2.1 Digging into Societal Transformation and System
Innovation Research
I begin with a few definitions from influential sources that illustrate what transformation research leaders say about the challenge of turning development toward
sustainability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for
example, foresees “the altering of fundamental attributes of a system (including
value systems; regulatory, legislative, or bureaucratic regimes; financial institutions;
and technological or biological systems” (IPCC 2012: 5).
The primarily European Sustainability Transition Research Network (STRN),
founded in 2005, says in its mission statement that “incremental change in prevailing systems will not suffice. There is a need for transformative change at the
systems level, including major changes in production, consumption that were
conceptualized as ‘sustainability transitions’” (STRN 2010).
The German government’s Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
published the report A World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability in
2011 and defined its viewpoint as follows: “This major transformation will require
technological advances, new concepts of welfare, diverse social innovations, and an
unprecedented level of international cooperation” (WBGU 2011b, 1).
My contributions to the field focus on concepts that foreground mind-sets
because these will inform the purpose that the technological advances, new concepts and innovations of all kinds will serve. And I argue for a Great Mindshift
because I feel that willingness to reassess old assumptions and convictions for their
validity seldom involves the degree of radicalness required. The definition of
transformation proposed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre comes closest:
“Transformation or transformability in social-ecological systems is defined as the
capacity to create untried beginnings from which to evolve a fundamentally new
way of living when existing ecological, economic, and social conditions make the
current system untenable” (Stockholm Resilience Centre 2012). To create untried
beginnings we need new social imaginaries, sets of ideas including values, institutions, laws and symbols through which people imagine their social whole and
envisage how alternative systems would differ from the current situation—and the
courage to let go of that to which we have grown accustomed.
In order to develop my foundational analytical concepts of how to achieve the
large system change to which the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda aspires, I
will first present a selection of popular transition research concepts from three thick,
multi-scholar reports that are also seeking answers to this question. They are all part
of the rapidly growing community adopting systemic and transdisciplinary
approaches. At the same time, they differ with regard to certain basic ideas and
departures for research design and can be systematized as examples of ‘the three
camps’ within transformation research, distinguished by the disciplinary homes
from which the new agenda is approached: innovation management, natural sciences, and political economy.
2.1 Digging into Societal Transformation and System Innovation Research
17
Innovation Research
I begin with a few definitions from influential sources that illustrate what transformation research leaders say about the challenge of turning development toward
sustainability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for
example, foresees “the altering of fundamental attributes of a system (including
value systems; regulatory, legislative, or bureaucratic regimes; financial institutions;
and technological or biological systems” (IPCC 2012: 5).
The primarily European Sustainability Transition Research Network (STRN),
founded in 2005, says in its mission statement that “incremental change in prevailing systems will not suffice. There is a need for transformative change at the
systems level, including major changes in production, consumption that were
conceptualized as ‘sustainability transitions’” (STRN 2010).
The German government’s Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)
published the report A World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability in
2011 and defined its viewpoint as follows: “This major transformation will require
technological advances, new concepts of welfare, diverse social innovations, and an
unprecedented level of international cooperation” (WBGU 2011b, 1).
My contributions to the field focus on concepts that foreground mind-sets
because these will inform the purpose that the technological advances, new concepts and innovations of all kinds will serve. And I argue for a Great Mindshift
because I feel that willingness to reassess old assumptions and convictions for their
validity seldom involves the degree of radicalness required. The definition of
transformation proposed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre comes closest:
“Transformation or transformability in social-ecological systems is defined as the
capacity to create untried beginnings from which to evolve a fundamentally new
way of living when existing ecological, economic, and social conditions make the
current system untenable” (Stockholm Resilience Centre 2012). To create untried
beginnings we need new social imaginaries, sets of ideas including values, institutions, laws and symbols through which people imagine their social whole and
envisage how alternative systems would differ from the current situation—and the
courage to let go of that to which we have grown accustomed.
In order to develop my foundational analytical concepts of how to achieve the
large system change to which the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda aspires, I
will first present a selection of popular transition research concepts from three thick,
multi-scholar reports that are also seeking answers to this question. They are all part
of the rapidly growing community adopting systemic and transdisciplinary
approaches. At the same time, they differ with regard to certain basic ideas and
departures for research design and can be systematized as examples of ‘the three
camps’ within transformation research, distinguished by the disciplinary homes
from which the new agenda is approached: innovation management, natural sciences, and political economy.
2.1 Digging into Societal Transformation and System Innovation Research
17