Power to, over and with: Exploring power dynamics in social innovations in energy transitions across Europe

This paper explores how power relations are manifested, altered and/or reproduced in processes of social innovations in energy transitions (SIE). We explore this research question by developing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary power heuristic building on different dimensions of power: power to, power over and power with. This conceptual framework helps us analyse the power dynamics in multiple types of SIEs that aim to contribute to sustainable energy transitions across three different national contexts: Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom (UK). Our findings show how social innovation involves different dimensions of power to/over/with, and how power relations are both altered and reproduced. The cases under study also lead us to argue that understanding how power dynamics develop requires the analysis of the interplay between different power dimensions across the multiplicity of actors within different SIE-fields and their initiatives

Power to, over and with:Exploring power dynamics in social innovations in energy transitions across Europe

This paper explores how power relations are manifested, altered and/or reproduced in processes of social innovations in energy transitions (SIE). We explore this research question by developing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary power heuristic building on different dimensions of power: power to, power over and power with. This conceptual framework helps us analyse the power dynamics in multiple types of SIEs that aim to contribute to sustainable energy transitions across three different national contexts: Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom (UK). Our findings show how social innovation involves different dimensions of power to/over/with, and how power relations are both altered and reproduced. The cases under study also lead us to argue that understanding how power dynamics develop requires the analysis of the interplay between different power dimensions across the multiplicity of actors within different SIE-fields and their initiatives.</p

Social innovation supports inclusive and accelerated energy transitions with appropriate governance

Accelerating energy transitions that are both sustainable and just remains an important challenge, and social innovation can have a key role in this transition. Here, we examine the diversity and potential of social innovation in energy systems transformation, synthesizing original mixed methods data from expert interviews, document analysis, social innovation experiments, a representative survey, and an expert survey. Based on a thematic analysis of these data, we advance four key findings: (1) the diversity of social innovation in energy is best understood when recognizing core social practices (thinking, doing, and organizing) and accounting for changes in social relations (cooperation, exchange, competition, and conflict); (2) governance, policy networks, and national context strongly shape social innovation dynamics; (3) processes of social innovation are implicated by multidimensional power relations that can result in transformative changes; and (4) social innovation in energy generally has strong social acceptance among citizens, benefits local communities and is legitimized in key community and city organizations. We discuss an agenda for 9 future research directions on social innovation in energy, and conclude with insights related to national context, governance, and acceleration

Responsible Research and Innovation: the concept and its implementation in the areas of public engagement, gender equality and ethics

This article addresses the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which concerns extensive collaboration between different actors at all stages of the R&D process and emphasises the prevention of the potential negative impact of innovations. RRI has been incorporated as a key concept of Horizon 2020, the European Commission's framework programme for 2014-2020. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it serves to present and explain the concept of RRI. Secondly, it aims to describe the degree of familiarity and practical implementation of the RRI concept in the Polish innovation system among scientific and business institutions and formulate training needs in this area. Research questions have been answered based on in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of various institutions of the Polish innovation system. The study results show that despite the lack of familiarity with the definition of RRI, similar concepts are known, and practices concerning particular aspects of RRI, including ethics, public engagement and gender equality, are implemented to some extent. Finally, the most critical barriers to the implementation of the RRI concept have been identified.Niniejszy artykuł dotyczy koncepcji Odpowiedzialnych Badań i Innowacji (OBiI), zakładającej szeroką współpracę między różnymi podmiotami na wszystkich etapach procesu badawczo-rozwojowego i kładącej nacisk na zapobieganie potencjalnym negatywnym skutkom tego procesu. OBiI zostało wpisane jako kluczowe pojęcie programu ramowego Komisji Europejskiej na lata 2014–2020 Horyzont 2020. Cel artykułu jest dwojaki. Po pierwsze, służy on zaprezentowaniu i wyjaśnieniu pojęcia OBiI. Po drugie przedstawia stopień znajomości i praktycznego wdrożenia koncepcji OBiI w instytucjach polskiego systemu innowacji. Odpowiedzi na pytania badawcze udzielono na podstawie pogłębionych wywiadów indywidualnych przeprowadzonych z osobami zajmującymi stanowiska kierownicze w różnych instytucjach naukowych i biznesowych. Wyniki badania pokazują, że pomimo braku znajomości definicji OBiI w instytucjach polskiego systemu innowacji znane są zbliżone pojęcia oraz w pewnym stopniu wdrażane praktyki dotyczące poszczególnych aspektów OBiI, w tym etyki, zaangażowania społecznego oraz równości płci. Badanie pozwoliło również na sformułowanie potrzeb szkoleniowych w zakresie OBiI oraz zidentyfikowanie najważniejszych trudności we wdrażaniu tej koncepcji w instytucjach polskiego systemu innowacji

