Recognising the limited consideration of administrative aspects in sustainability transitions research, this article investigates the governing entities behind China's policy mix for electric vehicles (EVs), and their interactions from 2001 to 2020. Based on a social network analysis of policy documents we find that as the e-mobility transition unfolds, a complex and evolving network of governing entities has appeared in designing China's EV policy mix. Specifically, a small group of highly interactive governing entities has played a critical role in coordinating and mobilising system resources, while some new entrants have also come to the fore in response to recent socio-technical changes. Moreover, our community detection analysis distinguishes various groups of governing entities, each performing different policy functions. Based on our empirical case, we discuss factors that influence changes to administrative arrangements for policy mixes. We conclude that the deliberate acceleration of sustainability transitions calls for further research on the administration of the associated policy mixes.

The UK has played a leading role in international efforts to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through science policy and diplomacy. Domestically, a new reimbursement model that better recognises the value of new antibacterial drugs is being piloted, and there is much relevant research activity. However, areas of weakness remain that limit the UK’s contribution to antibacterial innovation. The UK’s capabilities in this vital field need long-term support through joined-up policies and a range of indicators need to be closely monitored to track the impact of these interventions.

Born in the 1960s, appropriate technology (AT) began as a reaction against wholly blueprint developments involving large-scale Western technologies, whose industrial contexts were ill-suited to the poor (Carr, 1985). The basic idea of AT was to try to help people develop out of the situations they were in by providing technologies appropriate to those situations, conservative in their use of materials and resources, but which afforded some improvement in the users’ economic and social circumstances. What started with just a few centres of experimentation in AT during the 1960s grew during the 1970s until it became a global grassroots innovation movement in the 1980s, with an estimated thousand institutions worldwide (Whitecombe and Carr, 1982).

The contributions of People’s Science Movements (PSMs) in India for the creation of ‘alternative’ technologies and forms of organization are best known through the work of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP), a state-wide active PSM group (to be introduced later), but are much broader. Academic writings focus on the state-wide introduction of decentralized people’s planning, diffusion of fuel-efficient smokeless cook stoves and hot cases for food storage, mass installation of biogas, promotion of micro-hydro systems and electronic chokes, and the establishment of Kudumbashree (women’s self-help groups) and labour collectives in the southern Indian state of Kerala (Chathukulam and John, 2002; Chattopadhyay and Franke, 2006; Franke and Chasin, 1997; Parayil, 1992; Prasad, 2001; Zachariah and Sooryamoorthy, 1994).

In July 2004, a heterogeneous group of institutions, led by the Bank of Brazil Foundation and including several national ministries such as the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Social Development, together with semi-public companies such as Petrobras, met numerous representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements and universities to discuss policies for social and technological development. This meeting led to the creation of the Social Technology Network (STN; Rede de Tecnologia Social [RTS] in Portuguese), a hybrid experiment to promote grassroots innovation in Brazil and seeking to combine the participation and empowerment of civil society actors in technological development with the design of large-scale public policies for social development and poverty reduction.

Scholarly attention to the contribution of the Honey Bee Network (HBN) has evolved fairly rapidly both in India and abroad in response to growing interest in how to promote the diffusion of inclusive and environmentally friendly innovations in developing and emerging economies (Abrar and Nair, 2011; Bhaduri and Kumar, 2011; de Beer et al., 2013; De Keersmaecker et al., 2011; Pansera and Owen, 2014; Shivarajan and Srinivasan, 2013). A leading scholar of innovation studies has even suggested that the notion of grassroots innovation developed by Anil Gupta should be considered as the endogenous, intrinsic version of Prahalad’s external, top-down version of bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) innovation (Soete, 2013). 1 Some already see this also as a pathway through which the incentive of intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection has been productively used to enhance the diffusion of alternative technology in respect of emerging economies and the developing world (Greenhalgh, 2014).

We opened this book with the POC21 eco-hackers at their innovation camp on the outskirts of Paris in August 2015. POC21 was a practical counter-initiative to the high-level climate talks at COP21 (21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). As COP21 finally reached an agreement affirming social constraint in anthropogenic climate change, this deal will have profound implications for social, economic and technological transformations. In this context, the ingenuity and empowerment of civil society activities such as POC21 become even more relevant (Stirling, 2015); especially since government and business commitments to emissions reductions, while welcome and significant, appear insufficient in themselves. POC21 activists recognize this and speak of building a movement for open source, low-carbon, zero-waste living.

In this chapter we do two things. First, we elaborate our grounds for conceptualizing the field of study as consisting of grassroots innovation movements. Second, we develop a framework for analysing grassroots innovation movements in South America, India and Europe from historical and comparative perspectives. Drawing on a combination of ideas from research literatures on social movements, science and technology studies, and theories of innovation, including recent work on grassroots innovation, we develop a framework for understanding these particular movements’ historical antecedents, motivations and strategies for innovation and development, as well as their engagements or disconnects with ‘conventional’ innovation approaches and mainstream development pathways, as set out in Chapter 1.

Over the decade since the early 2000s, open access, community-based design and fabrication workshops of diverse kinds have spread rapidly around the world. Variously called hackerspaces, fablabs and makerspaces, these workshops provide people with access to tools and resources for making almost anything they want. They are typically equipped with versatile digital fabrication technologies, microelectronics and design software as well as traditional machine tools and craft equipment. Many workshops are networked internationally, whether informally via forums for shared interests and projects or, in some cases, formally through organizing associations (e.g. the Fab Foundation for fablabs). Networking allows participants to identify with a bigger movement in hacking, making and fixing as well as enabling users to share designs, machining instructions and practical help for using and running workshops.

