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EG42CH22-Loorbach ARI 16 September 2017 11:12
Annual Review of Environment and Resources
Sustainability Transitions
Research: Transforming
Science and Practice for
Societal Change
Derk Loorbach, Niki Frantzeskaki, and Flor Avelino
Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3000 DR Rotterdam,
The Netherlands; email: loorbach@drift.eur
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2017. 42:599–626
First published online as a Review in Advance on
July 10, 2017
The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is
online at environ.annualreviews.org
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-
102014-021340
Copyright c
2017 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved
Keywords
sustainability transitions research, transdisciplinarity, transition governance
Abstract
The article describes the field of sustainability transitions research, which
emerged in the past two decades in the context of a growing scientific and
public interest in large-scale societal transformation toward sustainability.
We describe how different scientific approaches and methodological posi-
tions explore diverse types of transitions and provide the basis for multiple
theories and models for governance of sustainability transitions. We dis-
tinguish three perspectives in studying transitions: socio-technical, socio-
institutional, and socio-ecological. Although the field as a whole is very het-
erogeneous, commonalities can be characterized in notions such as path
dependencies, regimes, niches, experiments, and governance. These more
generic concepts have been adopted within the analytical perspective of tran-
sitions, which has led three different types of approaches to dealing with
agency in transitions: analytical, evaluative, and experimental. The field has
by now produced a broad theoretical and empirical basis along with a va-
riety of social transformation strategies and instruments, impacting disci-
plinary scientific fields as well as (policy) practice. In this article, we try to
characterize the field by identifying its main perspectives, approaches and
shared concepts, and its relevance to real-world sustainability problems and
solutions.
599
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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION: SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
2. TRANSITIONS RESEARCH: INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS,
EMERGENCE,AND OUTREACH........................................... 602
3.UNDERSTANDINGTRANSITIONS......................................... 605
3.1.Nonlinearity............................................................... 607
3.2. Multilevel Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
3.3. Coevolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
3.4.Emergence................................................................. 608
3.5.Variation andSelection..................................................... 608
4.DIFFERENT APPROACHESIN TRANSITIONSRESEARCH................ 608
4.1.Socio-TechnicalApproach.................................................. 609
4.2.Socio-InstitutionalApproach................................................ 610
4.3. Socio-Ecological Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
5.GOVERNANCE INTRANSITIONSRESEARCH............................. 612
5.1.Multi-ActorDynamics...................................................... 614
5.2. Reframing the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614
5.3.Importanceof Visioning.................................................... 614
5.4.Importanceof Experimenting............................................... 614
5.5.Importanceof Learningand Evaluating...................................... 615
6.APPROACHESTO GOVERNANCEIN TRANSITIONS...................... 615
6.1.Analyzing Governancein Transitions........................................ 615
6.2.EvaluatingGovernancein Transitions....................................... 616
6.3. Experimental Exploration of Transition Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
7. SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS RESEARCH AND ITS CHALLENGES . . 617
1. INTRODUCTION: SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSITIONS
The term transition is broadly used in many scientific disciplines and refers to a nonlinear shift from
one dynamic equilibrium to another. It has been regularly used in disciplines such as demography
(demographic transition), ecology (ecosystem transitions), psychology (development transitions),
and physics (phase transitions of substances). The term sustainability transitions is increasingly
used to refer to large-scale societal changes, deemed necessary to solve “grand societal challenges.”
In this article, we use this term as shorthand for transitions to sustainability—large-scale disrup-
tive changes in societal systems that emerge over a long period of decades. These sustainability
transitions are a threat to existing dynamically stable configurations facing persistent sustainability
challenges, and they present opportunities for more radical, systemic, and accelerated change.
A current and by now well-known example is the energy transition. Since at least the 1970s
it has been argued that societies need to move away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy
systems. But it has been only over the past decade or so that real progress is being made with
the diffusion of renewable technologies. It coincides with increasing disruptions in markets for
oil and gas, sharp declines in the use of coal, and struggling fossil energy companies. The current
dynamics are only partly driven by incumbent actors and are heavily influenced by “outsiders” to
the fossil energy system such as cooperatives and cities; companies such as Tesla, Siemens, Ikea, and
Google; and social movements such as the divestment movement and the LINGO (“Leave It in the
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Ground”) campaign. The energy transition is thus much more than merely a technological shift;
it is a power struggle and a socio-cultural change having a deep effect on incumbent institutions,
routines, and beliefs. It has known a very long period of predevelopment and has in many countries
now entered a period of turbulent and chaotic changes with uncertain outcomes. It is disrupting
relatively stable energy systems that in their turn are the outcome of historical and similarly chaotic
and unpredictable energy transitions. As with in the energy domain, many societal sectors have
historically experienced such major shifts and are likely to do so again in the future (1, 2).
At the end of the 1990s (3, 4), an inter- and transdisciplinary research field emerged based on
the identified need to anticipate and adapt to such transitions to come and related it to the quest
for accelerating sustainable development. Research in this field seeks to better understand the
dynamics and mechanisms of sustainability transitions and the role of agency herein to develop
better analytical tools and governance strategies. This field of sustainability transitions research
(hereafter, transitions research) comprises a large variety of approaches and perspectives that in
different ways have furthered insight into the persistency of unsustainable societal regimes and
possible transition pathways and transition management strategies to escape lock-in. Since its
introduction, the concept of sustainability transitions has been the subject of both scholarly and
public debate and has developed into a diffuse international field of both applied and fundamental
research. It has evolved to become a highly multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary field in which the
core concept of transitions serves as a bridge between different scientific disciplines and grand
societal challenges. The field is increasingly global and covers a broad range of sectors, domains,
and societal issues, ranging from energy, water, resources, food, and mobility to health care and
education, and transitioning regions, cities, and communities toward sustainability.
In this article, we describe how transitions research developed historically and provide a broad
overview of the overarching scientific perspectives and their contributions. This overview is by
definition limited and biased. It is limited in that we cannot extensively and completely do justice
to all the different concepts, ideas, and perspectives in the field or the various ways in which
it relates to established disciplines. The article is also biased in that it is largely based on the
authors’ understanding and perception of the rapidly expanding field—in this case, a bias toward
the origins of the field in the Netherlands and in Western European sustainability challenges
in a developed, modern society. We do, however, seek to provide a review of the field that is
inviting to scholars with a general interest in sustainability challenges from across the globe by
developing a more open and reflexive description of the field. Earlier categorizations of the field
(5, 6) identify several dominant schools of thought based on four central analytical concepts: the
socio-technical multilevel model, the technological innovation systems approach, strategic niche
management, and transition management. Although these four approaches certainly represent
dominant concepts in transitions research, we understand these as part of a broader research
perspective on sustainability transitions and address these as such.
In this article, we also focus explicitly on how transitions research links to complex sustainability
challenges. The field itself holds much research and many perspectives that are not explicit in this
link or have no prescriptive ambitions, but in this article we consider all of the research that relates
to understanding the dynamics and governance of large-scale nonlinear complex systems change
related to grand societal challenges. Such understanding, the transitions research perspective
argues, is necessary to address the grand societal challenges related to sustainability. This normative
starting point has been very influential in the development of research in the field, explicitly seeking
to inform governance and policy for sustainability transitions. Given the increasing recognition of
the need and possibility of realizing more fundamental transitions as opposed to following gradual
processes for reaching sustainable development, interest in transitions research has been steadily
growing. From the very start, transitions research interacted with policy and society, and has
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enabled and informed governance concepts and strategies for transitions. A central thesis in the
field is that grand societal challenges should be understood as systemic, and that dealing with such
challenges is only possible through fundamental systemic changes in societal regimes. The core
ambition of transitions research is to better understand such transitions, to anticipate and adapt
to undesirable transitions (e.g., ecosystem collapse, economic breakdown, high-impact climate
change), and to explore possibilities to advance and accelerate desired transitions.
