Stakeholderanalyse

De toekomst is misschien wel belangrijker dan onze geschiedenis. Of je nu student bent, ambtenaar op een ministerie of in een kleine gemeente, een technostarter, innovatiemanager bij een groot bedrijf, de toekomst is een uiterst belangrijk speelveld.Values and TechnologyTechnology, Policy and Managemen

Governing crowd-based innovations: an interdisciplinary research agenda

The crowd increasingly plays a key role in facilitating innovations in a variety of sectors, spurred on by IT-developments and the concomitant increase in connectivity. Initiatives in this direction, captured under the umbrella-term ‘crowd-based innovations’ (CBI), offer novel opportunities in all domains of society by increasing the access, reach and speed of services and goods. At the same time, they signify important challenges because these innovations occur in a context of traditional, well-established institutional arrangements. CBI create an ‘institutional void’: existing rules, standards and practices are challenged and renegotiated. This raises questions about the safeguarding of public values such as quality, legitimacy, efficiency and governance of crowd-based innovations. The objective of this perspective piece is to present an interdisciplinary research agenda to address normative challenges for governing CBI. We will argue that such an agenda needs an integrated empirical-normative approach. We will detail three lines of empirical-normative research that together build up towards an interdisciplinary agenda.Organisation and GovernanceEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

When innovation meets institutions: the challenges of crowd-based innovations for governance

Organisation and Governanc

Exploring incumbents’ agency: Institutional work by grid operators in decentralized energy innovations

The agency of incumbents has gained increasing attention in the study of transitions. Recent studies show that besides being inert and resistant to change, incumbents can also support transitions. We focus on the agency of a particular type of incumbent, grid operators. In several countries, these actors play an active role in institutional change in the energy domain. At the same time, they are engaging in activities to maintain the regime. This paper examines the actions of grid operators when performing institutional work, i.e. when creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of Dutch media to analyze the actions of grid operators while engaging with decentralized energy innovations. We conclude that grid operators are both subject and object of institutional work as part of a distributed, collective process of institutional change. Furthermore, our analysis reflects on their paradoxical position as embedded actors engaging in institutional change.Organisation and Governanc

Energy justice and controversies: Formal and informal assessment in energy projects

In this paper we develop a framework for understanding how justice-related claims play a role in the dynamics of controversy in energy projects. We do so by distinguishing two interacting trajectories of assessment: a formal trajectory that is embedded in the legal system and an informal trajectory that is mainly embedded in public discourse. The emergence of an informal assessment trajectory can be seen as a response to a (perceived) lack of attention to particular concerns or values in the formal trajectory, i.e. '. overflowing'. The emerging informal assessment may subsequently lead to adaptations in the formal trajectory, which we refer to as '. backflowing'. Based on insights from case studies on Dutch energy projects and literature on energy justice we identify three justice-related attributes that facilitate understanding of the emergence of controversies. These attributes are based on differences between the two trajectories in terms of 1) the way in which values are expressed, 2) the dimension of energy justice that is taken as a starting point, and 3) the democratic legitimization of assessment trajectories. In order to allow for legitimate and effective energy policy, overflowing and backflowing need to be addressed as interrelated rather than as separate processes.Ethics & Philosophy of TechnologyEconomics of Technology and InnovationOrganisation and Governanc

Participatory multi-modelling as the creation of a boundary object ecology: the case of future energy infrastructures in the Rotterdam Port Industrial Cluster