In August 2015, while we were writing this book, a group of sustainability activists were gathering in the grounds of a borrowed château on the outskirts of Paris. They were intent upon ‘eco-hacking’ the future. What this meant was turning the château into a temporary innovation camp, equipped with the tools for developing a variety of technologies of practical and symbolic value for low-carbon living. These prototypes made use of open source designs and instructions in order that others can access, adapt and make use of these developments. The activity of the camp was publicized widely through social media and drew the attention of many commentators and even senior politicians (see www.poc21.cc for examples).

Taking their periods of activity in sum, the case studies across the previous six chapters provide over a century of grassroots innovation experience. What can we learn from such experience? The aim in this chapter is to look across the case studies in order to identify recurring features and appreciate key differences that, amid the diversity and complexities of any particular movement, might nevertheless be instructive. Each of the case studies was motivated by the same three questions (Chapter 1).

Why did this grassroots innovation movement emerge?

How did activists mobilize support and activities in grassroots innovation?

What dilemmas confronted the movement when constructing alternative pathways, and how did it negotiate those dilemmas?

In January 1976 workers at Lucas Aerospace in the UK published an Alternative Corporate Plan for the future of the company. This was an innovative response to management announcements that thousands of jobs were to be cut in the face of industrial restructuring, international competition and technological change in design and manufacturing. Instead of redundancy, the workers argued their right to socially useful production, and in so doing spawned a grassroots movement.

Growing concerns about the impacts of food systems have led to fierce debate over the pros and cons of different modes of production. In parallel, conservationists have debated “land-sparing” versus “land-sharing” as competing rationales for a land use policy that aims to halt biodiversity loss. As a contribution to these debates, we share research conducted in the South-East of England where contrasting practices for managing land and livestock coexist in close proximity and approximate a land -sparing versus -sharing gradient. The research used an Ecosystem Services (ES) framework to explore the social, ecological and health outcomes of these practices, as understood from different perspectives. In this paper we analyse and interpret both qualitative and quantitative data generated through a participatory deliberative appraisal exercise that formed part of the research. Despite demonstrating the relevance of ES for appraising land use and management practices, we uncover a lack of sensitivity of conventional ES frameworks to the specific concerns, priorities and ambiguities of agroecological practices; an inability to encompass multiple scales and localities; limitations to incorporating site-specific considerations; and a polarising effect on the perspectives of conservationists and farmers. We conclude by offering an approach that may help to bridge between divergent perspectives and engage both on their own terms.

One possible response to the growing problem of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in pathogenic infections is the development of new types of antibiotics. However, the pharmaceutical companies that have traditionally led such innovation face a lack of incentives at the present time due to high levels of market uncertainty and low expected returns. Mission oriented innovation with coordinated investment and market-shaping policies may offer an approach to accelerating antibiotic innovation. This paper aims to evaluate whether preCovid-19 Chinese policies concerning AMR can be seen as constituting a mission-oriented approach and whether these policies have influenced antibiotics innovation in China. It adopts a mixed method approach to deliver several insights. By using historical event analysis based on data collected from interviews, public and commercial databases as well as policy documents, the paper finds that China’s recent actions concerning AMR since 2008 comprise many elements of mission-oriented innovation policy. The National Action Plan to Contain AMR has provided a clear mission since 2016 to tackle the problem of AMR and provides the opportunity to coordinate and integrate these policies into a more coherent and evolving
mission-oriented innovation approach. Analysis of relevant research grants and publications suggest that these policies (including the 2016 National Action Plan) have drawn the scientific community towards antibiotics research and provided more support to this area. Case studies following the development of new antibiotics are used to illustrate how the established elements of mission oriented innovation policy have or have not contributed to antibiotics innovation in China. Further research is required to more comprehensively analyse R&D investments, and to understand the effects of recent policies, especially after 2016.

Transformations to sustainability are increasingly the focus of research and policy discussions around the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the different roles played by transdisciplinary research in contributing to social transformations across diverse settings have been neglected in the literature. Transformative Pathways to Sustainability responds to this gap by presenting a set of coherent, theoretically informed and methodologically innovative experiments from around the world that offer important insights for this growing field.

The book draws on content and cases from across the ‘Pathways’ Transformative Knowledge Network, an international group of six regional hubs working on sustainability challenges in their own local or national contexts. Each of these hubs reports on their experiences of ‘transformation laboratory’ processes in the following areas: sustainable agricultural and food systems for healthy livelihoods, with a focus on sustainable agri-food systems in the UK and open-source seeds in Argentina; low carbon energy and industrial transformations, focussing on mobile-enabled solar home systems in Kenya and social aspects of the green transformation in China; and water and waste for sustainable cities, looking at Xochimilco wetland in Mexico and Gurgaon in India. The book combines new empirical data from these processes with a novel analysis that represents both theoretical and methodological contributions. It is especially international in its scope, drawing inputs from North and South, mirroring the universality of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The book is of vital interest to academics, action researchers and funders, policy makers and civil-society organisations working on transformations to sustainability.

As SDG7-related interventions seek to transform access to clean energy, this paper presents an analysis of both a previous transformative intervention (Lighting Africa) and a theoretical approach to understanding how such transformations can be achieved in the Global South (socio-technical innovation system, STIS, building). The paper makes four contributions. First, it tests the extent to which the STIS-building concept is useful in understanding and conceptualising how Lighting Africa transformed the market for solar lanterns in Kenya from an estimated market size of 29,000 lamps in 2009 to one where 680,000 Lighting Africa certified lamps were sold in Kenya by the end of the Programme in 2013. Second, it presents the most in-depth analysis of Lighting Africa that we are aware of to date. Third, it presents a conceptual framework that illustrates the Lighting Africa approach, providing a framework for future policy interventions aiming to transform access to clean energy technologies in the Global South. Fourth, it reflects on weaknesses in the STIS approach. In particular, these include a need to better attend to: the gendered implications of interventions (and social justice more broadly); implications of different scales of technologies; value accumulation and the extent to which interventions benefit indigenous actors and local economies; and the political and economic implications of any intervention and its distribution of benefits.

