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Unrelated diversification in latecomer contexts: Emergence of the Chinese solar photovoltaics industry
In: Environmental innovation and societal transitions, Band 28, S. 14-34
ISSN: 2210-4224
Why matter matters: How technology characteristics shape the strategic framing of technologies
In: Research policy: policy, management and economic studies of science, technology and innovation, Band 49, Heft 1, S. 103882
ISSN: 1873-7625
Governments as partners: The role of alliances in U.S. cleantech startup innovation
In: Research Policy, Band 48, Heft 6, S. 1458-1475
The Future Costs of Nuclear Power Using Multiple Expert Elicitations: Effects of RD&D and Elicitation Design
Characterizing the anticipated performance of energy technologies to inform policy decisions increasingly relies on expert elicitation. Knowledge about how elicitation design factors impact the probabilistic estimates emerging from these studies is however scarce. We focus on nuclear power, a large-scale low-carbon power option, for which future cost estimates are important to designing energy policies and climate change mitigation efforts. We use data from three elicitations in the USA and in Europe and assess the role of government Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) investments on expected nuclear costs in 2030. We show that controlling for expert, technology, and design characteristics increases experts' implied public RD&D elasticity of expected costs by 25%. Public sector and industry experts' costs expectations are 14% and 32% higher, respectively than academics. US experts are more optimistic than their EU counterparts, with median expected costs 22% lower. On average, a doubling of public RD&D is expected to result in an 8% cost reduction, but uncertainty is large. The difference between the 90th and 10th percentile estimates is on average 58% of the experts' median estimates. Public RD&D investments do not affect uncertainty ranges, but US experts' are less confident about costs than Europeans.
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Quantifying the Effects of Expert Selection and Elicitation Design on Experts' Confidence in Their Judgments About Future Energy Technologies
In: Risk analysis: an international journal, Band 37, Heft 2, S. 315-330
ISSN: 1539-6924
Expert elicitations are now frequently used to characterize uncertain future technology outcomes. However, their usefulness is limited, in part because: estimates across studies are not easily comparable; choices in survey design and expert selection may bias results; and overconfidence is a persistent problem. We provide quantitative evidence of how these choices affect experts' estimates. We standardize data from 16 elicitations, involving 169 experts, on the 2030 costs of five energy technologies: nuclear, biofuels, bioelectricity, solar, and carbon capture. We estimate determinants of experts' confidence using survey design, expert characteristics, and public R&D investment levels on which the elicited values are conditional. Our central finding is that when experts respond to elicitations in person (vs. online or mail) they ascribe lower confidence (larger uncertainty) to their estimates, but more optimistic assessments of best‐case (10th percentile) outcomes. The effects of expert affiliation and country of residence vary by technology, but in general: academics and public‐sector experts express lower confidence than private‐sector experts; and E.U. experts are more confident than U.S. experts. Finally, extending previous technology‐specific work, higher R&D spending increases experts' uncertainty rather than resolves it. We discuss ways in which these findings should be seriously considered in interpreting the results of existing elicitations and in designing new ones.
Leveraging private investment to expand renewable power generation: evidence on financial additionality and productivity gains from Uganda
In: World development: the multi-disciplinary international journal devoted to the study and promotion of world development, Band 140, S. 1-14
World Affairs Online
Scientific Wealth in Middle East and North Africa: Productivity, Indigeneity, and Specialty in 1981–2013
Several developing countries seek to build knowledge-based economies by attempting to expand scientific research capabilities. Characterizing the state and direction of progress in this arena is challenging but important. Here, we employ three metrics: a classical metric of productivity (publications per person), an adapted metric which we denote as Revealed Scientific Advantage (developed from work used to compare publications in scientific fields among countries) to characterize disciplinary specialty, and a new metric, scientific indigeneity (defined as the ratio of publications with domestic corresponding authors) to characterize the locus of scientific activity that also serves as a partial proxy for local absorptive capacity. These metrics—using population and publications data that are available for most countries–allow the characterization of some key features of national scientific enterprise. The trends in productivity and indigeneity when compared across other countries and regions can serve as indicators of strength or fragility in the national research ecosystems, and the trends in specialty can allow regional policy makers to assess the extent to which the areas of focus of research align (or not align) with regional priorities. We apply the metrics to study the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—a region where science and technology capacity will play a key role in national economic diversification. We analyze 9.8 million publication records between 1981–2013 in 17 countries of MENA from Morocco to Iraq and compare it to selected countries throughout the world. The results show that international collaborators increasingly drove the scientific activity in MENA. The median indigeneity reached 52% in 2013 (indicating that almost half of the corresponding authors were located in foreign countries). Additionally, the regional disciplinary focus in chemical and petroleum engineering is waning with modest growth in the life sciences. We find repeated patterns of stagnation and contraction of scientific activity for several MENA countries contributing to a widening productivity gap on an international comparative yardstick. The results prompt questions about the strength of the developing scientific enterprise and highlight the need for consistent long-term policy for effectively addressing regional challenges with domestic research. ; John F. Kennedy School of Government. Kuwait Program
