the population in most OECD countries has access to safe drinking water, and ca. 70 percent is connected to wastewater treatment plants (Aubin and Varone, 2007; OECD, 2011; OECD Environment Directorate, 2008). This taken-for-granted situation is largely possible due to extensive governmental planning, management, and investments in water and wastewater infrastructure (OECD, 2009). The expansion of domestic water service provision occurred via public subsidies, with service provision provided by primarily local and regional governments and, hence, predominantly public organizations (Citroni, 2010). Indeed, the water and wastewater sectors in OECD countries have been developed as centralized systems of treatment plants and waterworks with vast, integrated networks of water supply mains and wastewater pipes. Accordingly, these sectors can be considered 'typical' public network utility sectors (Luis-Manso, 2007: 2). [...]
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

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.
Zinsstag, J., Perrig-Chiello, P., Paulsen, T., & Truffer, B. (2016). Exemplary Transdisciplinary Projects - swiss-academies award for transdisciplinary research 2015. GAIA: Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 25(3), 182-184. doi:10.14512/gaia.25.3.9, Institutional Repository

The Network for Transdisciplinary Research (td-net) of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences seeks to foster transdisciplinary research and showcase new approaches addressing topics of societal relevance and impact. The Jury honours the awardees and encourages them to go on contributing to the maturation of their fields.
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

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.
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

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.
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

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.
Lieberherr, E., & Truffer, B. (2015). The impact of privatization on sustainability transitions: a comparative analysis of dynamic capabilities in three water utilities. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 15, 101-122. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2013.12.002, Institutional Repository

This paper analyzes the ability of water utilities to contribute to sustainability transition processes. More specifically, we compare the capacity of utilities, embedded in purely public, mixed and largely private governance modes, to innovate. We employ dynamic capabilities as core indicators for innovativeness and therefore as major enabling factors for sustainable sector transitions. We assess the relationship between governance modes and innovation by conducting an in-depth comparative analysis of three water utilities, each within a differing governance mode along the public-to-private continuum: Zurich, Berlin and Leeds. While we find that the private and mixed governance modes have an increased degree of innovativeness, they perform lower in terms of static sustainability criteria than the public mode. We therefore conclude that the impact of privatization on sustainability transitions in the water sector involves multi-dimensional trade-offs between static and dynamic sustainability criteria.
Truffer, B. (2015). Challenges for Technological Innovation Systems research: introduction to a debate. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 16, 65-66. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2015.06.007, Institutional Repository
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

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.
Weichselgartner, J., & Truffer, B. (2015). From knowledge co-production to transdisciplinary research: lessons from the quest to produce socially robust knowledge. In B. Werlen (Ed.), Global sustainability. Cultural perspectives and challenges for transdisciplinary integrated research (pp. 89-106). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-16477-9_5, Institutional Repository

Almost 50 years ago, Wood (1964) argued that scientists could be part of an "apolitical elite" triumphing in the political arena, since "effective policy-making required fast and swiftly what scientists believed they had to offer: objective shifting of the facts, balanced visions, thoughtful reflection and the mobilization of the best wisdom and highest competence” (Wood 1964, 64). Since then, interest in the validity of scientific claims has expanded to wider audiences, and public trust in experts' problem-solving competence has eroded. Policy and society have increasingly confronted science with uncomfortable questions regarding the soundness of its methods and the validity of its knowledge products. [...]

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Current Projects

We are identifying the challenges of modular infrastructure systems for the Swiss economy and society using the example of urban water management.

COMIX: Challenges and Opportunities of Modular water Infrastructures
The Lighthouse Project focuses on visible examples of onsite and decentralised urban water management systems, which will play a key role in enabling sustainability transitions.

Lighthouse
WaterReuseLab aims at analyzing how a new generation of decentralized water reuse systems could be developed in Bengaluru, India

WaterReuseLab Bengaluru
Efficient Technical Cycles project analyses potential future transition of the construction sector towards more sustainable techniques, materials, methods and procedures

SCENE WP5: Efficient Technical Cycles
MULTITRANS develops novel approaches for analyzing sustainability transitions that transcend places, scales and sectors

MULTITRANS
SHIVAGO analyzes valuation processes shaping global industry dynamics and sectoral transitions in view of grand societal challenges

SHIVAGO

Past projects

The proposal analyzes possible transition pathways in basic services, focusing specifically on the case of Nairobi, Kenya.

SuSARA: Sustainability Transitions of Sanitation Regimes
The project promotes the implementaion of RRR business models in Lima, Peru by improving the local institutional framework and technical capacities of interested entrepreneurs.

Implementing Resource Recovery and safe Reuse (RRR) business models Lima: Fase 2
The purpose of the strategic research alliance is to analyse the nature of the energy innovation systems in Denmark.

EIS – Strategic research alliance for Energy Innovation Systems
The project will analyze the indicators for sustainable transitions in China water treatment industry.

Technological Innovation System in the Globalization Era
In this project, we apply Business Model Thinking to create promising business models around innovative water and sanitation technologies

Business model thinking for poverty alleviation
In this project, we collaborate with various organizations to study the role of business innovation in the scaling process of sanitation services.

Business innovations for scaling up sanitation services
In this project, we work with organizations from around the globe to identify factors for managing water kiosks sucessfully

Business Innovations for making water kiosks more successful
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
RADEC seeks to unravel how emerging countries can simultaneously achieve industrial leapfrogging and environmental sustainability transition by analyzing the industrial and socio-technical aspects of decentralized water and sanitation systems in China, India and South Africa.

RADEC: Radical Development for Emerging Countries
An inter- and transdisciplinary strategic research program that strives to develop novel non-gridconnected water and sani- tation systems that can function as comparable alternatives to network-based systems.

Water and sanitation innovations for non-grid solutions (Wings)
GLORIWA assesses path dependencies in urban water management by analyzing the global actor structures and institutional rationalities that stabilize the current dominant design

Global Regimes in the water sector (GLORIWA)