1 - In this exploratory study, we employ an interdisciplinary approach to explore potential synergies and trade‐offs between the needs of people and nature in the context of agroecological farming and nature conservation.
2 - Ecological field studies and management surveys from six sites were combined with a participatory‐deliberative appraisal exercise using the Multi‐Criteria Mapping (MCM) method. All six study sites and all four land use options in the appraisal were characterised by the use of large herbivores for agricultural and/or conservation purposes, to varying degrees, and were located in South‐East England.
3 - MCM participants identified habitat and species diversity, soil health, food production, provision of education and recreational access, as the principal benefits associated with successful management of such sites. Taken overall, their appraisals indicated that a combination of land uses may be best suited to delivering these diverse benefits, but with agroecological (While organic and biodynamic agriculture are subject to legal definition, agroecology offers a more flexible approach and can be viewed as ‘a development pathway from input‐intensive industrial systems through to highly sustainable, ecological systems’—see Laughton, R. (2017) ‘A Matter of Scale’, Land Workers Alliance and Centre for Agroecology, Coventry University) farming being perceived as a particularly effective multi‐purpose option.
4 - Five of the six sites were used for recreational purposes, and in total we recorded five times more humans than wild mammals. Ecological data from the sites indicated that the most conservation‐oriented sites performed best in terms of species richness and activity (birds, mammals, bats and invertebrates) and number of species of conservation concern. However, beta diversity metrics indicated important variation in the species assemblages recorded within and between sites. Whereas both agroecological farms in our study produced the greatest weight of saleable meat per unit area, the site that produced the most meat also demonstrated consistently strong performance across many biodiversity metrics.
5 - Overall, expert perspectives and the performance of our study sites suggests that combinations of diverse approaches to the management of large herbivores, within a ‘wildlife‐friendly’ envelope, are consistent with providing for the diverse needs of people and nature within shared landscapes.

Food production depends upon the adequate provision of underpinning ecosystem services, such as pollination. Paradoxically, conventional farming practices are undermining these services and resulting in degraded soils, polluted waters, greenhouse gas emissions and massive loss of biodiversity including declines in pollinators. In essence, farming is undermining the ecosystem services it relies upon. Finding alternative more sustainable ways to meet growing food demands which simultaneously support biodiversity is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. Here, we review the potential of urban and peri-urban agriculture to contribute to sustainable food production, using the 17 sustainable development goals set by the United Nations General Assembly as a framework. We present new data from a case study of urban gardens and allotments in the city of Brighton and Hove, UK. Such urban and peri-urban landholdings tend to be small and labour-intensive, characterised by a high diversity of crops including perennials and annuals. Our data demonstrate that this type of agricultural system can be highly productive and that it has environmental and social advantages over industrial agriculture in that crops are usually produced using few synthetic inputs and are destined for local consumption. Overall, we conclude that food grown on small-scale areas in and near cities is making a significant contribution to feeding the world and that this type of agriculture is likely to be relatively favourable for some ecosystem services, such as supporting healthy soils. However, major knowledge gaps remain, for example with regard to productivity, economic and employment impacts, pesticide use and the implications for biodiversity.

Realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require transformative changes at micro, meso and macro levels and across diverse geographies. Collaborative, transdisciplinary research has a role to play in documenting, understanding and contributing to such transformations. Previous work has investigated the role of this research in Europe and North America, however the dynamics of transdisciplinary research on ‘transformations to sustainability’ in other parts of the world are less well-understood. This paper reports on an international project that involved transdisciplinary research in six different hubs across the globe and was strategically designed to enable mutual learning and exchange. It draws on surveys, reports and research outputs to analyse the processes of transdisciplinary collaboration for sustainability that took place between 2015-2019. The paper illustrates how the project was structured in order to enable learning across disciplines, cultures and contexts, and describes how it also provided for the negotiation of epistemological frameworks and different normative commitments between members across the network. To this end, it discusses lessons regarding the use of theoretical and methodological anchors, multi-loop learning and evaluating emergent change (including the difficulties encountered). It offers insights for the design and implementation of future international transdisciplinary collaborations that address locally-specific sustainability challenges within the universal framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This paper examines the rapidly emerging and rapidly changing phenomenon of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) digitally enabled business models, which have had significant early success in providing poor people with access to SDG relevant technologies (e.g. for electricity access, water and sanitation and agricultural irrigation). Data is analysed based on literature review, two stakeholder workshops (or “transformation labs”) and stakeholder interviews (engaging 41 stakeholders in total). This demonstrates the existing literature on PAYG is patchy at best, with no comprehensive or longitudinal, and very little theoretically grounded, research to date. The paper contributes to existing research on PAYG and sustainability transformations more broadly in two key ways. Firstly, it articulates a range of questions that remain to be answered in order to understand and deliver against the current and potential contribution of PAYG to effecting sustainability transformations (the latter we define as achieving environmental sustainability and social justice). These questions focus at three levels: national contexts for fostering innovation and technology uptake; the daily lives of poor and marginalised women and men, and; global political economies and value accumulation. Secondly, the paper articulates three areas of theory (based on emerging critical social science research on sustainable energy access) that have potential to support future research that might answer these questions, namely: socio-technical innovation system building; social practice, and; global political economy and value chain analysis. Whilst recognising existing tensions between these three areas of theory, we argue that rapid sustainability transformations demand a level of epistemic pragmatism. Such pragmatism, we argue, can be achieved by situating research using any of the above areas of theory within the broader context of Leach et al.’s (2010) Pathways Approach. This allows for exactly the kind of interdisciplinary approach, based on a commitment to pluralism and the co-production of knowledge, and firmly rooted in a commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice, that the SDGs demand.