This perspective brings a sense of urgency and societal engagement to the research as well
as the necessity to engage deeply in practical contexts where actors deal with transitions. It is
increasingly recognized that such possible or actual transitions are not automatically desirable or
beneficial to society at large. This has brought a new perspective to the thinking and practice
of sustainable development. From a transition perspective, sustainable development policies and
programs have focused too much on reducing unsustainability through optimization, thereby (un-
willingly) adding to the lock-in of societal systems (7). At the same time, the transition perspective
suggests that momentum for systemic change is building. The Sustainable Development Goals
and the COP21 Paris Agreement signal that the need for change is no longer questioned, and
the overall direction away from a fossil-based economy is clear. It further empowers and accel-
erates an enormous amount of disruptive innovations, including technological innovations (e.g.,
renewable energy technologies, 3D printing, circular design, electric mobility, energy-providing
buildings), institutional and economic change (e.g., divestment, sharing and social economy, social
entrepreneurship, alternative and digital currencies), as well as changing lifestyle practices (e.g.,
vegetarianism, ecotourism, low-impact lifestyles, sustainable clothing).
The article is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the intellectual origins and evolution of
the field going back to its roots in the 1990s, while acknowledging the sources of inspiration from
the decades before. By sketching this history, we show how transitions research has developed
as an interdiscipline, that the concept of sustainability transitions has and still is functioning
as a boundary object bridging scientific disciplines as well as science and (policy) practice. We
illustrate this by describing the intellectual growth, as well as how the research gained a foothold
in research funding and policy programs. In Section 3 we describe what we consider to be the shared
conceptual basis for understanding transitions as well as the main scientific perspectives in the field
and what their specific contributions are. Section 4 describes the different ways in which the role
of agency and governance are conceptualized in transitions research, and how these are translated
into experimental interventions in real-life contexts. In Section 5 we summarize the position and
contributions of transitions research and we reflect on the main challenges and prospects.
2. TRANSITIONS RESEARCH: INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS,
EMERGENCE, AND OUTREACH
In this section, we describe how the field and community of transitions research emerged at the
intersection between science and policy, including its intellectual origins and expansions, as well
its public uptake, outreach, and subsequent funding and support. During the 1990s, the concept of
transitions emerged at different places in the scientific community as a novel concept to generally
address large-scale societal change and sustainability (8–11). The field of transitions research,
as it exists today, can be traced back to at least two major (clusters of ) intellectual roots in the
1990s. The first was the broad category of innovation research, including science and technology
studies, history of technology, evolutionary economics, and innovation policy (12–15). The second
was the partly overlapping fields of environmental studies and sustainability sciences, including
environmental assessment, integrated assessment, sustainability governance, and environmental
policy (11, 16–18). Although this cluster represents a multitude of different disciplines, the streams
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feeding into transitions research addressed complex unstructured sustainability problems in the
real world based on integrating different disciplines as well as tacit or lay knowledge. The field
of transitions research was fueled by the realization that new research approaches are required to
investigate the dynamics of complex societal problems and to guide the development of system
solutions to address them.
The initial focus of transitions research was on analyzing transitions in socio-technical sys-
tems (e.g., mobility, energy, agriculture). Already early on, the link between the more historical,
innovation-oriented transitions research and sustainability and governance scholars led to for-
mulating more abstract implications for government policy. From then on, transitions research
broadened the focus toward societal systems more generally (e.g., regions, functional domains,
cities) and to reflexive governance for sustainable development (3, 19, 20), including prescriptive
design recommendations for transition management. Other more recent intellectual expansions
of the field include an increasing focus on geographically delineated systems in transition, such
as cities (21) and neighborhoods (22); socio-ecological system understandings; socio-economic
trends and new economy phenomena (23, 24); issues of power, politics, actors, and discourse
(25–27); and the role of civil society, grassroots initiatives, and social innovation (28, 29). These
so-called intellectual expansions are not just a matter of additional disciplinary perspectives. They
represent a shift in the object and dimensions of sustainability transitions: from a focus on socio-
technical systems to a recognition of socio-ecological, socio-economic, and socio-political systems
as equally relevant objects of transition.
Within the growing policy discourse on innovation for sustainability, the terms transition and
system innovation first appeared and have continued to be applied as policy concepts. Today, we
find this transition concept in various international policy contexts. For example, the European
Environmental Agency, in its 2015 synthesis report on “the state and outlook” of the environ-
ment, explicitly argued that “living well within the limits of the planet requires a transition to
a green economy,” and that it is necessary to respond to “systemic challenges” and to integrate
“policy approaches for a long-term transition” (30). The Climate-KIC partnerships, one of the
Knowledge & Innovation Community (KIC) programs of the European Institute of Technology
(EIT), has elaborately integrated transition discourse as well as involved transitions researchers
in various education and investment programs, and it recently launched the Transition Hub as a
European competence and training center for applied transition management. Future Earth is a
10-year international research program of the International Council for Science that aims to build
knowledge about the environmental and human aspects of global change and to find solutions for
sustainable development. Future Earth included as one of the guiding pillars in its program the
“transformations to sustainability” to guide the debate and knowledge coproduction for global en-
vironmental research. Sustainability transitions research has been also adopted by the International
Social Sciences Council that further elaborated on the importance to investigate and understand
transformations to sustainability as a global agenda for social sciences research for the future.
Beyond the European context, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) published a synthesis report in 2015 on “system innovation,” in which it consulted tran-
sitions researchers and drew on transition (management) literature to argue—inter alia—that “the
dynamics of system innovation provide a new rationale for policy interventions, based not only on
addressing single market failures but on solving interconnected problems through a combination
of market mechanisms and policy tools” (31, p. 9).
Among civil society and transnational grassroots networks, there is growing attention to
transitions. The Transition Towns network, for instance, facilitates thousands of communities
across the world working on “transitioning” neighborhoods and communities toward a more re-
silient and sustainable future (26). This Transition Towns network cooperates with several other
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grassroots organizations, for instance, under the European Network for Community-led Initiatives
on Climate Change and Sustainability (ECOLISE), which promotes and supports local commu-
nities across Europe “in their efforts to build pathways to a sustainable future” (see their mission
statement, here: http://www.ecolise.eu/). The Smart CSO (Civil Society Organisations) Lab is
an international network of more than 1,000 activists, CSO leaders, and researchers “aiming to
fundamentally rethink and redesign how activists and change agents in civil society can effectively
work towards a systemic change.” This systemic change is referred to as “the Great Transition,”
and the Smart CSO Lab proposes five leverage points as a basis for “a meta-theory of change for
the Great Transition from a CSO perspective,” which is based on transitions research literature
and its Multi-level Perspective (MLP) (32). Related to that, the Great Transition network, which
has its headquarters at the Tellus Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, involves a “global, inter-
disciplinary group of hundreds of scholars and activists who share a common goal of elaborating
visions and pathways for a Great Transition” (http://greattransition.org/).
When we look further back into the past, we find that one of the first public networks to
explicitly embrace the sustainability transition discourse emerged in the Netherlands at the turn
of the century, when the Dutch national government officially announced transition policy. In
2001 the concepts of transition and transition management were introduced in the fourth Dutch
National Environmental Policy Plan (NMP4). Four transitions were identified as necessary: (a)to
sustainable energy, (b) to sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources, (c) to sustainable
agriculture, and (d) to sustainable mobility (5). Transition management was presented as “a strategy
to deal with environmental degradation by stimulating sustainable development as a specific aim
of policy making” (33). The following is necessary, according to VROM (33):
To solve the big environmental problems we need system innovation which may take various forms. The
[system] innovation may take the form of a societal transformation process that may take one generation
or more. For the transformation to happen, economic, social-cultural and institutional changes are
needed that reinforce each other. [N]ew parties and innovative technologies play an important role.
