Suchergebnisse

Climate targets call for novel policy measures to facilitate widespread adoption of low-carbon solutions and innovations. The literature on socio-technical systems argues that experimentation has a prominent role in enabling sustainability transition. Experiments represent ways of testing new ideas and methods across a wide range of policy fields. Governance experiments in particular can support accelerated diffusion of new solutions, because they integrate policy with innovations. Here, types of success factors in the implementation of governance experiments to mitigate climate change are examined. Statistical analysis of sustainability innovations in the 28 European Union countries indicates that the types of success factors in governance experiments differ from those of product and social experiments. Governance experimentation is more positioned within socio-technical regimes than in strategic niches. These results suggest that governance experiments may indeed provide new transition opportunities towards low-carbon societies. ; Peer reviewed

The Single Market of the European Union has progressed during recent decades to encompass more than 500 million consumers in 28 EU Member States and adjoining countries. During the same period, consumer issues have received growing policy interest and policy measures have been put in place to harmonize the Single Market, that is, to make national markets more alike. Yet, in order to provide policy measures that promote desirable market outcomes, the considerable challenge of understanding differences in the market performances of participating countries and the relationships between national markets and the Single Market need to be addressed. Consequently, this article proposes the consideration of differences in terms of regimes, that is, between groups of similar countries, when assessing the performances of markets. Differences in market performances are analysed with the Kruskal–Wallis test using survey data from the European Commission, and results were reviewed against market studies carried out by the Commission. Findings show that regime differences in market performance can indeed be observed and that the regime approach can draw policy attention to commonalities in market arrangements in addition to the consumer issues conventionally examined, such as price differences and consumer awareness. ; Peer reviewed

Keywords: circular economy, policy congruence, consumers, citizen visions, sustainability, topic modelling. ; The concept of circular economy has become a catchphrase for describing redesign of economies and industries towards better sustainability. The consideration of consumers holds a prominent role in the concept, yet consumers" concerns and hopes are not well accounted for. This article takes a forward-looking approach to the relationship between consumers and policies on circular economy. It analyses an extensive and systematically collected corpus of European citizen visions on desirable and sustainable futures from this perspective, and compares the outcomes to newly adopted circular economy policies in Europe. The article argues that European policies on circular economy should increasingly connect to energy and climate issues as well as social topics, if they are to build congruence between citizen and policy understandings, and thereby raise public acceptance for the concept. ; Peer reviewed

Building upon a general conceptual debate about the nature and production of knowledge, this chapter traces the manner in which different norms, visions and experiences are mobilised when framing future sustainability outcomes, with a view to promoting the effective design of strategic public engagement mechanisms. As demonstrated, whereas citizens tend to emphasise the importance of multi-dimensional and holistic development, in which ecological, social and economic components interact in a complex manner, experts focus on the elaboration of narrower and more specific questions and challenges. The normative tension between perspectives is illustrative of the broader need for more inclusive, sustained and continuous cooperation between science and society at different stages of the policy-making and innovation processes. At the same time, it calls for the careful and proactive forging of public engagement methodologies that allow complementary (or indeed diverging) values, norms, and propositions to be acknowledged and put into context, so as to ensure greater accountability among a larger group of participants and societal stakeholders. ; Non peer reviewed

Two different rationales underpin the work behind the present policy report. The first relates to the necessity of obtaining a critical perspective that can challenge the consistency and usefulness of CASI-F, namely the framework developed during the CASI project to assess and manage sustainable innovation. The second objective is to conceive and propose a set of messages that can drive policy action in the short term towards more efficient sustainable innovation-oriented governance. The sections included in this chapter represent a logical and hierarchical sequence that proceeds from a brief introduction of the CASI project, to the description of the Policy Watch activity (of which this policy report is a key part), and finally to the description of the report's objectives and structure. ; Non peer reviewed

This chapter illustrates via a piloted application how one of the five steps of the CASI Framework (CASI-F), which is designed for the management and assessment of sustainable innovation, can be applied to monitor policy developments. To this end, we reviewed 96 policy recommendations from CASI policy briefs concerning the Europe 2020 strategy, with a special focus on resource efficiency. The results show that CASI-F can provide a useful additional tool for analysing and reflecting on the outcomes of a policy watch. In particular, CASI-F provides opportunities to review how policy recommendations relate to policy levels and types of stakeholder. ; Non peer reviewed

Grounded in theoretical assumptions on evidence-based policy-making and participatory advice research, this chapter presents a critical reflection on and discussion of different advisory activities carried out in the CASI project, namely the assessment of sustainable innovation initiatives, policy developments and citizens' visions. ; Non peer reviewed

This chapter takes into consideration two distinct processes utilised in CASI to develop new sets of sustainable research and innovation (R&I) agendas. The first process is based on European sustainable innovators' objectives, as gathered and analysed from more than 500 SI initiatives mapped in CASIPEDIA and led by the quadruple helix of SI stakeholders. The second draws on citizens' preferences, as identified in two rounds (citizens-experts-citizens) of participatory workshops carried out in 12 European countries. Some mismatches are identified and the chapter reveals that gaps exist between what is currently taking place in research and innovation, and what citizens wish for. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates the potential of cross-disciplinary approaches to make cross-comparisons of data from multiple and diverse sources. ; Non peer reviewed