The ‘energietransitie’:
analysing the socio-technical turn in Dutch energy policy
Current research at the Sussex Energy Group
This project considers the roles that ideas play in
governance. It will explore how a policy-oriented
theory developed in the Dutch academic system
has translated into practical activity in the energy
policy system. The study examines how new
ideas about ‘socio-technical transitions’,
particularly in relation to energy policy – the
‘energietransitie’ in Dutch – are being put into
practice in Dutch energy policy.
The theory is known as transition management.
Transition management theory, and its adoption
in the Netherlands, has attracted considerable
interest amongst those studying sustainable
technologies in Europe. Its implementation aims
to transform the Dutch energy system into a more
sustainable form; and this experience is being
watched for clues about how to promote more
radical, system-level innovations elsewhere.
Research questions
The project addresses the following questions:
•
How are ideas about transition
management altering Dutch energy policy?
•
How are transition management ideas
altered by the political realities of energy
policy?
•
Why did transition management ideas
become so influential in Dutch policy?
•
What lessons does this experience hold for
energy systems in other countries, such as
the UK?
Context
In recent years, the analytical lens of research
into innovation and environment has pulled back
from firm-level processes of cleaner technology
innovation. Instead, studies have re-focused on
wider, linked processes that green the social and
technological systems by which we satisfy our
needs for services like energy.
This new focus recognises that firms and
technologies are embedded within wider social
and economic systems. Researchers advocate
that policy attention turn to the innovation
processes by which the ‘socio-technical systems’
providing human services like energy can be
transformed into more sustainable forms as a
whole. Within this systems innovation
perspective, transition management theory has
attracted considerable interest amongst
academics and policy-makers as a practiceoriented expression of these ideas.
Transition management contains a set of
concepts and processes for promoting and
steering systems innovation in more sustainable
directions. These ideas were first developed in
the Netherlands and it is there that they have
found traction and practical implementation
amongst policy-makers.
Transition management involves multiple
stakeholders in the development of ‘visions’ for
the sustainable energy systems of the future. It
promotes niche experiments in which practical
experience can be gained with the alternative
energy technologies and social practices that
might fulfil the sustainability vision.
Importantly, transition management promotes
policy learning and change by seeking to build
upon niche experience and make supportive
changes at higher levels that can help sustainable
practices spread. The language, institutions and
networks of Dutch energy policy appear to have
been reconfigured to permit this transition
management approach.
Research
Research will proceed through activity on three
fronts:
•
Document transition management theory
and understand the policy prescriptions it
makes, particularly those relating
specifically to energy.
•
•
Research the movement of the theory from
university researchers into the policymaking arena.
Assess changes in Dutch energy policy as
a result of transition management.
Prescriptions from transition management theory
can be documented from the academic literature.
This will be compared and contrasted with policy
documents about the energietransitie produced
by the Dutch government. Semi-structured
interviews with key academics, policy-makers and
other stakeholders will be used to try to
reconstruct the interactions, debates, and
negotiation of ideas into policy.
Throughout, research will seek out reasons why
transition management attained its persuasive
power; how its verity and applicability became
convincing; and how key concepts and models
have been re-shaped by policy implementation.
This will be put into context by drawing on
characterizations of the Dutch policy style.
The impact of transition management on Dutch
energy policy will be measured by identifying what
has changed in Dutch energy policy, e.g. its
scope (activities and timescales), mechanisms
(initiatives and instruments), and networks (of
people involved).
Policy-related outputs and implications
This project contains a number of policy
implications.
It will permit an assessment of developments in
the Netherlands that appear, on first inspection, to
be particularly innovative. Insights gained from
the Dutch experience could contain useful
lessons for the UK. Both the UK and the
Netherlands are committed to significant longterm changes to their energy systems.
Understanding similarities and differences will be
instructive.
Significantly, the project will help us understand
the processes by which ideas coming from
academic research penetrate the policy process
and become reinterpreted and altered by that
process. In this vein, the project will contribute to
debate about the roles of ideas in governance.
Sussex Energy Group
This project is being undertaken by the Sussex
Energy Group at SPRU (Science & Technology
Policy Research) at the University of Sussex. The
aim of the Group is to help bring about the
successful transition to a sustainable energy
system. We make our contribution through
research, policy analysis and our interactions with
relevant decision-makers. The Group receives
core funding from the Economic and Social
Research Council.
Contacts
Adrian Smith
Sussex Energy Group, SPRU, Freeman Centre
University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QE
[email protected]
01273 877065