Studies of China’s agri-food transitions have so far largely overlooked the role of the public in policymaking and practice. We argue that a deeper understanding of public perceptions of – and engagement with – agricultural innovation, is required to better understanding the dynamic responses that exist to the multiple complex and intersecting challenges facing China’s food and agriculture system. In order to demonstrate the kinds of additional evidence that might contribute to an enhanced understanding of the role of the public sphere in China’s agri-food transitions, we present findings from an exploratory project drawing on qualitative field research. Focussing in particular on public perceptions of genetically-modified crops, we suggest a number of preliminary insights that confirm, challenge or supplement earlier findings. We use this study, in the particular socio-political context of China, to shed light on the complex role of public perceptions (elsewhere in the transitions literature referred to as ‘market/ user preferences’ or ‘culture’) in agri-food transitions. This raises important questions for the governance of Chinese agri-food transitions and how future research might better inform its response to a changing public sphere.

Purpose – The urgent challenges of sustainability require novel teaching methods facilitating different types of learning. The purpose of the paper is to examine the important role of experiential learning in higher education programmes relating to sustainability, and to evaluate a number of teaching and learning activities that can be used to leverage this approach.

Design/ Methodology/ Approach - Based on questionnaire surveys carried out over seven years with students from a highly international Masters-level course, this paper describes the utility of experiential learning theory in teaching around ‘innovation for sustainability’. Drawing on Kolb’s theories and subsequent modifications, the paper reviews and evaluates the teaching and learning activities (TLAs) used in the course that have fostered experiential learning in the classroom, including role-play seminars, case study-based seminars and sessions centred around sharing and reflecting on personal professional histories.

Findings - The qualitative data and discussion illustrate the utility of experiential learning approaches in post-graduate education for sustainable development, especially in generating empathy and understanding for different sustainability perspectives and priorities from around the world. In particular, the paper offers novel insights into the strengths and limitations of the TLAs.

Originality/ value – These insights are valuable to ESD practitioners dealing with international student intakes displaying variable levels of professional experience who are looking to foster experiential learning, reflection and inter-cultural empathy. They can inform the design of classroom-based TLAs that are capable of equipping students with not only the analytical skills for career success, but also the inter-cultural sensibility required for international leadership in the sustainable development domain.

Since the United States committed to withdraw from the UN Paris Agreement on climate change, international observers have increasingly asked if China can take the lead instead to raise global ambition in the context of a world leadership vacuum. Given the country's increasing economic and strategic focus on sustainable and low-carbon innovation, China might seem well placed to do so. However, much depends on the direction of governance and reform within China regarding the environment. To better understand how the government is seeking to make progress in these areas, this article explores key political narratives that have underpinned China's policies around sustainable development (kechixu fazhan) and innovation (chuangxin) within the context of broader narratives of reform. Drawing on theoretical insights from work that investigates the role of power in shaping narratives, knowledge and action around specific pathways to sustainability, this article explores the ways in which dominant policy narratives in China might drive particular forms of innovation for sustainability and potentially occlude or constrain others. In particular, we look at ecological civilization (shengtai wenming) as a slogan that has gradually evolved to become an official narrative and is likely to influence pathways to sustainability over the coming years.

Rural mini-grids are viewed as a key technology for providing access to electricity to the billion or more people that lack it by 2030 (in line with the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All commitment). But at present no model for the sustainable management of rural mini-grids exists, which contributes to high failure rates. This paper makes a number of contributions. First, it explores how electricity in mini-grids might be understood as a Common Pool Resource (CPR), opening up potential to learn from the extensive literature on institutional characteristics of sustainable CPR management in the natural resource management literature. Second, it refines Agrawal’s (2001) overarching framework of enabling conditions for sustainable CPR management institutions to develop a framework applicable to rural mini-grid management in developing countries. Thirdly, the utility of this refined framework is demonstrated by applying it to analyse data from 27 semi-structured interviews with actors with expertise in mini-grid development and management in Kenya and 2 field visits to rural mini-grids there. This contributes a nuanced basis for future application of CPR theory to mini-grids and a systematic analysis of institutional challenges and possible solutions, which have hitherto received limited attention in the energy and development literature.

The ‘Pathways’ transformative knowledge network is an international group of research organisations, collaborating to explore processes of social transformation and to share insights across disciplines, cultures and contexts. Working across the domains of food, energy and water, the network is experimenting with new methods of research and engagement that both help to understand – and contribute to – transformations to sustainability. This article outlines some of the early experiences of two hubs in the network (UK and Argentina) and reflects on the lessons learned for ‘engaged excellence’. It also describes how approaches to transdisciplinary research (building on a diversity of academic and non-academic traditions) vary across different contexts, and how wider lessons in this regard will be shared across the consortium into the future.

This paper addresses the case of bioenergy development in Emilia Romagna, using and building on a ‘pathways to sustainability’ approach (Leach et al. 2010). It represents the first attempt to apply the ‘pathways’ approach to a European context, investigating the dominant narratives and system framings that led to particular pathways of bioenergy development in the Italian region from 2000 onwards. It then explores how alternative framings emerged as a result of material system changes, and documents how these served to re-frame debates over the following decade. The paper points to a tentative result of this reframing – a redirection of pathways to smaller-scale bioenergy development that addresses the socio-economic needs and environmental concerns of local farmers and communities. The paper makes a concrete contribution to the ‘pathways’ approach by providing a detailed analysis of how framings evolve dynamically as a result of feedbacks between different situated knowledges, framings and the material properties of the system.