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The Effects of Expert Selection, Elicitation Design, and R&D Assumptions on Experts' Estimates of the Future Costs of Photovoltaics
Expert elicitations of future energy technology costs can improve energy policy design by explicitly characterizing uncertainty. However, the recent proliferation of expert elicitation studies raises questions about the reliability and comparability of the results. In this paper, we standardize disparate expert elicitation data from five EU and US studies, involving 65 experts, of the future costs of photovoltaics (PV) and evaluate the impact of expert and study characteristics on the elicited metrics. The results for PV suggest that in-person elicitations are associated with more optimistic 2030 PV cost estimates and in some models with a larger range of uncertainty than online elicitations. Unlike in previous results on nuclear power, expert affiliation type and nationality do not affect central estimates. Some specifications suggest that EU experts are more optimistic about breakthroughs, but they are also less confident in that they provide larger ranges of estimates than do US experts. Higher R&D investment is associated with lower future costs. Rather than increasing confidence, high R&D increases uncertainty about future costs, mainly because it improves the base case (low cost) outcomes more than it improves the worst case (high cost) outcomes.
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A Multidimensional High-Resolution Assessment Approach to Boost Decentralised Energy Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa
In: JOULE-D-20-01416
SSRN
Working paper
The role of intermediate trade in the change of carbon flows within China
In: Energy economics, Band 76, S. 303-312
ISSN: 1873-6181
Making technological innovation work for sustainable development
This paper presents insights and action proposals to better harness technological innovation for sustainable development. We begin with three key insights from scholarship and practice. First, technological innovation processes do not follow a set sequence but rather emerge from complex adaptive systems involving many actors and institutions operating simultaneously from local to global scales. Barriers arise at all stages of innovation, from the invention of a technology through its selection, production, adaptation, adoption, and retirement. Second, learning from past efforts to mobilize innovation for sustainable development can be greatly improved through structured cross-sectoral comparisons that recognize the socio-technical nature of innovation systems. Third, current institutions (rules, norms, and incentives) shaping technological innovation are often not aligned toward the goals of sustainable development because impoverished, marginalized, and unborn populations too often lack the economic and political power to shape innovation systems to meet their needs. However, these institutions can be reformed, and many actors have the power to do so through research, advocacy, training, convening, policymaking, and financing. We conclude with three practice-oriented recommendations to further realize the potential of innovation for sustainable development: (i) channels for regularized learning across domains of practice should be established; (ii) measures that systematically take into account the interests of underserved populations throughout the innovation process should be developed; and (iii) institutions should be reformed to reorient innovation systems toward sustainable development and ensure that all innovation stages and scales are considered at the outset.
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A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda
In: Sutherland , W J , Bellingan , L , Bellingham , J R , Blackstock , J J , Bloomfield , R M , Bravo , M , Cadman , V M , Cleevely , D D , Clements , A , Cohen , A S , Cope , D R , Daemmrich , A A , Devecchi , C , Anadon , L D , Denegri , S , Doubleday , R , Dusic , N R , Evans , R J , Feng , W Y , Godfray , H C J , Harris , P , Hartley , S E , Hester , A J , Holmes , J , Hughes , A , Hulme , M , Irwin , C , Jennings , R C , Kass , G S , Littlejohns , P , Marteau , T M , McKee , G , Millstone , E P , Nuttall , W J , Owens , S , Parker , M M , Pearson , S , Petts , J , Ploszek , R , Pullin , A S , Reid , G , Richards , K S , Robinson , J G , Shaxson , L , Sierra , L , Smith , B G , Spiegelhalter , D J , Stilgoe , J , Stirling , A , Tyler , C P , Winickoff , D E & Zimmern , R L 2012 , ' A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda ' PL o S One , vol 7 , no. 3 , e31824 , pp. N/A . DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0031824
The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence; the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties; and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy.
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A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda
The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence; the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties; and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy. ; ESRC
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