Paula Kivimaa

Creative Destruction or Mere Niche Creation? Innovation Policy Mixes for Sustainability Transitions

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in policy mixes in innovation studies. While it has long been acknowledged that the stimulation of innovation and technological change involves different types of policy instruments, how such instruments form policy mixes has only recently become of interest. We argue that an area in which policy mixes are particularly important is the field of sustainability transitions. Transitions imply not only the development of disruptive innovations but also of policies aiming for wider change in socio-technical systems. We propose that ideally policy mixes for transitions might include elements of ‘creative destruction’, involving both policies aiming for the ‘creation’ of new and for ‘destabilising’ the old. We develop a novel analytical framework including the two policy mix dimensions (‘creation’ and ‘destruction’) by broadening the technological innovation system functions approach, and by expanding the concept of ‘motors of innovation’. We test this framework by analysing ‘low energy’ policy mixes in Finland and the UK. We find that both countries have diverse policy mixes to support energy efficiency and reduce energy demand with instruments to cover all functions on the creation side. Despite the demonstrated need for such policies, unsurprisingly destabilising functions are addressed by fewer policies, but there are empirical examples of such policies in both countries. The concept of ‘motors of creative destruction’ is introduced to expand innovation and technology policy debates to go beyond policy mixes consisting of technology push and demand pull instruments, and to consider a wider range of policy instruments which may contribute to sustainability transitions.

Evaluating Policy Integration: The Case of Policies for Environmentally Friendlier Technological Innovations

The integration of certain policy objectives into other policy sectors – i.e. policy integration of such issues as gender, regional development, employment and environmental protection – is frequently requested in order to improve public policy. The article discusses the importance of evaluating policy integration as well as the perspective that such evaluations should extend to the outputs and outcomes of policies. Two examples of evaluating policy integration are provided: the integration of environmental concerns into technology policy and the integration of innovation objectives into environmental policy. The findings show that the integration of environmental concerns into technology policies could be increased, especially with respect to promoting technologies that do not have explicit environmental intentions. Similarly, innovation objectives could be further integrated into environmental policies. Evaluations of policy principles, such as policy integration, are important for policy development.

Climate policy innovation: a sociotechnical transitions perspective

Seeking to develop a novel understanding of how climate policy innovation (CPI) emerges and spreads, we conceptualise three types of CPIs – genuinely original, diffusion based, and reframing based – and relate these to the sociotechnical transitions literature, particularly the multi-level perspective (MLP) that explains change through interaction between ‘niche’, ‘regime’, and ‘landscape’ levels. Selected climate-related transport policies in Finland, Sweden, and the UK are used to illustrate five hypotheses that connect these concepts from the MLP to particular types of CPI. ‘Original’ policy innovation may be uncommon in contexts with major sunk investments such as transport, principally because sociotechnical regimes tend to be resistant to political pressures for change originating at the same level. Nonetheless, the MLP posits that regimes are subject to influence by pressures originating at both niche and landscape levels. Given that policy reframing is relatively common, it may offer a key entry point for CPI in the short to medium term.

Comparing alternative path creation frameworks in the context of emerging biofuel fields in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland.

Several studies on innovation have brought forward different conceptions on how innovations and new technological paths are created. Theoretical arguments differ regarding the foundational ontologies and the major factors influencing path formation. The article aims to compare two strands of literature related to new path formation: (1) strategic niche management and the related multi-level perspective and (2) technological innovation systems. The article examines how these models operate in the context of empirical analyses hypothesizing that there may be fewer differences in empirical results than in theoretical argumentation and that new empirical findings can give a good impetus also for theoretical elaborations. Thus, the article compares empirical analyses made in the same context, namely the transport biofuel field. The actual development of biofuel fields in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland are also compared. Our analysis suggests some areas in which the two theoretical frameworks might be developed to take recent empirical observations and the spatial dimension better into account.

Making or breaking environmental innovation? Technological change and innovation markets in the pulp and paper industry

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of internationally changing market conditions versus national innovation systems (NIS) for environmental innovation in a transforming industry sector, the Nordic pulp and paper industry. Design/methodology/approach - Based on several case studies of technological innovations in the sector, using data triangulation, crucial factors for environmental innovation are analyzed. The cases focus on bioenergy technologies in pulp mills and on new products from fiber. Findings - While NIS still supports the networks through which innovations are created, the formation of innovation markets is increasingly dependent on international developments. Environmental innovation is most likely to occur when momentum is created by simultaneous changes in private and policy-created markets. Environmental policies, increasingly originating at the EU level, have added the final impetus for bioenergy technologies, while for new products the policy effect has been smaller. Practical implications - National innovation policies must be designed to take into account the internationalizing influences on environmental innovation. Originality/value - The paper shows the continued importance of NIS in a low-and-medium technology sector despite internationalizing markets.

Path creation for urban mobility transitions: Linking aspects of urban form to transport policy analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine spatiality of transitions by combining aspects of urban form to policy analysis. It aims to increase understanding of how urban form relates to potential effects of transport policies on urban mobility transitions. Design/methodology/approach – Novel analytical framework combines concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation to three urban fabrics (walking, transit and car cities), to study the transition potential of recent transport policy measures influencing the Helsinki region in Finland. Findings – Analysis showed that the potential effects of single policy measures often reach over all three urban fabrics. A policy measure may simultaneously contain elements of both path dependence, i.e. support for fossil-fuel based private motoring in the car city and path creation, i.e. stimulation of innovations in transit or walking cities. Policy outcomes are often conditional on implementation of other policy measures. For transition governance, this indicates that policy mixes should both destabilise car cities and enforce path creation in walking and transit cities. Research limitations/implications – Findings are based on potential rather than evaluated impacts and a limited sample of policies. Practical implications – Findings support previous research on the importance of policy coherence: multiple policies and coherence across domains are important. They demonstrate the usefulness of analysing recent or planned policies from the transition perspective. Originality/value – The paper provides novel insights by combining policy analysis to the spatial model of overlapping urban fabrics. In addition, it applies the concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation in a new way.

Towards a Typology of Intermediaries in Transitions: A Systematic Review

Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. This paper aims to bring more clarity to the topic of intermediaries in transitions, providing a typology that, beyond functions of intermediaries, is sensitive to different levels and phases of transitions, and the origin and emergence of intermediary actors. Based on a systematic review of academic scholarly articles, the paper identifies five different categories of intermediary actors that play a role in transitions based on their level of operation and origin, being insider/outsider, the level of agency, and the degree of neutrality. Some intermediaries are specifically set up to facilitate transitions, while others grow into the role of an intermediary during the process of sociotechnical change. On the basis of the study we argue that systemic and niche intermediaries are most crucial forms of intermediary actors in transitions, which should be also considered in planning future innovation governance frameworks. The paper further elaborates how intermediation occurs in pre-development, take-off, acceleration and embedding, and destabilisation phases. We note the lack of literature about intermediary activities in different phases of transition, in particular with respect to the acceleration and embedding phase. We, thus, suggest what kind of transition intermediaries are needed to better support the acceleration and embedding of innovations contributing to long-term sustainable development.