It is not a matter for the government alone but for the whole of society. [M]anagement of transitions
requires a form of process management in which uncertainty, complexity and interdependencies are
addressed.
In conjunction with the introduction of the NMP4, the Dutch government funded a national
research program to develop a knowledge base for sustainability transitions, which helped to
develop the basis for transitions research. This 20 million euro research program Knowledge
Network for Transitions and System Innovation (KSI) was funded between 2004 and 2010 as one
of 38 knowledge programs to stimulate sustainable innovation in the Netherlands. Together with
the other programs, it was part of a wider transition network of organizations, institutes, programs,
and partnerships in the Netherlands, with its own conferences, meetings, and communication. This
transition network included a Competence Centre for Transitions and the Knowledge Centre for
Transitions. Many of the programs that were funded, included international researchers that would
partly use the funding to enable meetings with other researchers, not only in the Netherlands,
but also beyond. The KSI network used part of the funding to organize the first International
Sustainability Transition (IST) conference in Amsterdam in 2009.
After the KSI funding stopped in 2010, many researchers that had been involved in the com-
munity from various places of the world founded the international Sustainability Transitions
Research Network (STRN). Although the STRN itself is informal and formally unfunded, many
of the researchers and institutes involved receive extensive public funding to conduct (applied)
transitions research. Today, such research funding is available from several international sources,
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including the European Union’s FP7 and Horizon Program, the Joint Program Initiative of Urban
Europe, and national funding schemes in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan. In this way, an
increasing global and heterogeneous research field of transitions research has emerged and still
is developing. The next section describes some of the analytical core concepts and ideas that are
central to transitions research.
3. UNDERSTANDING TRANSITIONS
Transitions in their literal sense refer to the process of change from one state to another. In
transitions research, the term refers to the process of change from one system state to another via
a period of nonlinear disruptive change. Such systemic change, by definition, is the result of an
interplay of a variety of changes at different levels and in different domains that somehow interact
and reinforce each other to produce a fundamental qualitative change in a societal system. The
notion of transitions, present in many scientific disciplines for more than a century (see also 34),
in general thus refers to a qualitative change in the state of a complex system. Transitions research
applies this perspective to complex societal systems, asking how these could make a structural
qualitative shift from (perceived) persistent unsustainability toward a more sustainable state.
The core idea in transitions research is that disruptive systemic change can be located in so-
called regimes: the dominant order in a societal (sub)system. The concept of regime is perhaps the
most central notion in transition studies: a dominant and stable configuration in a societal system.
In the context of the MLP, the notion of a socio-technical regime was introduced by Rip, Schot
and Kemp (13, 35) and further popularized by Geels (36) to help explain path dependency and
lock-in of existing socio-technical systems around specific technologies such as the steam engine or
coal-fired power plants. It was introduced combined with the multiphase model of transitions (3),
which identified four phases of predevelopment, take-off, acceleration, and stabilization, through
which a transition occurred. The novelty introduced by this transition perspective was that it
understands a dominant configuration or regime in the context of its interaction with changing
external (landscape) factors, preferences, and pressures as well as in interaction with emerging
novelties, innovations, and alternatives. Societal regimes (e.g., dominant technologies, institutions,
routines, cultures) emerge out of historical transitions and develop path-dependently through
processes of optimization and incremental innovation. As the broader societal context changes and
new radical alternatives develop and emerge, regimes inevitably will enter a process of increased
stress, internal crises, destabilization, and shock-wise systemic reconfiguration (37, 38). Figure 1
shows this original multilevel, multiphase perspective on transitions.
This original multilevel and multiphase concept of transitions emphasized transitions as pro-
cesses of innovation. Over time these have been extended to include more detailed understandings
of the underlying patterns and mechanisms as well as to understand transitions as combined pro-
cesses of building up and breaking down. Inevitably this is part of how complex societal systems
evolve. Path dependency is inevitable because of sunk investments, benefits of scale, and the co-
evolutionary dynamic within a regime. But such path dependencies over time ultimately imply
the inability to change beyond optimization, hence causing systemic tensions and problems. Once
disturbed by external crises, internal tensions or better alternatives (37, 39, 40), reorganization
toward a new equilibrium is by definition shock-wise and whimsical, creating chaotic and unpre-
dictable patterns of change. Where initially experimentation and acceleration were the main foci
in transitions research, in recent years increasing attention is given to processes of destabilization,
emergence, and institutional change. By building on historical cases as well as reflecting on and
analyzing currently evolving transitions, a theoretical basis has been developed that identifies the
different patterns and mechanisms of change that drive nonlinear structural change in complex
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Patchwork
of regimes
Landscape
Niches
(novelty)
Increasing structuration of
activities in local practices
Increasing structuration of
activities in local practices
Niche
innovations
Socio-technical
landscape
(exogenous
context)
Socio-
technical
regime
Time
System
breakdown
Take-o
System state
Predevelopment Acceleration
Stabilization
Lock-in
Backlash
Time
Small networks of actors support novelties on the basis of expectations and visions.
Learning processes take place on multiple dimensions (co-construction).
Eorts are made to link dierent elements in a seamless web.
Elements become aligned
and stabilize in a dominant design.
Internal momentum increases.
New conguration breaks through, taking
advantage of windows of opportunity.
Adjustments occur in the socio-technical regime.
New regime
inuences
landscape
Landscape developments
put pressure on the existing regime,
which opens up, creating windows
of opportunity for novelties.
Technology
Technology
Markets, user
preferences
Markets, user
preferences
Culture
Policy
Science
Industry
The socio-technical regime is dynamically stable.
On dierent dimensions there are ongoing processes.
External inuences on niches
(via expectations and networks)
ab
c
Figure 1
The original multilevel, multiphase perspective on transitions with (a) the multilevel model depicting the coevolution between
landscape, socio-technical regimes, and niches; (b) socio-technical regime change as result of coevolving landscape pressures and
emerging niches over time; and (c) the multiphase concept illustrating the nonlinearity of transitions and different types of pathways.
Panels adapted with permission from References 35, 4, and 124, respectively.
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societal systems. Figure 2 shows this analytical model to understand and study the dynamics of
transitions.
This analytical model of transitions provides a systematic way to reflect on ongoing and past
transitions as evolutionary revolutions in complex societal systems. It builds on several core con-
cepts that bring more specificity to understanding the type of change inherent to transitions
and to understanding how transitions research studies complex changes in society. These are the
following.
3.1. Nonlinearity
Transitions are disruptive changes that develop in a shock-wise manner rather than in a gradual
way. Research in the field therefore distinguishes change in general from transitions insofar as it
is concerned with stepwise changes into a qualitatively different state. The notion of disruptive
change is present in many disciplines that are drawn upon by transitions researchers. Perhaps
most prominent is the idea of punctuated equilibria and tipping points in evolutionary biology
and ecology. But similar nonlinearities are studied in innovation sciences, often referred to as
disruptive innovation.