Sustainable and Sustainable Development form a socio-economic Perspective

The outcome of the Erasmus+ project Responsible Research and Innovation Learning are learning modules to anchor the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This required to develop a coherent concept of what sustainability and sustainable development is and which is the linkage to RRI. This discussion paper is not a result of an empirical research, but a revision of selected works consulted as policy documents, technical reports, articles and books on sustainability, sustainable development, social sustainability, economic sustainability and environmental and ecological economics. The purpose of this paper was not to provide new evidences, but to clarify basic concepts for the development of a learning programme. Despite the critics, we advocate for the three-pillar model of sustainable development. We take for grounded the validity of ecological sustainability as the main goal to mitigate the Anthropocene Crisis. We focus on the pillars of social and economic sustainability, underpinning that the social pillar, despite the recent efforts, is the less developed. In the area of economic sustainability, there is an important debate which concerns not only sustainability but also basic assumption of conventional economic approaches. In the background stands the question if the focus lies on economy as an integrated part of the system earth or as a system by its own. In the first case, the question is how economic activities contribute to maintain the earth as an ecosystem in which humanity can live. In the second case, the question is how to maintain economy as a value generation system considering the scarcity of natural resources in the frame of sustainable development. In both fields, social and economic sustainability, we observe a distinction between weak and strong sustainability, as two extremes of the societal implications of sustainability policies. The weak social sustainability approach support strategies without substantial change in society as a social system and the lowest political intervention as possible. The strong social sustainability approach assumed that ‘real’ sustainability strategies to contribute to solve the Anthropocene crisis will imply a fundamental transformation of society. Our starting point was that sustainability must be the reference point of RRI due to the Anthropocene crisis. In the conclusion, we argue that RRI should be an integrated part of sustainability as goals reinforcing the social pillar, but also as means to promote a high participation of society in the transformation to a sustainable world, to achieve a high degree of fairness of the transformation and to provide a sustainable ethical framework for science-based social and technological innovations.publishedVersio

RRIL - Presentation of the course: Public engagement

Responsible Research & Innovation is a genius concept developed by the European Commission for the governance of research and innovation processes with a view on the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products. It aims to shape, maintain, develop, coordinate and align existing and novel research and innovation-related processes, actors and responsibilities with a view to ensuring desirable and acceptable research outcomes. In the Horizon 2020 programmes, there were and are some projects focusing on related training needs. But there is no substantial attempt observable to develop continuous higher education programmes supporting the implementation of this concept and the respective reorganisation processes in universities, research centres, research and innovation oriented enterprises and public authorities like cities or regional governments. This project pretends to fulfil this gap through the co-creation of higher education modules between different research and innovation actors. RRIL especially focus on public engagement, gender equality and ethics (in the knowledge fields Energy and Economy) testing the learning modules in innovative environments based on interactive real-problem approaches. The modules developed are offered to research and innovation actors supporting the implementation of RRI principles in the organisations capacitating the learners to develop jointly innovative solution for societal problems. RRIL is based on co-creation and open innovation processes giving a prominent role to the learners. The co-creation is conceived as multidisciplinary and transversal among different kinds of actors as HEI, research centres, NGO’s and cities paving the way for knowledge exchange between them. It consists in informed learning among practitioners considering learners as a knowledgeable and critical partners in designing and implementation of the learning means. Under this perspective, the potential learners – programme coordinators and tutors - are considered peers working collaboratively on the project outputspublishedVersio