Based on a mix of original archival research and an extensive review of the contemporary peer reviewed literature, this article reviews the history of the People’s Republic of China’s national energy policies since 1949. We divide this history into six phases: Emergence (1949–1957), Socialist construction (1958–1965), Turbulence (1966–1978), Reform (1979–2000), Contestation (2001–2014), and transition (2015-present). Over the whole history of more than sixty years, China’s energy production and consumption grew at a surprising speed, while energy intensity exhibited early fluctuations and a subsequent gradual decrease after the turbulence phase. In tracing this history, the article offers new historical and policy insights into the world’s largest developing country and a theoretical contribution to the role of the state in shaping economy and society through energy policy. The article lastly offers an in-depth exploration of how command-and-control style administrative intervention and low levels of market liquidity have had a prophylactic effect on innovation and competition.

This chapter reviews the regulatory situation for clinical stem cell research in the People’s Republic of China since the early 2000s. The paper is structured in four parts. Part I examines the regulatory conditions for the donation of human gametes and embryos and their use in basic and preclinical research. This involves an overview of China’s regulatory rules for assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and its approach to the governance of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. Part II offers a summary of the regulatory and legal instruments that govern clinical trials and other forms of human subjects research in China. These instruments, most of which have been launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, do not specifically address stem cell research, but they influence clinical stem cell research as horizontal regulatory rules. Part III focuses more specifically to the regulation of clinical stem cell research and applications, including the regulation of experimental (for-profit) interventions with stem cells that do not classify as clinical trials or systematic forms of clinical research. This part documents the formation of a regulatory approach for clinical stem cell applications since the mid-2000s, which was still ongoing at the time of writing. The conclusions discuss open questions and the repercussions of China’s regulatory approach for stem cell research for domestic researchers, clinicians, and corporations in China, as well as for international clinical and corporate collaborations.

We discuss two different strategies to initiate a process of identifying a focused sustainability challenge, and co-defining and co-designing alternative pathways to more sustainable food systems. One strategy was based on working with a relatively closely aligned network of private sector, civil society and academic organisations, whilst the other involved working with a more plural, non-aligned group, ranging from representatives of agricultural social movements, through to the domestic seed industry and government officials, to academic agronomists. This paper reflects on the distinct benefits and challenges involved in each strategy

This report presents proceedings of an innovation histories workshop on the Solar Home System (SHS) Market in Kenya. The workshop was held on 3 June 2013 at Silver Springs Hotel in Nairobi Kenya. Stakeholders in the SHS market convened to reflect, draw on, capture and share thoughts and experiences to develop a comprehensive national innovation history, illustrating actions of key actors in Kenya who have contributed to the success of the Kenyan SHS market. Stakeholders from the United Kingdom and Kenya comprised researchers, policymakers, private sector actors and the media. The one-day workshop saw the participants developing a personal innovation history timeline as well as contributing through participatory and interactive approaches to develop a national SHS innovation history timeline. Participants expressed satisfaction in the process that led to the development of the innovation history timeline and expressed interest to participate in any future research and workshop on the subject.

Several countries across the OECD have a relatively strong history of using technology assessment (TA) to inform science, technology and innovation (STI) policies. But many lower income, developing countries lack the capabilities and institutions for doing so. Despite its more general potential role in this area, TA has been used relatively little (in or outside the OECD) to inform and challenge investments and policies that address international development objectives. This paper discusses two case studies in which non-governmental TA exercises have focussed on international development objectives in and across lower income countries. Both have made particular efforts to include broader perspectives in the TA process. The paper asks what we can learn from these networked “experiments” and explores possibilities for further institutionalisation of TA for international development.

This book examines six diverse grassroots innovation movements in India, South America and Europe, situating them in their particular dynamic historical contexts. Analysis explains why each movement frames innovation and development differently, resulting in a variety of strategies. The book explores the spaces where each of these movements have grown, or attempted to do so. It critically examines the pathways they have developed for grassroots innovation and the challenges and limitations confronting their approaches.

With mounting pressure for social justice in an increasingly unequal world, policy makers are exploring how to foster more inclusive innovation. In this context grassroots experiences take on added significance. This book provides timely and relevant ideas, analysis and recommendations for activists, policy-makers, students and scholars interested in encounters between innovation, development and social movements.

A very large grey area exists between translational stem cell research and applications that comply with the ideals of randomised control trials and good laboratory and clinical practice and what is often referred to as snake-oil trade. We identify a discrepancy between international research and ethics regulation and the ways in which regulatory instruments in the stem cell field are developed in practice. We examine this discrepancy using the notion of ‘national home-keeping’, referring to the way governments articulate international standards and regulation with conflicting demands on local players at home.

Identifying particular dimensions of regulatory tools – authority, permissions, space and acceleration – as crucial to national home-keeping in Asia, Europe and the USA, we show how local regulation works to enable development of the field, notwithstanding international (i.e. principally ‘western’) regulation. Triangulating regulation with empirical data and archival research between 2012 and 2015 has helped us to shed light on how countries and organisations adapt and resist internationally dominant regulation through the manipulation of regulatory tools (contingent upon country size, the state's ability to accumulate resources, healthcare demands, established traditions of scientific governance, and economic and scientific ambitions).

China provides a stark and globally significant illustration of how changing patterns of food production and consumption (especially related to increased intake of animal protein) are creating negative impacts on biodiversity, climate, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles and the use of freshwater. However, China's rapidly growing innovation capabilities and dynamic pattern of development also offer a unique opportunity for transitions towards more sustainable and resilient agri-food systems. Applying a ‘food practices in transition’ framework (Spaargaren et al., 2012), this paper discusses the technological, political and socio-cultural factors central to such systemic changes, with a focus on maize as a core case study. In particular it presents and discusses two contending (but not mutually-exclusive) pathways towards more sustainable maize production and consumption. One, which we call the ‘indigenous innovation’ pathway is framed by ‘systemic rationalities’ and characterised by a focus on R&D-intensive technologies for agricultural intensification, including the controversial use of transgenic phytase maize. The second, which we term the ‘alternative’ pathway, is framed by ‘lifeworld rationalities’ and focusses on improved management practices, shorter supply chains, agro-ecological and participatory research. The two pathways claim different environmental benefits and present different risks and political implications. This paper analyses the food practices in transition in each pathway, identifying links with shifting political conditions and pointing to the increasingly significant role of consumer agency in steering patterns of maize production and consumption in China.

