System transition concepts and framework for analysing energy system research and governance

Abstract

System transitions are complex societal co-evolutionary processes that are typically led by gradual adaptation rather than visionary management or coordination. Still, visionary coordination of policies, regulation, corporate strategies and social learning may overcome some barriers and foster new innovation efforts providing sufficient impetus towards system transition. This paper addresses ‘system transition’ as a valuable perspective and develops a framework for analysing Nordic energy system research and governance. The framework integrates different transitions phases, levels and dimensions and combines them with the governance functions to provide overarching frames for understanding system transitions. The framework for transition research and governance is applied in the analysis of the energy governance cases and discussed in view of energy system transitions. This paper is based on an extensive literature review and empirically based-theory building.