RRIL - Learning Programme of the course: Gender Equality

Responsible research and innovation (RRI), as an integrated concept, is being promoted by the European Union since 2010 and forms part of the Horizon 2020 in the area of science with and for society. RRI is formed by five strategic dimension: public engagement, gender equality, science education, open science and ethics, to which the transversal dimension of governance is added to develop harmonious governance models and institutional strategies. RRIL developed learning courses for three of these dimensions: public engagement, gender equality and ethics, to which we add an introductory course to ReSI. The course introduces the students how gender is conceived in conventional and gender economic approach and to the linkage between gender and ecological economics. It enables the practitioner to apply broader multi-disciplinary approach to evaluate the sustainable impact of their research and innovation activities based on the three pillar model: ecological, economic and social sustainability, but also to assess policy impact. The course introduces the learners in the topic of gender equality as a guiding principle of responsible and sustainable research enabling them to apply the gender perspective in the processes of social and technological innovation, taking here the fields of economy, energy and artificial intelligence, especially in urban planning as pivotal points. It underpins the linkage of the gender perspective with public engagement and innovation ethics to achieve sustainable impact of science based innovation enabling the students to apply holistic innovation approach using the three-pillar model of sustainability. The course is accessible and open for download and importation to other learning platform (previous registration as teacher) at canvas.instructure.com: English version: https://lor.instructure.com/resources/0aa23b741bac4f6a855057d12c8e17c1 Spanish version: https://lor.instructure.com/resources/d4d02abecfaa4b6a9c48db55d1630827publishedVersio

RRIL-Presentation of the course: Ethics in Responsible & Sustainable Innovation

Responsible research and innovation (RRI), as an integrated concept, is being promoted by the European Union since 2010 and forms part of the Horizon 2020 in the area of science with and for society. RRI is formed by five strategic dimension: public engagement, gender equality, science education, open science and ethics, to which the transversal dimension of governance is added to develop harmonious governance models and institutional strategies. RRIL developed learning courses for three of these dimensions: public engagement, gender equality and ethics, to which we add an introductory course to ReSI. The main objective of the course Ethics in Responsible & Sustainable Innovation. is raising awareness on ethical dimension of conducting research and innovation development, as well as providing inspiration, knowledge and learning tools related to ethical considerations in research and innovation processes. The course introduces the students to various approached applied to ensure societal relevance and ethical acceptability of R&D+I outcomes in the context of business activity, energy research, and urban development. In this understanding, an ethical reflection is closely related to other concepts, such as sustainability, transparency, the precautionary principle, social responsibility of science, impact assessment, or design for values. The course is based on the premise that to ensure social relevance and acceptability of any innovation, its impact should be evaluated at the early stages of the research process, including its possible unintended and unexpected consequences. Monitoring the innovation process could be enabled by sharing authorship and responsibility for the results with relevant social groups (citizens, policymakers, entrepreneurs, educators, etc.) who should be involved in all stages of the process while respecting the principles of gender balance. Therefore, the course stresses the connections between ethical dimension of R&D+I with public engagement and gender perspective, and present them as complementary concepts The course is accessible and open for download and importation to other learning platform (previous registration as teacher) at canvas.instructure.com at: English version: https://lor.instructure.com/resources/eec37eb0a22d49a1bd5139b105f4194b Spanish version: https://lor.instructure.com/resources/a49f57278c9d466baec185c5d5a07348publishedVersio

Power to, over and with: exploring power dynamics in social innovations in energy transitions across Europe

This paper explores how power relations are manifested, altered and/or reproduced in processes of social innovations in energy transitions (SIE). We explore this research question by developing an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary power heuristic building on different dimensions of power: power to, power over and power with. This conceptual framework helps us analyse the power dynamics in multiple types of SIEs that aim to contribute to sustainable energy transitions across three different national contexts: Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom (UK). Our findings show how social innovation involves different dimensions of power to/over/with, and how power relations are both altered and reproduced. The cases under study also lead us to argue that understanding how power dynamics develop requires the analysis of the interplay between different power dimensions across the multiplicity of actors within different SIE-fields and their initiatives

Social innovation supports inclusive and accelerated energy transitions with appropriate governance

Abstract Accelerating energy transitions that are both sustainable and just remains an important challenge, and social innovation can have a key role in this transition. Here, we examine the diversity and potential of social innovation in energy systems transformation, synthesizing original mixed methods data from expert interviews, document analysis, social innovation experiments, a representative survey, and an expert survey. Based on a thematic analysis of these data, we advance four key findings: (1) the diversity of social innovation in energy is best understood when recognizing core social practices (thinking, doing, and organizing) and accounting for changes in social relations (cooperation, exchange, competition, and conflict); (2) governance, policy networks, and national context strongly shape social innovation dynamics; (3) processes of social innovation are implicated by multidimensional power relations that can result in transformative changes; and (4) social innovation in energy generally has strong social acceptance among citizens, benefits local communities and is legitimized in key community and city organizations. We discuss an agenda for 9 future research directions on social innovation in energy, and conclude with insights related to national context, governance, and acceleration