How to Manage the Transitions
On September, 17 Derk Loorbach, Director of the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), Professor of the Faculty of Social Science, Erasmus University Rotterdam, gave a lecture on the topic ‘Sustainability Transitions: New Governance and Action Research’ within the framework of the Dutch Science Talks project at Higher School of Economics. The lecture introduced the field of sustainability transition research and gave an outline of the approaches towards managing this transition.
On September, 17 Derk Loorbach, Director of the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), Professor of the Faculty of Social Science, Erasmus University Rotterdam, gave a lecture on the topic ‘Sustainability Transitions: New Governance and Action Research’ within the framework of the Dutch Science Talks project at Higher School of Economics. The lecture introduced the field of sustainability transition research and gave an outline of the approaches towards managing this transition.
The Netherlands, having around the half of its territory lying below the sea level, risks being drowned due to global warming. The risk of flood requires the development of strategies of managing complex societal-economic transitions. Having emerged about two decades in the Netherlands, nowadays transition research has spread all over the world, for the risk of the ecological disaster is greater than ever (as evidenced by the sensational speech by eco-activist Greta Thunberg in the UN) and needs the appropriate policy measures.
Professor Loorbach reviewed the examples of transitions in various sectors: energy, transport, food industry, urban infrastructure, and described the work of his DRIFT Institute recognised as a one of the leading centres of sustainability transition research in interdisciplinary line. He spoke in greater detail on two examples related to the transition policy of the city of Rotterdam.
The conclusion of the climate agreement in 2015 initiated by the state has not led to positive result and met opposition from the climate sceptics. On the contrary, the grass-roots initiative aimed at achieving zero level waste in Rotterdam in 2030 by means of decreasing by 60% the number of cars and by 80% the number of parking places is now being successfully implemented. It is planned to achieve the target with the help of promoting the non-motorised vehicles (bicycles) and ‘healthy mobility’ (walking). Thus, the managerial focus is made on the shirt-term measures acupuncturally affecting societal processes and leading to long-term consequences. It is anticipated that, as a result of controlled transitions in the field of transport, by 2030 Rotterdam will become car-free city.
According to Professor Loorbach, the first initiative failed because it was based on the measures appropriate for an established, stabilised system. The problem is that transitions are uncertain, non-linear and chaotic, and can lead to both desirable and destructive outcomes. Conversely, transition management as an approach to societal-economic development, technoscientific innovations and business presupposes the cooperation of different agents with the aim of elaboration of the alternative scenarios of the future under uncertainty and risk of conflict of interests. For the more detailed overview of this approach see the paper by Derk Loorbach, Niki Frantzeskaki and Flor Avelino published in ‘Annual Review of Environment and Resources’.
Professor Loorbach identified five principles of transition management:
- Systemic approach: transitions engage with multiple levels of societal organisation.
- Selectivity: officials and expert communities should focus on change agents capable of creating the transformative networks.
- Back-casting: envisioning and elaboration of the scenarios of development can become the instruments for change.
- Adaptivity: the implementation of policy measures is aimed at multiple goals and transition pathways.
- Learning-by-doing, supplemented by doing-by-learning: policy decisions should be governed by monitoring and reflexive control.
These principles can be summarised as follows: moderate, ‘diplomatic’ short-term measures can lead to radical changes in long-term perspective.
The impulse for implementing these measures, for Professor Loorbach, are the emerging transitions creating the space for developing new, alternative practices, technologies and cultures.
Important here is that transition management is performed from the perspective of the future, hence the goal should be not enhancing the effectiveness of the societal-economic system with ad hoc decisions but restructuring of the system as a whole seen from the standpoint of its ongoing transitions.
Higher School of Economics teaches the state-of-the-art approaches in management at the Master’s programme ‘Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation’ on the base of Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge. Professor Loorbach’s lecture, attended by approximately one hundred visitors, was delivered within the framework of the series of open lectures of this programme.