3.2. Multilevel Dynamics
Transitions are located in a particular system but are always conceptualized as the result of inter-
acting dynamics at multiple levels. The most basic distinction that is shared within the field is that
between the context (landscape), the dominant configuration (regime), and alternatives (niches)
(41). But the concept of transitions implies a nested perspective: The transitions on which we fo-
cus are also part of higher-level transitions, and include lower-level transitions. Analytically, this
means that transitions are always related to their context and that attention is given to interscale
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Figure 2
Dynamics of societal transitions as iterative processes of build-up and breakdown over a period of decades. In
a changing societal context, established regimes develop path-dependently through optimization, while
change agents start to experiment with alternative ideas, technologies, and practices. Over time pressures on
regimes to transform increase, leading to destabilization as alternatives start to accelerate and emerge. The
actual transition is then chaotic and disruptive and new combinations of emerging alternatives and
transformative regime elements grow into a new regime. In this process elements of an old regime that do
not transform are broken down and phase out.
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dynamics, be it technologically (e.g., upscaling), institutionally (e.g., multilevel governance), or
spatially (e.g., spatial diffusion).
3.3. Coevolution
The nonlinear and multilevel understanding of transitions also includes an understanding of com-
plex system change as the result of interacting types of changes. What is studied is not innovation
or change in one dimension or domain, but by definition, across domains. It is based on the no-
tion that innovation itself is a systemic process whereby, for example, technological innovation
interacts with social and institutional changes in a coevolutionary way, meaning that through their
interaction the interacting elements themselves also change (42, 43). In transitions research this
is often referred to as multidomain, and in practice implies including a variety of technological,
social, economic, ecological, and institutional factors in the analysis. Coevolution implies thinking
beyond linear causalities: It is not a matter of asking what comes first or what causes what, but
rather a matter of acknowledging how different phenomena shape and relate to each other over
longer periods of time.
3.4. Emergence
Closely related to the coevolutionary perspective is the notion of emergence and surprise. The
concept of transitions implies the emergence of a new dynamically stable order out of a process of
chaotic, coevolutionary change. In other words, transitions are the outcome of all sorts of actions
and changes that somehow lead to new structures in a way that was not foreseen or planned
in advance. Besides the practical impossibility of predicting the outcomes of complex societal
changes over a period of decades, the notion of emergence in transition studies thus also refers to
the insights from complex systems theory relating to chaos and order. Transitions are considered to
be societal processes of fundamental change including emergent and coordinated characteristics.
Coordinated emergence describes the principle of radical change in incremental steps. In this way,
a transition can be coordinated by creating shared future orientations and guiding values and at
the same time creating space for experimentation and diversity in the short term, allowing for new
solutions and ways of organizing to emerge.
3.5. Variation and Selection
Novelty as outcome of a processes of experimentation and learning-by-doing (either technologi-
cal, institutional or governance innovation) plays a crucial role in the way sustainability transitions
are instigated, accelerated, and triggered. Different approaches emphasize various forms of inno-
vation and how they relate with the disruptive novelty creation and ultimately systemic change.
More recent work in sustainability transitions research also focuses on the role of social innova-
tion produced by civil society (initiatives, organizations, social business models, movements) in
sustainability transitions. This focus on transformative social innovations also broadens the un-
derstanding of innovation and the ability to develop effective innovation policies or strategies to
include altering values and beliefs at the collective level, creating and establishing social-ecological
lifestyles, and reflexive practices as experiments contributing to transitions.
4. DIFFERENT APPROACHES IN TRANSITIONS RESEARCH
The core ideas in transitions research have been taken up in a range of disciplines, domains,
and research fields. Depending on the entry point, transitions researchers approach the question
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of large-scale societal change in different ways: as technological, institutional, social, ecological,
economic, or cultural. This has led to the development of theories and perspectives on different
types and dimensions of transitions or, arguably, different angles or perspectives on sustainability
transitions based on the main societal problem or solution taken as a starting point. We argue
that the strength of the field is that it allows for very fundamental differences in ideas about the
role of research and how to approach research on transitions, while at the same time enabling
debates across disciplines and approaches through the joint language and concepts of transitions.
This has led to ongoing debates between different perspectives with regard to the nature of “what”
is involved in transition, how that can best be studied, and what the insights imply for practice.
These debates create the kind of dynamic, exchange, critical reflection, and intellectual deepening
that has driven knowledge development and integration.
The most central debate concerns the notion of transition itself, represented in the three
parts of Grin et al.’s (4) Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long
Term Transformative Change. Part 1 represents the historical perspective on transitions, which
reconstructs historical socio-technical system changes and argues that transitions can be analyzed
only in hindsight. Part 2 represents the focus on recent (contemporary) and emerging transitions,
assuming that the underlying patterns and dynamics of historical transitions can be used as bases for
hypothesizing possible future patterns and possible interventions. This part of transitions research
rather anticipates and explores the possibility and desirability of future transitions as an inevitable
outcome of path dependencies that produce symptoms of unsustainability. Part 3 represents the
more external reflexive approach that understands transitions as emerging and whose research
functions to describe and reflect on unfolding patterns of change. Each approach has its merits
and specific understandings of the role of researchers, and transitions research does not strive for
consensus or uniform definitions. Transitions research aims to offer frameworks, concepts, and a
language that helps to facilitate and structure discussion and reflection across different disciplines
and domains.
Many of the ongoing debates within transitions research relate to the differences in episte-
mological and disciplinary backgrounds from which transitions are studied. In the next sections,
we describe three dominant and prominent approaches and the motivations behind these. We
use the term approach to refer to the way the topic of transition is approached scientifically,
epistemologically, and normatively. Although some are more driven toward description and con-
ceptual understanding, most of the transitions research explicitly pursues a normative goal, i.e.,
understanding sustainability transitions. The three approaches we discern are similar in their
interest and focus on transitions but different in how they seek to understand these, what the
core subject of transition is, and which drivers and mechanisms they attach the most explanatory
value to. We discern the following distinctive research approaches to study transitions, each with
their own respective disciplinary and methodological backgrounds and objectives: socio-technical,
socio-institutional, and socio-ecological.
4.1. Socio-Technical Approach
The socio-technical approach has its roots in science and technology studies and lies at the roots
of transitions research. Although there is increasing attention to other approaches, many transi-
tions researchers take a socio-technical approach to studying transitions. Socio-technical regimes
that have emerged around dominant technologies are the subject of transitions. Innovation takes
a prominent role in understanding the dynamics of path dependency, sunk costs, lock-in, and
disruption. Typical examples under study are systems in which infrastructures and technologies
play an important role: energy, mobility, or water. Two major analytical lenses include the MLP
and the Technological Innovations Systems (TIS) framework.
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Studies into socio-technical transitions are heavily influenced by the MLP and research into the
history of technology (13). In general, empirical studies are considering processes of technological
substitution (e.g., from horses-and-carriage to automobile) as a result of the interplay between
incumbent regime structures, external landscape pressures, and emerging niches. Such niches
are considered as protected spaces necessary for innovations to mature vis-`
a-vis incumbent socio-
technical regimes. Niche creation and development can be a market based or a government-driven
process. On the basis of several empirical case studies, different transition pathways have been
conceptualized (40), as have the evolution of niches and how they can be understood (44, 45).
Within socio-technical transitions research, innovation journeys (46) are reconstructed through
desk research and data analysis to map the patterns and dynamics of regime change. The origins of
this perspective are innovation studies, history of technology, constructive technology assessment,
and economics of innovation (47). The MLP is increasingly used to assess the potential of emerging
and desired technologies against the background of incumbent structures and technologies. The
insights stemming from socio-technical research provide basic starting points for nurturing and
managing niches (see Section 5).
A related perspective that has a more explicit focus on innovation policy is that of TIS (48),
which understands (technological) innovation as a systemic process in which technologies coevolve
with an emerging market structure, a governance context, and user preferences (49, 50). Without
explicitly considering an incumbent regime context, TIS seeks to understand the mechanisms that
enable technological innovations and provides an assessment framework according to governance
guidelines. These are conceptualized as the “motors” of innovation (51), e.g., those factors that
determine the extent to which a new technology is able to scale up and diffuse into an existing
market.
