Post-graduate course

 Innovation for Sustainability: Bringing Theory into Practice
Reconnecting the Metropolis, the Food, and the Land

(1 - 5 November 2010)

• Scope

• Goals

• Course Set-Up

• General Information

• Course Fee

• Registration

• Information

SCOPE

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, changes in food demand, population growth and urbanisation are issues that challenge the sustainability of our living systems. Change is needed to confront them. But change does not necessarily lead to sustainable development. How can innovation lead to sustainable development? Traditional innovation is often aimed at productivity increase and cost efficiency. The underlying innovation model is linear, uni-dimensional and static. This leads to specialisation and even fragmentation in both business and academia. Current innovation systems often only aim at a small spectrum of relevant drivers, and yield unexpected negative side effects. Innovation for sustainable development needs to be aimed at structural change, at transition toward sustainability.

Up until now very little empirical data has been gathered about how to experiment towards transition. Although the scholarly literature has largely addressed the processes of transition (Geels & Schot, 2007), and has indicated how transitions can be triggered (Loorbach & Rotmans, 2006), empirical data about transitions is rare, and often concerns only one or a few cases. Transition science is rich in theory, but rather poor in practical experience. In this postgraduate course, participants learn about and practice with the building blocks required for an innovation system for sustainability, and they will learn procedures to operationalise them towards successful transitions.

The course concentrates of the connections between the metropolis, the citizens, their food, and the land. We use the insights from TransForum’s innovation programme as a basis. TransForum is a Dutch innovation institute that experiments with innovative solutions for food, landscape and agriculture in metropolitan regions. TransForum has conducted over 30 such innovation experiments. TransForum’s innovation project portfolio is a first to offer the opportunity to analyse a host of projects systematically, to draw lessons about triggering transitions (Veldkamp et al., 2009). These lessons can enhance future transition initiatives, by increasing the potential of innovation projects.

Field of Change

The Field of Change approach (Senge et al, 1994) provides an adequate framework for the analysis of the current innovation system. It points out three systemic deficiencies:
• The tools and methods that are used in innovation do not reflect the multi-dimensional aspect of sustainable development. We therefore need business development that takes a triple bottom line (People, Planet, Profit) as its point of departure.
• The way in which innovation programs and other efforts are set up does not reflect the very dynamic nature of both innovation and the entrepreneurial sectors involved. So we need a more flexible infrastructure that allows for a multitude of ideas to develop and generate intersections that are the breeding ground for new knowledge.
• Many societal sectors lack vision, methods and tools, and an innovative infrastructure. So we need to start experimenting: hence the reason to set up TransForum.

This course explores the cutting edge of transitions towards sustainable development. Participants will develop their own innovation project. The building blocks for doing so require theoretical reflection on empirical data about transitions. This course offers a scientific analysis framework to derive lessons from TransForum’s project portfolio. Furthermore, generating the building blocks requires theoretical knowledge about transition processes and knowledge work at the interface of science and society. After this course, the participants will become aware of the building blocks required for innovation towards sustainability, and will learn procedures to operationalise them towards successful sustainability transitions.

 

The scientific analysis of building blocks

Peter Senge’s (1994) Field of Change offers a structure to frame the transition process at hand. This field of change is a cyclical process which consists of a guiding vision, adequate tools and methods and an innovative infrastructure in which new innovations can take place that lead to a transition of the system. The field of change approach offers an adequate framework for a transition process in which innovation can stimulate sustainable development.

Building blocks for innovation

TransForum’s guiding idea: Metropolitan Agriculture. Metropolitan agriculture uses innovation to connect urban functions and food demand to agricultural operations, for the benefit of the metropolis as a whole. Necessarily, such innovation is pluriform, because it must be industrial in scope, rural in appearance, regional in environmental impact, and global in addressing food demands.

TransForum’s innovation infrastructure reflects this pluriformity: it is a large series of niche experiments (innovation projects) in a wide range of directions, and in accordance with the existing breadth in societal perspectives. Every such experiment holds the promise to accommodate the metropolis in both its rural demands, its urban demands and its food and nutrition demands. Due to the complexity of Metropolitan Agriculture, it is necessary to experiment with a wide range of options, to be able to recognise the options with the highest potential for change.

TransForum has documented the procedure of Shared Value Development, which captures its most difficult aspects. Shared value development is a multi-actor approach, with entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations, government, and science. Together, they create novel ideas that benefit people, planet and profit (transdisciplinary knowledge creation). But it’s a long way from idea to business. Shared value development includes experimentation; does the idea work as expected? What questions need to be addressed to ensure success?

The third and most important phase is proving that the project leads to business success (the proof of the pudding is in the eating). By success, we mean that resulting businesses are financially profitable. Still, even economically successful projects can fail, when they do not profit people and plant as well. Those innovation projects have failed their goal for sustainable development.
 

