Transformative innovation policy to meet the challenge of climate change: sociotechnical networks aligned with consumption and end-use as new transition arenas for a low-carbon society or green economy

A shift in international climate policy discourse toward a new shared narrative on the need for a ‘transition’ to a low-carbon society and green economy is outlined and assessed in terms of its implications for innovation policy. It is seen as recognition of the limits of incrementalism and the need for pervasive transformative innovation. Key passage points are identified in the early 2000s through which new ideas about transition moved from academic discussion into policy practice. Transitions thinking expresses a new synthesis of evolutionary and associational approaches in science, technology and innovation studies. It introduces concepts of sociotechnical networks and configurations which fulfil core societal functions of consumption and end use. The agenda for innovation shifts from the traditional macroeconomic or microorganisational level, to a new focus on a range of situated sociotechnical transitions at the mesoregime level. The real world of contemporary innovation policy is assessed in terms ...