4.2. Socio-Institutional Approach
This term refers to a wider range of approaches that draw from social sciences to understand
systemic changes in complex societal systems. These approaches draw from social sciences such as
economics, political science, sociology, governance studies, and geography. We refer to these as
socio-institutional, as these approaches identify institutionalized cultures, structures, and practices
(52) as regimes in which transitional change takes place. These approaches often focus on specific
sectors or geographical areas that face persistent problems. Although technologies might play an
important role in understanding transitional change, the emphasis is rather on how incumbent
routines, powers, interests, discourses, and regulations create path dependencies and how these are
challenged by (transformative) social innovations. The socio-institutional perspective is applied to
societal systems facing persistent environmental challenges such as mobility, waste management,
and energy but increasingly also to systems such as health care, education, finance, and democracy.
Examples of this approach are studies on societal transitions (23, 53), practice-based transitions
(54), transitions in consumption and production (55, 56, 57), and spatial transitions (58). Typically
this approach focuses explicitly on the role of agency and governance in such transitions and takes a
more reflexive stance. It highlights issues of normativity, ambiguity and social construction (59) as
well as reflects upon the interaction between multiple regimes (60). In addition, there is attention
for social learning (61), culture and daily practices as factors that have a strong influence on the
direction and dynamics of transitions.
In the socio-institutional approach, institutional dynamics (62, 63) are addressed more promi-
nently to explain inertia and lock-in as well as to critically explore issues of power, politics, and
agency (64–66). These have led to a series of theoretical and empirical studies into power and
politics in transitions (25, 67–70). These include research on dialectics and Trojan horses (71),
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international energy policy, development in relation to transitions, and politics of space (72, 73).
These studies emphasize that sustainability transitions are inherently political as they imply sys-
temic change often directly. But they also draw attention to socio-political transitions themselves,
such as the transition in democracy (74) and from centralized governance structures to decentral-
ized, not-for-profit community-based and/or Third-Sector-based energy cooperatives (75, 76).
More attention for such socio-political dimensions is being developed concurrently with adjacent
fields of grassroots innovation and social innovation (77, 78). Increasingly, attention is drawn to
applying transitions research to governance systems and democratic regimes as such, considering
the current ways in which societies are organized as dominant locked-in regimes that are vulnera-
ble to transition pressures (73). The focus on socio-institutional dimensions of change often relates
to a more normative orientation toward emerging or ongoing transitions and therefore also draws
on different types of methods and epistemologies than the socio-technical approaches that tend
to be more analytical and descriptive. In this approach, also more qualitative, action-oriented, and
transdisciplinary methods are common.
4.3. Socio-Ecological Approach
A third distinct suite of approaches builds on insight from ecology, biology, complex adaptive
systems theory, ecosystem services, and adaptive governance. The socio-ecological approach has
its roots in ecology and resilience theory (79), seeking to understand (in)stability in ecosystems
but evolved to look at coupled socio-ecological systems. Transitions in ecosystems are understood
as nonlinear shifts from one attractor basin to another passing certain “tipping points.” These
shifts from one dynamic equilibrium to another are nonlinear, almost irreversible, and follow a
pattern of buildup, stabilization, breakdown, and recovery (80). Within the resilience approach,
the interplay between such ecological transitions and the societal context is addressed, and it
examines the way in which this context pushes ecosystems beyond tipping points and planetary
boundaries (81, 82). Research on planetary boundaries provides a frame of reference for mapping
and assessing the accelerated impacts of anthropogenic activities and connects with the ways the
UN Sustainable Development Goals can facilitate a process of tackling global change by addressing
the interconnected planetary boundaries. Planetary boundaries provide also the frame of reference
for actions required to re-establish planetary resilience and are signposts on thresholds of socio-
ecological systems and their change. Here often the term transformation is used to address the need
for systemic sustainable solutions, whereas resilience is related to the ability of a system to withstand
shocks while maintaining function as well as to transform anticipating external pressures, shocks
and threats. Interestingly, the resilience perspective has originated from the desire to sustain
ecosystems in their current “attractor basins” (similar to the notion of regime) and to prevent
catastrophic collapse. The concept of resilience found applications in broader domains including
policy and planning with often a non-normative understanding neglecting that there is desirable
and undesirable resilience in systems; for example, corruption is an undesirable but very resilient
system. Resilience research in general has a very long history and applications in understanding its
drivers and institutions, but more coordinated research into socio-ecological transitions did not
develop until the 1990s.
The socio-ecological perspective is applied in different ways, including a focus on metabolism
(83), external catalyzing events (84, 85), or the alternation of different dynamic processes (also
known as panarchy) (80). Over the past years, the socio-ecological perspective has increasingly
engaged with issues such as biodiversity and nature, nature-based solutions and ecosystem services,
and climate resilience (86). Inevitably also more attention to the role of agency and governance
has developed producing concepts such as adaptive governance and stewardship (87, 88, 89).
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Table 1 Three different perspectives on sustainability transitions
Socio-technical Socio-institutional Socio-ecological
Disciplines Innovation studies, history,
technology, science and technology
studies, practice theory
Sociology, governance, policy,
economics, geography, political
science
Ecology, biology, governance
Focus Technology in social context
Analysis of (historical) innovation
journeys
Institutions, agency, power
Analysis of networks, social
innovation and governance
Ecology and socio-ecological
relations
Analysis of system vulnerability and
transformative capacity
Main
analytical
lenses
Seamless web, multilevel perspective,
path dependency, strategic niche
management
Culture, structure, and practices;
power in transition; transition
management, multi-actor
perspective
Panarchy, resilience, adaptive and
transformative capacity, navigating,
planetary boundaries
Approach
to the
energy
transition
Emphasis on technological
innovation, e.g., transition from
combustion engine to electric car or
from coal-fired power plants to
solar panels in a societal context
through dedicated innovation policy
Emphasis on political and
institutional change, e.g., from
central to decentral energy
production as a shift in power
from centralized monopolies to
decentralized networks through
countermovement and disruption
Emphasis on ecological thresholds
and extraction of fossil resources to
renewable resources within closed
cycles through adaptive
management
By studying dynamics in a great variety of socio-ecological systems, research has been able to
identify different types of human-ecosystem interactions that either negatively influence ecosystem
resilience or might help to strengthen it. These are captured by theoretical concepts and insights
relating to thresholds, maladaptive persistent states in complex systems, and panarchy. But often
it is argued that transitions in social contexts are necessary to sustain the stability of ecosystems
and/or enhance their capacity to deal with disturbances (through transformation) (90). Table 1
summarizes the different perspectives and their specific characteristics; Figure 3 illustrates the
three approaches and typical empirical domains of research.
5. GOVERNANCE IN TRANSITIONS RESEARCH
Analytically, the understanding of transition processes can be distinguished from the understand-
ing of how actors (can) influence transition processes: The first object of study is referred to as
transition dynamics, the latter as transition governance. The question of governance in sustain-
ability transitions is at the heart of transitions research. The main driver behind the emergence
of transitions research has been the search for new insights and ideas to understand how to steer
clear from unsustainability lock-in and how to mobilize and empower disruptive innovations and
transformative capacity from the system toward desirable sustainability transitions. To this end,
the system (dynamics) approaches provide a useful analytical basis but also a starting point for
exploring the role of agency in transitions and specifically on how agency might influence the
pace and direction of transitions and ultimately how such agency can be stimulated to contribute
to sustainability transitions. This thinking positions transitions research as a field that asks new
questions for governance—not only understanding the ways that existing instruments and in-
stitutional responses contribute to sustainable ends but also the inner workings of policy and
governance. Transitions research advocates that governance is a multi-actor process in which sys-
temic solutions, disruptive innovations, and (reflexive) institutions are formed by experimenting
and learning.
