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"Todays pressing political, social, economic, and environmental crises urgently ask for effective policy responses and fundamental transitions towards sustainability supported by a sound knowledge base and developed in collaboration between all stakeholders. This book explores how action research forms a valuable methodology for producing such collaborative knowledge and action. It outlines the recent uptake of action research in policy analysis and transition research and develops a distinct and novel approach that is both critical and relational. By sharing action research experiences in a variety of settings, the book seeks to explicate ambitions, challenges, and practices involved with fostering policy changes and sustainability transitions. As such it provides crucial guidance and encouragement for future action research in policy analysis and transition research. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of policy analysis and transition research and more broadly to public administration and policy, urban and regional studies, political science, research and innovation, sustainability science, and science and technology studies. It will also speak to practitioners, policymakers and philanthropic funders aiming to engage in or fund action research."--Provided by publisher.

To fulfil the European Union's (EU) goal of providing 'Clean Energy for All Europeans', a transformative shift from centralised, fossil-fuel based systems to decentralised systems based on renewable energy sources (RES) is envisaged. Keen to lead the clean energy transition while embedding technological innovation and elements of justice and equitability into the envisioned 'Energy Union', EU Member States need their citizens on board as active participants. Prosumerism or self-consumption is an important part of this citizen involvement. While the new EU regulatory framework for energy now recognises civic-inspired prosumer initiatives such as energy communities, little is known about the full range and diversity of collective actors in renewable energy self-consumption as well as how they engage with the changing energy system. This paper presents an exploratory categorisation of the different collective social actors that produce and consume energy from renewable sources, referred to as 'collective RES prosumers', aiming to clarify their participation in the energy landscape. We find six categories with different engagement and needs, which we relate to the EU's current framing of collective energy actors. We recommend fine-tuning policies to the different actors to support a true-to-vision transposition of the recently completed Clean Energy Package (CEP). ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Society is transforming through a whirlpool of innovations. This includes technological as well as social innovations, i.e. changes in social relations involving new ways of doing, organizing, framing and knowing. Especially the potentials for transformative social innovation (TSI) are gaining the interest of progressive political actors and critical scholars. Occurring in the form of new modes of governance and alternative ways of working and living together, TSI involves the challenging, altering or replacing of dominant institutions. As documented in various strands of critical social inquiry and innovation research, TSI praxis is pervaded with contradictions, anomalies and paradoxes. This methodological contribution addresses the challenge that tends to remain: How to elaborate this general critical awareness into more operational 'strategies of inquiry'? The paper discusses paradoxes of a) system reproduction, b) temporality, and c) reality construction. Identifying distinct kinds of contradictions and distinct empirical phenomena, this differentiation also calls attention to the associated differences between realist, processual and constructivist research philosophies. Gathering the empirical analyses, theoretical interpretations and methodological advances that have been made on these paradoxes, this contribution opens up the scope for critical and practically relevant innovation research: It is important to bridge the divide between rigorous but sterile methodological know-how, and critical-reflexive theorizing that lacks operational insights.

Introduction : action research in policy analysis and transition research / Koen P.R. Bartels and Julia M. Wittmayer -- Both critical and applied? : action research and transformative change in the UK water sector / Emma Westling and Liz Sharp -- Co-inquirer reflection / Chris Digman -- Cooperative research for bottom-up food sovereignty and policy change / Bálint Balázs and György Pataki -- Co-inquirer reflection / Csilla Kiss and Borbála Sarbu-Simonyi -- Transition scientivism : on activist gardening and co-producing transition knowledge "from below" / Shivant Jhagroe -- Co-inquirer reflection / Rutger Henneman -- Cultivating "sanction and sanctuary" in Scottish collaborative governance : doing relational work to support communicative spaces / James Henderson and Claire Bynner -- Co-inquirer reflection / Alison McPherson -- Negotiating space for mild interventions : action research on the brink between social movements and government policy in Flanders / Erik Paredis and Thomas Block -- Co-inquirer reflection / Dirk Barrez -- Soft resistance : balancing relationality and criticality to institutionalise action research for territorial development / Ainhoa Arrona and Miren Larrea -- Co-inquirer reflection / Ander Arzelus -- Lipstick on a pig? : appreciative inquiry in a context of austerity / Alison Gardner -- Co-inquirer reflection / Liz Jones -- Getting unstuck : the reconstruction clinic as pragmatic intervention in controversial policy disputes / Martien Kuitenbrouwer -- Co-inquirer reflection / Karima Arichi -- Exploring the use of audiovisual media for deliberation : reframing discourses on vulnerabilities to climate change in Nepal / Floriane Clement -- Co-inquirer reflection / Damakant Jayshi -- Really imagined : policy novels as a mode of action research / Sonja van der Arend -- Co-inquirer reflection / Martine de Vaan -- Conclusion : critical and relational action research for policy change and sustainability transitions / Koen P.R. Bartels and Julia M. Wittmayer

Reading this book will lead to new insights compelling to an international audience into how cities address the sustainability challenges they face. They do this by not repeating old patterns but by searching for new and innovative methods and instruments based on shared principles of a transitions approach. The book describes the quest of cities on two continents to accelerate and stimulate such a transition to sustainability. The aim of the book is twofold: to provide insights into how cities are addressing this challenge conceptually and practically, and to learn from a comparison of governance strategies in Europe and Asia. The book is informed by transition thinking as it was developed in the last decade in Europe and as it is increasingly being applied in Asia. The analytical framework is based on principles of transition management, which draws on insights from complexity science, sociology, and governance theories. Only recently this approach has been adapted to the urban context, and this book is an opportunity to share these experiences with a wider audience. For scholars this work offers a presentation of recent state-of-the-art theoretical developments in transition governance applied to the context of cities. For urban planners, professionals, and practitioners it offers a framework for understanding ongoing developments as well as methods and instruments for dealing with them. The content is potentially appealing to post-graduate and graduate students of environmental management, policy studies, and urban studies programs