This paper explores environmental innovation in the largest emerging economy – China - and its potential for contributing to global transitions to low-carbon, more sustainable patterns of development. It builds on earlier studies bringing alternative forms of low(er)-technology, ‘below-the-radar’, ‘disruptive’ and/or social innovation into its analysis. In addition, however, the paper develops our understanding of low-carbon innovation by paying particular attention to issues of changing power relations and social practices; theoretical issues that need attention in the literature generally but are notably absent when studying transitions in China. This shift in perspective allows four neglected questions to be introduced and, in each case, points to both opportunities and challenges to low-carbon system transition that are overlooked by an orthodox focus on technological innovations alone. These are briefly illustrated by drawing on examples from three key domains of low-carbon innovation: solar-generated energy; electric urban mobility; and food and agriculture.

How can the green economy avoid reproducing the mistakes of the brown economy? Dr Adrian Ely, Head of Impact and Engagement at the STEPS Centre, argues that as power relations and economies of scale are 'colour-blind', a truly green (and fair) economy needs to do more than just put a price on nature.

Adrian Ely reports from the World Forum on Science and Democracy, finding it somewhat critical of technology's role in our future

As China and the UK seek to collaborate more closely in science and innovation, there are lessons they can share about how to govern and debate new technologies.

Using a combination of insights from innovation studies, sociotechnical transitions theory and the STEPS pathways approach, this paper analyses the evolution of the Kenyan photovoltaics (PV) market.
Considered by many to be an exemplar of private sector led
development, the Kenyan PV market has witnessed the adoption of more than 300,000 solar home systems and over 100,000 solar portable lights. The notion of an entrepreneurially driven unsubsidised solar market has proved to be a powerful narrative amongst development actors who, paradoxically, have provided millions of dollars of funding to encourage the market’s development.
We argue that this donor support has been critical to the success of the market, but not simply by helping to create an enabling environment in which entrepreneurs can flourish. Donor assistance has been critical in supporting a range of actors to build the elements of a PV innovation system by providing active protection for experimentation, network-building, and the construction of shared
visions amongst actors throughout supply chains and amongst users.This analysis gives important clues for designing climate and development policies, with implications for the governance of energy access pathways that are inclusive of poor and marginalised groups in low income countries.

The ‘impact’ of research has seen a dramatic rise up the UK’s policy agenda in recent years. But what does ‘impact’ really mean? How do researchers and others respond to the new ‘impact agenda’ and how might we best plan, monitor and report on impact? This working paper attempts to provide answers to some of these questions by reviewing various understandings of ‘impact’ and describing the approach used by the ESRC STEPS Centre in its second five-year phase of funding. In particular, we draw on our experience of adapting and employing a down-scaled version of ‘participatory impact pathways analysis’ (PIPA) and reflect on its utility and potential as a tool for planning relatively small-scale social science/ interdisciplinary research projects conducted with partners in developing countries. In using PIPA, the STEPS Centre has adapted the idea of ‘impact pathways’ in line with its broader ‘pathways approach’, which focusses on complex and dynamic interactions between knowledge, politics and ‘social, technological and environmental pathways to sustainability’. In this way, PIPA has been useful in articulating and exploring the potential impact of STEPS Centre projects: it has helped to map out the networks known to the researchers, appreciate different perspectives held by the team members and generate an understanding of the narratives, networks and policy processes under study. Although the possibility for detailed ex ante prediction of impact pathways is limited, using PIPA has helped teams to be ready to maximise communication and engagement opportunities, and to link research across different STEPS Centre projects and beyond. The working paper also describes how PIPA may be used iteratively in a way that enables reflexive learning amongst research teams. Lastly, we speculate on the ways in which PIPA may be further developed and used in ex post impact monitoring and evaluation into the future.

Grassroots innovation movements (GIMs) can be regarded as initiators or advocates of alternative pathways of innovation. Sometimes these movements engage with more established science, technology and innovation (STI) institutions and development agencies in pursuit of their goals. In this paper, we argue that an important aspect to encounters between GIMs and mainstream STI institutions is the negotiation of different framings of grassroots innovation and development of policy models for inclusive innovation. These encounters can result in two different modes of engagement by GIMs; what we call insertion and mobilization. We illustrate and discuss these interrelated notions of framings and modes of engagement by drawing on three case studies of GIMs: the Social Technologies Network in Brazil, and the Honey Bee Network and People's Science Movements in India. The cases highlight that inclusion in the context of GIMs is not an unproblematic, smooth endeavour, and involves diverse interpretations and framings, which shape what and who gets included or excluded. Within the context of increasing policy interest, the analysis of encounters between GIMs and STI institutions can offer important lessons for the design of models of inclusive innovation and development.