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Socio-ecological
Socio-technical
Socio-institutional
Nonlinearity
Multilevel
Coevolution
Emergence
Regimes
Niches
Health care
Education
Labor
Finance
Energy
Mobility
Water
Waste
Forestry
Fisheries
Agriculture
Biodiversity
Figure 3
Three approaches to studying sustainability transitions that each present different ways to understand
sustainability transitions, in a more socio-technical, socio-ecological, or socio-institutional way. Although
these approaches share a similar interest in the nonlinear process of transitions, they come from different
disciplinary and epistemological backgrounds and bring different types of insights and methods to
sustainability transitions research.
Transition governance ideas build on the idea that the network society facilitates all sorts of ways
through which actors organize themselves to produce solutions to societal problems drawing on
insights from governance literature around (meta-)governance (91–93) and network governance
(94–97). Transition governance then seeks to influence how actors do this and how different types
of agency add up by adding the perspective of transitions as regime shifts in societal systems that are
by definition (partly) initiated outside incumbent structures, vested interests, and dominant insti-
tutions during predevelopment and destabilization. Combined with the argument that dominant
governance logics of state and market are at odds with sustainability, transition governance gen-
erally calls for targeted strategies to empower context-specific transformative solutions developed
in multi-actor networks. This implies, for example, a specific focus on radical and transformative
technological and social innovation in earlier stages of transitions as well as strategies focused on
dealing with regime destabilization and institutionalization of emerging transitions.
The field of sustainability transitions by now includes several different approaches to under-
standing and operationalizing transition governance, including strategic niche management (40),
reflexive governance (98), transition management (99), and policies for innovation systems (50).
What these different approaches have in common is particular attention for system innovation
and socio-technical coevolution. This diverse subfield of transition governance can in turn be
positioned in relation to the broader context of an environmental governance for transformation
(82, 100, 101) and sustainability governance (102, 103). The diversity of analytical perspectives to
understand transitions is thus complemented with a perhaps even larger diversity of approaches
toward their governance. As Patterson et al. (104) summarize, “a variety of conceptual approaches
have been developed to understand and analyze societal transition or transformation processes,
including: socio-technical transitions, social-ecological systems, sustainability pathways, and trans-
formative adaptation.” These approaches, albeit different, also share many common characteristics
and elements summarized below.
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5.1. Multi-Actor Dynamics
Several transition scholars have emphasized how transitions involve multiple actors from various
institutional backgrounds (e.g., market, government, science, civil society) and that the shifting
power relations and role constellations between different actors is inherent to any transition process
(25, 26, 105). Acknowledging that some actors might be more related to regime contexts than
others and that individuals might be more flexible in relating themselves to niches or regimes draws
attention to issues of power asymmetries and the different types of influence actors have (63, 106,
107). Transitions research therefore seeks to understand how different types and forms of agency
influence the speed and direction of transitions and how they can be engaged, can be empowered,
and can more effectively contribute to desired transitions. This includes an interest in processes
of institutional change and structuration as well as in roles of radical outsiders, frontrunners, or
marginalized groups.
5.2. Reframing the Problem
Societal consensus around problems influences where investments and actions are directed. His-
torical transitions underline the importance of such discursive changes at the societal level through
which persistent problems are recognized and translated into new future directions and ultimately
into interventions. An important element in transition governance is therefore the support and
development of shared and deeper insight and the need for systemic change. It uses transition
concepts to broaden the ways in which actors understand complex societal problems. It does so
by introducing thinking in terms of symptoms of underlying persistent problems, path dependen-
cies and lock-in, and unproductive niche-regime interaction. Going through such processes in a
participatory way stimulates development of a (new) shared discourse (108–110).
5.3. Importance of Visioning
An important driver for innovation and experimentation at all levels is the belief actors have in
alternative futures and fundamental values that they strive to realize. Visioning alternative system
futures, scenario-building, and backcasting (111, 112) are therefore important tools in transition
governance to facilitate and empower actors and networks, so that they can more strategically
work on transitions, explore more radical innovation trajectories, and formulate alternative goals
and agendas. A vision is useful in giving direction, but the importance of the vision itself should
not be overstated as there are often many different visions competing in a context where all sorts
of uncertainties and seemingly random events might take over. The role of visions in transition
governance is thus mainly to motivate, coordinate, and empower actions in the short term and
medium term (113).
5.4. Importance of Experimenting
As transitions are complex and unstructured processes of change, a process of learning-by-doing
and doing-by-learning is the only way to adapt, change, and transform existing dominant cul-
tures, structures, and practices. The transition perspective views alternatives to the dominant as
experimental as they might inform how a desired transition might unfold. Experimenting is there-
fore a way to unpack complexity and to gather evidence on the new relations and new roles that
a transition requires. Sustainability transitions therefore require technological, organizational,
place-explicit, and governance experimentations (114–116).
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5.5. Importance of Learning and Evaluating
In real-life contexts, achieving social innovation, by definition, implies social learning: reshaping
social interactions, roles, knowledge, language and practices. It is evident that besides transfer
of knowledge, contexts also influence behavioral and mental change in actors. Thus, transition
approaches seek to develop (physical, emotional, network, process) contexts that make actors
reflect, rethink, and reshape their thoughts and actions (117, 118). Transition governance therefore
calls for continuous learning and adapting. Systematic transition monitoring and evaluation can
help reflect on how deliberate actions interact with broader societal transition dynamics and vice
versa. Such systematic reflections that focus on dynamics and processes rather than implementation
or output can help to reorient interventions and identify new opportunities (119, 120).
6. APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE IN TRANSITIONS
There are three distinct ways that transitions research is seeking to address the questions of agency
in (sustainability) transitions and formulate ideas and approaches for intervening in transitions in
order to guide and accelerate these to sustainability. These are theorizing and analyzing gov-
ernance in transitions, evaluating formal (transition or innovation based) policy in transitions,
and experimental exploration of interventions in transitions (see also Figure 4). We provide an
overview of all three approaches.
6.1. Analyzing Governance in Transitions
As government organizations and established policies are by definition part of dominant regimes,
transitions research seeks to understand the role of societal forms of agency at different levels
Analytical
Experimental
Evaluative
Power
Agency
Discourse
Visions
Experimentation
Learning
Social innovation
Experiments
Programs
Monitoring
Transition arenas
Niche experiments
Action research
Scenarios
Governance
Social learning
Institutions
Actors
Figure 4
Three approaches to governance in transitions research that represent different ways to study and
conceptualize the role of agency and intervention. They all relate to sustainability transitions by focusing on
issues such as the role of power, discourse, and experimentation in influencing sustainability transitions. But
these approaches differ in terms of their scientific approaches and because they produce different tools and
instruments for analyzing, evaluating, or experimentally influencing (transformative) agency in the context of
sustainability transitions.
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and how they might interact with institutional and policy change. The perspective of reflexive
governance (121, 122) more broadly looks at how interaction patterns between different actors in
the context of persistent problems and transitional dynamics (do not) lead to learning, behavioral
change, and ultimately systemic change. This broader perspective is applied to different types of
transitions such as the transition in water management (123, 124). The more specific framework
of transition management has also been applied as a descriptive lens to understand and explain
the impact of governance processes on past transitions through retrospective case studies (73).
