Multicriteria mapping manual: version 1.0

This Manual offers basic advice on how to do multicriteria mapping (MCM). It suggests how to: go about designing and building a typical MCM project; engage with participants and analyse results – and get the most out of the online MCM tool. Key terms are shown in bold italics and defined and explained in a final Annex. The online MCM software tool provides its own operational help. So this Manual is more focused on the general approach. There are no rigid rules. MCM is structured, but very flexible. It allows many more detailed features than can be covered here. MCM users are encouraged to think for themselves and be responsible and creative

Uncertainty

Environmental appraisal presents deeper and wider problems than are typically conceded in policy. Strong political pressures for decision justification routinely force the closing down of due deliberation over the real limits to knowledge. Even technical language can become warped – to imply that all environmental dilemmas are susceptible to apparently precise and definitive probabilistic risk analysis. The inconvenient messiness of less tractable aspects of incertitude (strict uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance) can thereby be suppressed. Reviewing the most serious problems, this chapter outlines practical methods for resisting these pressures and opening up a more rigorous, robust, transparent – and democratically accountable – environmental politics

Sustainability and the politics of transformations: from control to care in moving beyond modernity

Sustainable development brings together a series of normative themes related to negotiating environmental limits, to addressing equity, needs and development, and to the process of transformation and transition. To mark the thirtieth anniversary of Our Common Future (1987), that first placed sustainable development on the global agenda, the editors have brought together a group of international scholars from a range of social science backgrounds. They have discussed these same themes - looking backwards in terms of what has been achieved, assessing the current situation with respect to sustainable development, and looking forwards to identify the key elements of the future agenda. This book presents a series of critical reflections on these enduring themes. The overriding concern is with the present and with the future as the editors seek to explore the question: What next for sustainable development

Grassroots innovation & innovation democracy

In this working paper we introduce an area of activity that has flourished for decades in all corners of the globe, namely grassroots innovation for sustainable development. We also argue why innovation in general is a matter for democracy. Combining these two points, we explore how grassroots innovation can contribute to what we call innovation democracy, and help guide innovation so that it supports rather than hinders social justice and environmental resilience. We suggest it does so in four related ways: 1. Processes of grassroots innovation can help in their own right to cultivate the more democratic practice of innovation. 2. Grassroots innovations can support citizens and their activities in more general ways that contribute to wider democracy. 3. Grassroots innovations create empowering 'sociotechnical configurations' that would otherwise be suppressed by existing innovation systems. 4. Grassroots innovations can help nurture general levels of social diversity that are important for democracy in its widest sense. The working paper finishes with a few suggestions for how societies committed to innovation democracy can better support and benefit from grassroots innovation activity. Action for deeper grassroots participation in innovation democracy has to work on culture, infrastructure, training, investment, and openness. An earlier version of this working paper, with lighter referencing, appeared originally in the Big Ideas series of 'thinkpieces' organised by Friends of the Earth

Don’t save ‘the world’ – embrace a pluriverse!

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Social-ecological resilience and socio-technical transitions: critical issues for sustainability governance

Technology contributes both positively and negatively to the resilience of ‘social-ecological systems’, but is not considered in depth in that literature. A technology-focused literature on sociotechnical transitions shares some of the complex adaptive systems sensibilities of social-ecological systems research. It is considered by others to provide a bridging opportunity to share lessons concerning the governance of both. We contend that lessons must not be restricted to advocacy of flexible, learning-oriented approaches, but must also be open to the critical challenges that confront these approaches. Here, we focus on the critical lessons arising from reactions to a ‘transition management’ approach to governing transitions to sustainable socio-technical regimes. Moreover, we suggest it is important to bear in mind the different problems each literature addresses, and be cautious about transposing lessons between the two. Nevertheless, questions for transition management about who governs, whose system framings count, and whose sustainability gets prioritised are pertinent to social-ecological systems research. They suggest an agenda that explores critically the kinds of resilience that are helpful or unhelpful, and for whom, and with what social purposes in mind.ESR

How Journal Rankings can suppress Interdisciplinary Research – A Comparison between Innovation Studies and Business & Management

This study provides new quantitative evidence on how journal rankings can disadvantage interdisciplinary research during research evaluations. Using publication data, it compares the degree of interdisciplinarity and the research performance of innovation studies units with business and management schools in the UK. Using various mappings and metrics, this study shows that: (i) innovation studies units are consistently more interdisciplinary than business and management schools; (ii) the top journals in the Association of Business Schools’ rankings span a less diverse set of disciplines than lower ranked journals; (iii) this pattern results in a more favourable performance assessment of the business and management schools, which are more disciplinary-focused. Lastly, it demonstrates how a citation-based analysis challenges the ranking-based assessment. In summary, the investigation illustrates how ostensibly ‘excellence-based’ journal rankings have a systematic bias in favour of mono-disciplinary research. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of these phenomena, in particular how resulting bias is likely to affect negatively the evaluation and associated financial resourcing of interdisciplinary organisations, and may encourage researchers to be more compliant with disciplinary authority.Interdisciplinary, Evaluation, Ranking, Innovation, Bibliometrics, REF

Which Way? Who says? Why? Questions on the multiple directions of social progress

For better or worse, science and technology are both deeply entangled in “social progress”. This is the case equally in discourse and practise around the world. In areas such as health, wealth, energy, mobility, and communications, it is widely recognized that remarkable historical improvements— at least for some— all owe much to science and technology. However, it is equally important to acknowledge that not all consequences of research and innovation are positive. Nor do any benefits unfold automatically — especially if they are to be fairly distributed

The genetically modified organism shall not be refused? Talking back to the technosciences

Starting from Marcel Mauss’ observation that “one has no right to refuse a gift”, this paper explores the politics of refusal in the context of field trials with genetically modified organisms in Flanders (Belgium). Based on a decade of activist research, and focusing on the genetically modified organism field trials of the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology, we show that the business model of this strategic research center – with its triple mission of carrying biotechnology research, technology transfer, and the promotion of biotechnology through communication and lobby activities – fosters a climate in which innovations in the technosciences have to “be accepted”. The future is laid out without including the possibility of refusal. Consternation is great when this is exactly what happens. Irrational fears and lack of understanding or lack of familiarity are invoked to explain refusal. Language of precision, innovation, safety, and control are deployed to re-assure the public. Refusal is not considered a legitimate option. Yet, if farmers and grassroots initiatives would accept the gift of genetically modified organisms, it would mean the acceptance of their dispossession and the impossibility of diverse food sovereignties. Starting from theoretical work on “the gift” and “the politics of refusal”, we argue that recognizing innovation as the intrinsically plural and divergent process it is, entails including options to refuse particular pathways as a first step to open up others. As we will argue, saying no to genetically modified organisms is part of saying yes to peasant autonomy, agrobiodiversity, and peoples’ food sovereignties

Sustainable development through diversifying pathways in India

From groundwater depletion to toxic air pollution, modernising development pathways are linked with grave unsustainability challenges, as they extend the unbridled extraction of “goods” from nature while carelessly dumping back the “bads.” To move beyond this and to realise sustainable development, plural pathways may be required in each field, be it agriculture or housing. As outcomes of struggles for democracy and sustainability, these diversifying pathways may be structured around caring and cooperative (human–nature) relations