The ability of innovation—both technical and social—to stretch and redefine ‘limits to growth’ was recognised at Stockholm in 1972, and has been a key feature in debates through to Rio+20 in 2012. Compared with previous major moments of global reflection about human and planetary futures—Stockholm, Rio in 1992, Johannesburg in 2002—we now have a better understanding of how innovation interacts with social, technological, and ecological systems to contribute to transitions at multiple levels. What can this improved understanding offer in terms of governance approaches that might enhance the interaction between local initiatives and global sustainability objectives post-Rio+20? The global political agenda over the last two decades has largely focused on creating economic and regulatory incentives to drive more sustainable industrial development patterns within and between nation-states—resulting most notably in the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. At the other end of the spectrum, ‘Local Agenda 21’, launched at the first Rio summit, envisaged a community-led response to sustainable development challenges locally. This paper discusses the successes and challenges of globally linked local action through a number of illustrative examples, reflecting on how these have contributed to Rio 1992’s original objectives. In doing so, we will draw upon innovation studies and development studies to highlight three key issues in a hybrid politics of innovation for sustainability that links global and local: first, the direction in which innovation and development proceed; second, the distribution of the costs, benefits, and risks associated with such changes; third, the diversity of approaches and forms of innovation that contribute to global transitions to sustainability. Drawing on this analysis, we will also reflect on Rio+20, including the extent to which hybrid innovation politics is already emerging, whether this was reflected in the formal Rio+20 outcomes, and what this suggests for the future of international sustainable development summits.

Technology assessment (TA) has a strong history of helping to identify priorities and improve environmental sustainability, cost-effectiveness and wider benefits in the technology policies and innovation strategies of nation-states. At international levels, TA has the potential to enhance the roles of science, technology and innovation towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, effectively implementing the UN Framework on Climate Change and fostering general global transitions to ‘green economies’. However, when effectively recommending single ostensibly ‘best’ technologies or strategies, TA practices can serve unjustifiably to ‘close down’ debate, failing adequately to address technical uncertainties and social ambiguities, reducing scope for democratic accountability and co-ordination across scales and contexts. This paper investigates ways in which contrasting processes ‘broadening out’ and ‘opening up’ TA can enhance both rigour and democratic accountability in technology policy, as well as facilitating social relevance and international cooperation. These methods allow TA to illuminate options, uncertainties and ambiguities and so inform wider political debates about how the contending questions, values and knowledges of different social interests often favour contrasting innovation pathways. In this way TA can foster both technical robustness and social legitimacy in subsequent policy-making. Drawing on three empirical case studies (at local, national and international levels), the paper discusses detailed cases and methods, where recent TA exercises have contributed to this ‘broadening out’ and ‘opening up’. It ends by exploring wider implications and challenges for national and international technology assessment processes that focus on global sustainable development challenges.

The urgency of charting pathways to sustainability that keep human societies within a "safe operating space" has now been clarified. Crises in climate, food, biodiversity, and energy are already playing out across local and global scales and are set to increase as we approach critical thresholds. Drawing together recent work from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Tellus Institute, and the STEPS Centre, this commentary article argues that ambitious Sustainable Development Goals are now required along with major transformation, not only in policies and technologies, but in modes of innovation themselves, to meet them. As examples of dryland agriculture in East Africa and rural energy in Latin America illustrate, such "transformative innovation" needs to give far greater recognition and power to grassroots innovation actors and processes, involving them within an inclusive, multi-scale innovation politics. The three dimensions of direction, diversity, and distribution along with new forms of "sustainability brokering" can help guide the kinds of analysis and decision making now needed to safeguard our planet for current and future generations.

China is not only becoming a significant player in the production of high-tech products, but also an increasingly important contributor of ideas and influence in the global knowledge economy. This paper identifies the promises and the pathologies of the biotech innovation system from the perspective of social sustainability in China, looking at the governance of the system and beyond. Based on The STEPS Centre’s ‘Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto’, a ‘3D’ approach has been adopted, bringing together social, technological and policy dynamics, and focusing on the directions of biotechnological innovation, the distribution of its benefits, costs and risks and the diversity of innovations evolving within it and alongside it.

This report explores the role that ‘new models’ of
technology assessment can play in improving the lives of
poor and vulnerable populations in the developing world.
The ‘new models’ addressed here combine citizen and
decision-maker participation with technical expertise. They
are virtual and networked rather than being based in a
single office of technology assessment (as was the case in
the United States in the 1970s-90s). They are flexible
enough to address issues across disciplines and are
increasingly transnational or global in their reach and
scope. The report argues that these new models of
technology assessment can make a vital contribution to
informing policies and strategies around innovation,
particularly in developing regions. They are most beneficial
if they enable the broadening out of inputs to technology
assessment, and the opening up of political debate around
possible directions of technological change and their
interactions with social and environmental systems.
Beyond the process of technology assessment itself, the
report argues that governance systems within which these
processes are embedded play an important role in
determining the impact and effectiveness of technology
assessment. Finally, the report argues for training and
capacity-building in technology assessment
methodologies in developing countries, and support for
internationally co-ordinated technology assessment
efforts to address global and regional development
challenges.

This book offers a detailed analysis and a set of carefully measured suggestions towards achieving greater integration of science, precaution, and public involvement in current arrangements for European food safety governance. The devised governance framework provides a distinctive system of methodologies, participatory processes, and institutional configurations that demonstrates practical advice of how complex and conflicting food safety demands might be reconciled. At the core of the suggestions for procedural reform is a design with four governance stages (framing, assessment, evaluation, management, with participation and communication as cross-cutting activities), and an organisation into four assessment and management tracks distinguishing between risk-, precaution-, concern- and prevention-based approaches. In addition, the book suggests an innovative food safety interface structure designed to improve the politics-science-society coordination throughout the governance process.

The international harmonization of technology-related regulations seeks certain norms across diverse contexts. Harmonization efforts are based primarily on the promulgation of state-centered command and control forms of regulation, though they may also be accompanied by the diffusion of more plural approaches that are decentered from the state. We contrast the ways in which the proper use of transgenic cotton seed technologies is understood in harmonizing regulations with the way this technology is used in practice in regions of Argentina and China.We find divergence that poses challenges for both state-centered and decentered approaches to harmonization.While state-centered approaches are blind to some critical processes on the ground, decentered strategies are found wanting in situations where norms remain deeply contested amongst actors situated in very uneven power relations. In both cases, we find that establishing and securing norms that are socially just and environmentally sustainable means attending much more explicitly to the political economies in which technological practices actually take root.