Examples are reconstructions of how individuals and transition arenas influenced or “managed”
the course and direction of historical transitions such as in urban water management (63, 116,
125) and waste management (126). Such studies show how an alternative “transition” discourse
emerged in coevolution with transformative networks, increasing regime tensions, and growing
societal pressure. Such networks were able to “play into” incidents such as floods or droughts to
advance sustainability transitions toward adaptive water governance.
The approach of strategic niche management builds on the idea of niches as incubation spaces
for disruptive innovations that are in practice often facilitated through government interventions.
SNM has informed and served as a framework to analyze niche emergence in specific sectors
such as energy (127, 128) and to examine movements active in urban contexts (129, 130). SNM
and constructive technology assessment (131) are used to explore the role of social and technol-
ogy learning in socio-technical transitions (132). Recognizing key requirements of such learning
processes, tensions between government levels regarding the role of local needs for directing
innovations are addressed.
6.2. Evaluating Governance in Transitions
Since the beginning of the take-up of transitions research in formal policy programs, starting with
the Dutch energy transition program, policy scholars have been using the transition perspective
to reflect on and evaluate transition policies. This research deepens our understanding of the
role of policy in sustaining existing regimes and advancing sustainability transitions. Some studies
critically reflect on the implementation and use of transition management in public policy, debating
issues of political and power asymmetries (133–136), dilemmas of participation, unmanageability
of transitions, and the incumbent role of central government itself (137–141). But more broadly
does this type of research investigate to what extent explicitly transition-oriented policies work
and in which types of policy mixes (142, 143).
But transition perspectives also serve to evaluate more general, innovation-based policies and
formulate recommendations to gear innovation policies more toward transitions. The TIS ap-
proach, for example, was and is used in various ways to structure policies for innovation pathways,
evaluating the developed transition agendas, and formulating new policy interventions (50, 51,
144). Such evaluative studies have also been applied in health care (52), agriculture (145, 146),
and mobility (147). These studies inform policy processes by providing a broader transition per-
spective and raising questions about the focus of innovation, for example, questioning the integral
nature of policies that often lack attention to upscaling or institutionalization, or raising attention
to incumbent and competing policies in other domains. Such evaluations often create the space
for experimental governance processes.
6.3. Experimental Exploration of Transition Governance
There are several operational tools based on transitions research to try to influence the speed and
direction of transitions. Examples of such tools are transition arenas, scenarios, and experiments
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(see also http://www.transitiepraktijk.nl/en). We describe two approaches that have from the
beginning sought to provide an integrated framework or approach to influence specific dynamics in
transitions. These take the insights into the system and agency dynamics in transitions as a starting
point. These are strategic niche management (41, 115, 148, 149) and transition management (3,
19, 99, 150). Strategic niche management can be regarded as both a research model as well as
a policy tool (115) and refers to the process of deliberately managing niche formation processes
through real-life experiments. The core idea is that through experiments with new technologies
and new socio-technical arrangements, processes of coevolution can be stimulated (35, 43, 151).
Technologies as well as the contexts (e.g., user preferences, networks, regulation, complementary
technologies, expectations) in which they develop are worked on simultaneously. Consequently,
new, more sustainable patterns might emerge, partly embodied in new technologies and in new
practices based on new experiences and ideas (151). Such experiments can be envisaged as (part of ) a
niche in which technologies are specified and consumers are defined and concretized. Experiments
make it possible to establish an open-ended search and learning process, and to work toward societal
embedding and adoption of a new technology (148).
Transition management provides a framework and set of tools developing transition-based
governance strategies, including a broader range of governance instruments such as transition
arenas, transition scenarios, transition experiments, and transition monitoring. Over the past
15 years, transition management has been applied to a diverse range of sustainability questions,
policy contexts, and geographical scales (73, 152) and has become one of the most prevalent
approaches currently used in parts of Europe to scientifically ground and advance in practice
the governance of sustainability transitions. The applications have shown that the approach is
able to support governance of, and for, sustainability transitions (72, 73, 153, 154). In practice
especially, the transition arena has served to create new networks, discourses, transition agendas,
and experiments, influencing policy and practice. Reviewing transition management applications
in developed (Western) European contexts, Loorbach et al. (59) acknowledge that transition
management is “so far not achieving the aspired large scale systemic changes.” They identify
several challenges in relation to governance interventions including the question of inclusivity (of,
e.g., marginalized perspectives), facilitation techniques for social learning and capacity building,
and regime persistence. This points to current research directions for transition management,
such as explorations of institutional change and formal policy (27, 52, 62, 63, 74), new forms of
power (25, 75, 155, 156), and the role of researchers (157).
7. SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS RESEARCH
AND ITS CHALLENGES
The field of sustainability transitions has evolved rapidly over the past 15 years. It has become
a distinct area of research into the nonlinear dynamics of societal change, highly relevant to
policy and society in the context of grand societal challenges. It has produced several innovative
concepts, approaches, and instruments that support interdisciplinary and applied research and
serve innovation practices and policy. It has shaped understanding in policy and society when
it comes to complex persistent problems. Transition concepts have been used as an underlying
rationale for certain policy programs at local, national, and international levels and are used as
an approach to facilitate transformative networks and experiments and to evaluate innovation
policies. It has added to the development of inter- and transdisciplinarity in academia and is at
the forefront of what is now increasingly referred to as transformative science (158, 159). This is
reflected in the way that the field has coevolved with societal change and public discourse, iterates
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with society, and continuously adapts to new issues and questions. This way the field achieves
plurality while maintaining coherence and direction.
We have shown that although the field is multidisciplinary, indeed it should be characterized
as a true field given the shared—even if diverse—notions among the several disciplines, a shared
interest in a specific type of societal change, and the development of a set of structures to facilitate
exchange and cooperation. Besides the structural characteristics of a field (e.g., network, journal,
conferences), it also has a specific culture of interdisciplinarity and quite active groups doing
research at the intersection between science and society. In this article, we have tried to describe
the emergence and diversity of transitions research. Transitions research ranges from formal
(theorizing and describing dynamics in complex societal systems) to interdisciplinary (analyzing
specific complex societal problems) and applied (experimental testing of hypotheses). We have
also touched on the diversity of contexts in which the different transition approaches are applied,
ranging from environmental to economic and spatial systems.
The growing diversity and increasing societal relevance also pose serious challenges for transi-
tions research. Transitions research developed from a marginal, radical idea advocated by a limited
number of researchers (niche level) to having shared structures, a dominant discourse, and shared
practices (niche regime). Such regime characteristics might also complicate further broadening
and scaling up of the field as it possibly comes with, for example, superficial uses of the concepts,
fueling skepticism and resistance against the transdisciplinary nature of the research or its “ob-
jective” to address such complex and large-scale change. But this lock-in might be enhanced by
scholars in the field itself, once the frontrunners and now regime actors that might become defen-
sive and unwelcoming to radically renew, revise, or reinvent dominant models and frameworks in
an ever changing societal context.
A challenge for the field is thus to stay open to new ideas and different types of societal
challenges and contexts while maintaining the critical reflexivity and core concepts to facilitate the
interdisciplinary exchange. New issues that are already emerging, within the context of the current
transition management regime, are, for example, investigating processes of destabilization and
collapse (39), economic stagnation and degrowth (160), transition in the democratic system (74),
and bridging the gap between descriptive analytical transition dynamics and prescriptive transition
policies (39, 52). However, to really bring the academic and societal potential of transitions research
to a new level, there is a need for an opening up toward even more heterogeneous perspectives
and approaches and a critical reflexive evaluation of the field itself. One of the main challenges will
be translating transitions research to developing contexts. So far developing countries and their
sustainability challenges have been only sporadically addressed in transitions research even though
the urgency and gravity of the problems are enormous. Another big challenge is dealing with actual
crises and shocks emerging in many transition domains: How resilient is the transition theory itself
as ideas on experimentation and analysis seem to be rather insignificant in the context of large-
scale disruptive change? Only if transitions research can keep opening up to new perspectives and
challenges can it renew its capacity for innovation, strengthen its transformative academic impact,
and enlarge its contribution to societal sustainability.