Finding leverage points for sustainability transformation of industrial and infrastructure systems is challenging, given that transformation is emergent from the complex interactions among socio-technical system elements over time within a specific social, technical and geographical context. Participatory multi-modelling, in which modellers and stakeholders collaborate to develop multiple interacting models to support a shared understanding of systems, is a promising approach to support sustainability transformations. The participatory process of modeling can serve as a leverage point by facilitating social learning amongst stakeholders, in which models can function as boundary objects that facilitate dialogue between stakeholders from different social worlds. We propose that participatory multi-modeling allows for the creation of a boundary object ecology, which involves a set of interacting and co-evolving boundary objects emerging throughout the modeling process. To explore this, we analyse the participatory multi-modelling process in the Windmaster project in the Rotterdam Port industrial cluster to understand which design choices were key to the creation of boundary objects. Our analysis shows that two types of design choices were key: design choices that enabled translations between participants, and those between participants and their organisation. We conclude that conceptualising participatory multi-modelling as a process of an evolving boundary object ecology, creating and adapting multiple interacting boundary objects provides a novel perspective that is useful for analysis and design of future participatory multi-modeling processes.System EngineeringPolicy AnalysisEnergy & Industr

Co-creation, control or compliance? How Dutch community engagement professionals view their work

Most literature on community engagement (CE) focuses on why and how local communities respond to energy projects or technologies. There has been very limited attention to project developers and the way they shape CE in the literature. We address this gap by focusing on the work of professionals active within or for energy companies, who are responsible for engaging communities in the development of energy projects: so-called ‘community engagement professionals’ (CEPs). Using Q methodology, we explore how CEPs see their role as front-line workers operating on the boundary between their own organization and the local community.Our analysis results in three perspectives of their own work amongst CEPs. Perspective 1 views CE as co-creation and their position as one of an intermediary between their organization and the community. Perspective 2 sees CE as an inherent part of project management, using it to remain in control of the process. Perspective 3 is all about project development, with CE as something that must be done as part of compliance with laws and regulations.We show that CEPs have heterogeneous perspectives on community engagement. We discuss differences between these perspectives: 1) mode of engagement; 2) the position of the CEP between their organization and the community; 3) how conflict is viewed and dealt with; 4) the extent to which CEPs see themselves as responsible for the representation of communities; and 5) interaction with internal stakeholders. We end by discussing the implications of this study for project developers and the governance of energy infrastructures.Organisation and Governanc

Normative diversity, conflict and transition: shale gas in the Netherlands

Few people disagree on the need for sustainable development, but ideas about what it exactly means and how to pursue it diverge considerably. Although such normative conflicts are key to sustainability transitions, attention to such conflicts is lacking in transition studies. In this paper we understand societal conflict as an informal assessment of sustainable transition pathways with the potential for learning about normative ideas about the direction, speed and means of transitions. We analyse the Dutch societal conflict on the plans for shale gas exploration between 2010 and 2013, based on a media-analysis and interviews, in order to identify the normative conflicts and to find out to which extent these normative conflicts resulted in higher-order learning. The two main normative conflicts in the case firstly concern the role of gas in the energy transition, and secondly the balance between local and national interests in defining the public interest. With that, the societal conflict challenges two key elements of the Dutch welfare state. We conclude that there has been higher-order learning as regards the first conflict, but not as regards the second.Organisation and GovernanceEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

Stakeholder engagement in large-scale energy infrastructure projects: Revealing perspectives using Q methodology

Organisation and GovernanceIntegral Design and ManagementEconomics of Technology and Innovatio

De toekomst van het stedelijk watersysteem: Opereren in een stad vol transities

Gedreven door ontwikkelingen zoals klimaatverandering, verstedelijking en digitalisering zien we in het stedelijk watersysteem steeds vaker oplossingen ‘buiten de buis’. Oplossingen zoals publieke pleinen met een waterbergende functie, polderdaken met een dynamische waterberging, zwembaden verwarmd met warmte uit (afval)water; het zijn allemaal pogingen om antwoorden te vinden op de uitdagingen waar de watersector mee te maken heeft. Echter, de watersector is niet de enige in de stad die worstelt met uitdagingen die dergelijke ontwikkelingen met zich meebrengen. Doordat de ruimte in de stad beperkt is, zien we dat de grenzen van stedelijke infrastructuur steeds vaker worden opgezocht, opgerekt en verlegd, om zo oplossingen te kunnen vinden die in te passen zijn in bestaand stedelijk gebied.Sanitary EngineeringOrganisation and Governanc