This article examines current and future stemborer control options in Kenya, in particular the use of transgenic maize carrying genes from the insecticidal bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis.

This paper describes an exploratory study that investigated perceptions and practices around antibiotic use amongst villagers in four villages in Hubei and Shandong, China, as part of a larger multi-level project investigating framings of technology risk and regulation from local to global levels. Adopting a ‘backward-mapping’ methodology, focus group discussions and in depth interviews were carried out during a field visit in the summer of 2008 to examine notions of antibiotics as a category of drug, their uses, patient preferences and strategies for managing risk by accessing what were seen as ‘better’ antibiotics. Most villagers, especially those identified by peers as coming from poorer groups, expressed their ignorance around antibiotics and admitted relying entirely on trusted doctors to provide information and administer drugs. The minority of villagers who differentiated between antibiotics and other drugs claimed to base their knowledge additionally upon their own experience with the drugs, and in some cases on information from the media. Villagers’ explanations for the high level of use of antibiotics (including drips) to treat infections such as common colds, and villagers’ awareness and understanding of antibiotic resistance are explored. We finally discuss the implications of these user ‘framings’ for international and national initiatives to manage the global threat of antibiotic resistance.

Transgenic crops are being put forward as a solution to the food crisis. The controversies that dogged their introduction, at least in Europe, are being dismissed as dangerous distractions.

This paper analyses the risk associated with food safety regulation versus genetically modified (GM) food production. It is argued that European Food safety regulation was in flux before the GM controversy. The EU and many member states introduced a new division of labour between government departments responsible for promoting the food industry and those in charge of making sure it was safe. This has led to the recognition of ‘risk assessment policy’ through which social framing assumptions shape various aspects of risk assessment, and increased attention to divergent values associated with the outputs of risk assessment. Outside Europe, very different approaches to regulating the risks from GMOs have been adopted, with perhaps the most fundamental differences associated with labelling. Labelling of GM products, central to food sovereignty concerns, began in Europe in 1998, as retailers sought to preserve consumer trust in their own brands. EU legislation later standardized requirements across different firms and Member States. Europe is still grappling with the co-existence challenges that this legislation raises.

This background paper focuses on the potential role that
international science and technology ‘foresight-type’
activities might play in informing decision-making
processes about innovation, development and emerging
technologies. Two, predominantly national-level, foresight
type activities are discussed, ‘technology foresight’ and
‘technology assessment’. Experiences with these
approaches are quite diverse but over time there has been
a discernible shift in many countries away from reductive
and expert-based exercises to more plural processes in
which wider sets of assumptions have been articulated
about problems, desired futures and the social purposes
of technology. Foresight-type activities have only
occasionally been conducted at the international level but
this paper argues that there may be scope for conceiving of
international foresight activities as a mechanism for
articulating and framing development ‘needs’, and for
bringing these to bear on innovation actors. This would,
however require considerable attention to how foresighttype activities are designed and conducted, and the
complexities of dealing with a very large array of global
actors and perspectives.

The international harmonization of technology-related regulations seeks certain norms across diverse contexts. Harmonization efforts are based primarily on the promulgation of state-centered command and control forms of regulation, though they may also be accompanied by the diffusion of more plural approaches that are decentered from the state. We contrast the ways in which the “proper” use of transgenic cotton seed technologies is understood in harmonizing regulations with the way this technology is used in practice in regions of Argentina and China. We find divergence that poses challenges for both state-centered and decentered approaches to harmonization. While state-centered approaches are blind to some critical processes on the ground, decentered strategies are found wanting in situations where norms remain deeply contested amongst actors situated in very uneven power relations. In both cases, we find that establishing and securing norms that are socially just and environmentally sustainable means attending much more explicitly to the political economies in which technological practices actually take root.

The term “development” is synonymous with economic growth. Theory and empirical evidence suggests decoupling energy use from economic growth is unlikely, implying an urgent need to decarbonise energy use and supply if developing nations are to be protected from the impacts of climate change. The political discourse on facilitating low carbon growth in developing countries has focused on technology transfer. This paper argues that this will only underpin long term, low carbon growth if pursued in such a way as to facilitate the development of innovative capabilities within developing countries. This can best happen via international collaborations at the appropriate point along the research, development, demonstration and deployment spectrum, defined by existing levels of innovative capabilities within a country and its specific technological needs, which may vary regionally. Policy processes need to engage more actors in democratically inclusive and accountable fora to map out pathways to locally-relevant low carbon futures. These should not be merely technocratic (and technology-focussed), but should also include government, firms, civil society and users themselves.

STEPS Working Papers
The ‘modernist’ project that has come to dominate food and agricultural policy has failed to provide sustainable outcomes for many poor people in developing countries. Conventional agricultural science is not able to explain let alone address these concerns because it is based on a static equilibrium-centred view that provides little insight into the dynamic character of agri-food systems. This paper analyses how prevailing narratives of technological change and economic growth have come to dominate key food and agriculture policy debates. It seeks to counter these orthodox notions by emphasising that agri-food systems are embedded in complex ecological, economic and social processes, and showing how their interactions are dynamic and vulnerable to short-term shocks and long-term stresses like climate change. The paper makes the case for a deeper understanding of diverse 'rural worlds' and their potential pathways to sustainability through agriculture. Moreover, it argues for a normative focus on poverty reduction and concern for the distributional consequences of dynamic changes in agri-food systems, rather than aggregates and averages. FInally, it sets out an interdisciplinary research agenda on agri-food systems for STEPS that focuses on dynamic system interactions in complex, risk-prone environments and explores how pathways can become more resilient and robust in an era of growing risk and uncertainty.