GOALS
 

• Understanding the key processes and theories about system innovation, and the associated practical challenges
• Being able to analyse innovation projects
• Having developed a project proposal in the context of system innovation

COURSE SET-UP

The course is five days long. The main part of the course is devoted to group work, with a series of supportive lectures, in which the participants develop their own innovation project proposal. Monday focuses on TransForum’s contributions to sustainable development. At the end of the day, the participants are divided in small groups of four to six persons, and receive their tasks for the week. The participants will work on real-world innovation project ideas derived from TransForum’s innovation portfolio. Tuesday and Thursday morning are both concerned with theory to support the participants in carrying out their task work. On Wednesday, an excursion will take the participants to two innovation project sites, at which they can interview key project members about innovation experiments. Friday is devoted entirely to a symposium, in which the participants share their task products and their lessons learnt.

Task work
The participants will develop their own project proposal for an innovation project. The tutors and lecturers will act as a mock TransForum Programme Team, to which the participants submit their proposals for funding. Organising the task work requires that various roles need to be played by actual TransForum members. Each group is supervised by a tutor, who plays the role of Project Director. Furthermore, the task products will be judged by the Programme Team. The role of Programme Team will be fulfilled by the directors of TransForum’s scientific programme and other members of the actual Programme Team.

Each group will receive a description of an innovation from the TransForum project portfolio. They will be provided with a number of frameworks (the Field-of-Change approach being the main one) to help them design their proposals. The task will be organised just as normal project development would be organised. Groups start with working out a memo for an innovation project. They receive assistance from a TransForum project director, who helps them shape their idea.

The next step is to flesh out their ideas and address the Programme Team's comments to complete their project proposals. On the final day, all groups will present their work in detail in a symposium. Again, the TransForum Programme Team will be present, this time to judge the final proposals. Next, the participants will discuss their lessons learnt to reflect on transition theory. The symposium ends with collecting the participants’ recommendations for TransForum, and for the Dutch innovation system in general.

Theory
The course covers three related theoretical fields. The first is the TransForum curriculum. TransForum’s body of knowledge concerns the concepts of Metropolitan Agriculture and Shared Value Development. These are complemented with the Field-of-Change approach to system innovation. Lecturer:
• Dr. Henk van Latesteijn, director TransForum

The second covers current theory about sustainability transitions. Sustainability transitions differ from autonomous transitions in that actors in the system have an image of sustainable development, and attempt to influence the system towards that image, towards sustainable development. Lecturers:
• Dr. Derk Loorbach
• Ir. Herman de Boon

The third covers theory about social and societal learning and change. This strand of theory is used to convey the importance of (pluralist) sense-making and co-construction of knowledge for innovation. Lecturers also will cover the distinction between transdisciplinary research, and a transdisciplinary approach. Lecturers:
• Prof.dr.ir. Cees Leeuwis
• Dr. Barbara Regeer

Literature
Geels, F. W., & Schot, J. (2007). Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy, 36, 399-417.
Loorbach, D., & Rotmans, J. (2006). Managing transitions for sustainable development. In X. Olsthoorn & A. J. Wieczorek (Eds.), Understanding industrial transformation: Views from different disciplines (Vol. 44, pp. 187-206). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Strategies and tools for building a learning organization. New York, US: Doubleday.
Veldkamp, A., Van Altvorst, A. C., Eweg, R., Jacobsen, E., Van Kleef, A., Van Latesteijn, H., et al. (2009). Triggering transitions towards sustainable development of the Dutch agricultural sector: TransForum's approach. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 29, 87-96.

PROGRAMME (Preliminary Schedule)

• Monday: General TransForum curriculum / Introduction of Field-of-Change
• Tuesday: Proceeding with the task / Scientific theory about sustainability transitions
• Wednesday: Field visit TransForum project(s)
• Thursday: Proceeding with the task / Scientific theory about social learning post-normal science / mode-2 science
• Friday: Presentation cases and mini-symposium

REGISTRATION

Please register by sending an email to pe-office@wur.nl, providing the following information:

• your name
• your email-address
• position: PhD-candidate // Post-Doc // other
• organisational affiliation and address
• billing address

If you are a PhD-candidate, please also include

• whether you have an approved TSP
• name of your graduate school
• name and address of research group (internal bode number, if applicable)
• your financial project number (if applicable)

Course material, Coffee/Thee, lunches and some diners are included in the course fee. Please indicate if you have any dietary requirement.
 

Note: Full registration only occurs once you have provided us with the requested information as stated above. Afterwards you will receive an official registration confirmation by one of the course organizers.

INFORMATION

Dr. C. van de Vijver

Tel: + 31 (0)317-485116

Email: Claudius.vandeVijver@wur.nl