By its diversity and societal orientation, we characterize sustainability transitions research as a
transdisciplinary field, acknowledging that it also involves disciplinary, positivist, and theoretical
approaches (158, 161, 162). Combined, do all these different approaches and perspectives in a way
reflect the inherent complexities of the challenges of sustainable development? In that way, the field
of sustainability transitions research fits within a broader debate around the changing role of science
under the headers of “postnormal” (163) or “sustainability science” (158, 164). When considering
the academic merits of transitions research and its contribution to sustainability science, points for
consideration include the explicit focus on processes that activate sustainability and the practices of
618 Loorbach ·Frantzeskaki ·Avelino
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sustainability research at universities (165, 166). Transitions research therefore has a very specific
identity, as it has developed around a recognizable and shared focus on a specific type of change
and has a very strong social science/applied side, whereas (especially the US interpretation of )
sustainability science aligns closer with natural sciences.
Thus, the very idea of researching sustainability transitions as an act of governance in such
transitions gives transitions research a very specific character. It necessitates continuous critical
self-reflection, multi- and interdisciplinary debates, and strong feedback loops from practice, either
through societal engagement or exchange (161, 167). To cover the whole spectrum required to
produce theory and hypotheses, experimentally test these in real life, critically reflect, and revise,
there are many different epistemological positions in the field. These range from modeling (37,
168, 169) and conceptual (62, 170) to empirical and applied research (171). It is impossible to be
complete, but the richness of positions and perspectives arguably is a big strength of transitions
research given that in this way, it facilitates the common research journey supporting the societal
search for sustainability (167, 172).
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article was made possible by the support of the ARTS project (http://www.
acceleratingtransitions.eu), which is funded by the European Union’s (EU’s) Seventh Frame-
work Program (FP7) grant agreement 603654, and the Transformative Social Innovation Theory
(TRANSIT) project, which is funded by FP7 grant agreement 613169. The views expressed in
this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the EU. The authors are very grateful for Sarah Rach in assisting with finalizing an earlier version
of the article.
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Annual Review of
Environment
and Resources
Volume 42, 2017
Contents
I. Integrative Themes and Emerging Concerns
Plastic as a Persistent Marine Pollutant
Boris Worm, Heike K. Lotze, Isabelle Jubinville, Chris Wilcox, and Jenna Jambeck pppppp1
African Environmental Change from the Pleistocene
to the Anthropocene
Colin Hoag and Jens-Christian Svenning ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp27
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Challenges and
Opportunities
Mark Vardy, Michael Oppenheimer, Navroz K. Dubash, Jessica O’Reilly,
and Dale Jamieson ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp55
The Concept of the Anthropocene
Yadvinder Malhi pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp77
Marked for Life: Epigenetic Effects of Endocrine
Disrupting Chemicals
Miriam N. Jacobs, Emma L. Marczylo, Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna,
and Jo¨elle R ¨uegg pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp105
II. Earth’s Life Support Systems
Degradation and Recovery in Changing Forest Landscapes:
A Multiscale Conceptual Framework
Jaboury Ghazoul and Robin Chazdon pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp161
III. Human Use of the Environment and Resources
Drivers of Human Stress on the Environment
in the Twenty-First Century
Thomas Dietz pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp189
Linking Urbanization and the Environment: Conceptual and
Empirical Advances
Xuemei Bai, Timon McPhearson, Helen Cleugh, Harini Nagendra,
Xin Tong, Tong Zhu, and Yong-Guan Zhu pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp215
vi
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EG42_FrontMatter ARI 22 September 2017 9:43
Debating Unconventional Energy: Social, Political,
and Economic Implications
Kate J. Neville, Jennifer Baka, Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, Karen Bakker,
Stefan Andreasson, Avner Vengosh, Alvin Lin, Jewellord Nem Singh,
and Erika Weinthal pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp241
Emerging Technologies for Higher Fuel Economy
Automobile Standards
Timothy E. Lipman ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp267
The Future of Low-Carbon Electricity
Jeffery B. Greenblatt, Nicholas R. Brown, Rachel Slaybaugh, Theresa Wilks,
Emma Stewart, and Sean T. McCoy pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp289
Organic and Conventional Agriculture: A Useful Framing?
Carol Shennan, Timothy J. Krupnik, Graeme Baird, Hamutahl Cohen,
Kelsey Forbush, Robin J. Lovell, and Elissa M. Olimpi pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp317
Smallholder Agriculture and Climate Change
Avery S. Cohn, Peter Newton, Juliana D.B. Gil, Laura Kuhl,
Leah Samberg, Vincent Ricciardi, Jessica R. Manly, and Sarah Northrop pppppppppppp347
The Future Promise of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Integration:
A Sociotechnical Review and Research Agenda
Benjamin K. Sovacool, Jonn Axsen, and Willett Kempton pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp377
Technology and Engineering of the Water-Energy Nexus
Prakash Rao, Robert Kostecki, Larry Dale, and Ashok Gadgil pppppppppppppppppppppppppppp407
IV. Management and Governance of Resources and Environment
Landscape Approaches: A State-of-the-Art Review
Bas Arts, Marleen Buizer, Lumina Horlings, Verina Ingram, Cora van Oosten,
and Paul Opdam pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp439
Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment
Matthew A. Cole, Robert J.R. Elliott, and Liyun Zhang ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp465
Land Tenure Transitions in the Global South: Trends, Drivers,
and Policy Implications
Thomas K. Rudel and Monica Hernandez ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp489
Ecosystem Services from Transborder Migratory Species: Implications
for Conservation Governance
Laura L´opez-Hoffman, Charles C. Chester, Darius J. Semmens,
Wayne E. Thogmartin, M. Sofia Rodr´ıguez-McGoffin, Robert Merideth,
and Jay E. Diffendorfer pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp509
Contents vii
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EG42_FrontMatter ARI 22 September 2017 9:43
V. Methods and Indicators
Legacies of Historical Human Activities in Arctic Woody Plant
Dynamics
Signe Normand, Toke T. Høye, Bruce C. Forbes, Joseph J. Bowden,
Althea L. Davies, Bent V. Odgaard, Felix Riede, Jens-Christian Svenning,
Urs A. Treier, Rane Willerslev, and Juliane Wischnewski pppppppppppppppppppppppppppp541
Toward the Next Generation of Assessment
Katharine J. Mach and Christopher B. Field pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp569
Sustainability Transitions Research: Transforming Science and
Practice for Societal Change
Derk Loorbach, Niki Frantzeskaki, and Flor Avelino ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp599
Attribution of Weather and Climate Events
Friederike E.L. Otto ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp627
Material Flow Accounting: Measuring Global Material Use for
Sustainable Development
Fridolin Krausmann, Heinz Schandl, Nina Eisenmenger, Stefan Giljum,
and Tim Jackson pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp647
The Impact of Systematic Conservation Planning
Emma J. McIntosh, Robert L. Pressey, Samuel Lloyd, Robert J. Smith,
and Richard Grenyer ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp677
Indexes
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 33–42 ppppppppppppppppppppppppppp699
Cumulative Index of Article Titles, Volumes 33–42 ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp705
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Environment and Resources articles may
be found at http://www.annualreviews.org/errata/environ
viii Contents
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