Beyond instrumentalism: Broadening the understanding of social innovation in socio-technical energy systems

Julia Maria Wittmayer, Tessa de Geus, Bonno Pel, F. Avelino, Sabine Hielscher, Thomas Hoppe, Marie Susan Mühlemeier, Agata Stasik, Sem Oxenaar, Karoline K.S. Rogge, Vivian Visser, Esther Marín-González, Merel Ooms, Saskia Buitelaar, Chris Foulds, Kristian Petrick, Salvador Klarwein, Seweryn Krupnik, Gerdien de Vries, Aleksandra Wagner and Anja Härtwig

ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: Social innovation is an important dimension of current transformations in energy systems. It can refer to alternative business models, novel policy instruments, financing schemes, participatory governance approaches to energy questions, or new discourses. Its significance for energy systems is often considered in narrow instrumentalist terms, reducing it to a tool serving particular policy objectives. Grounding the concept in social science and humanities insights, this review essay proposes a broadened social innovation understanding. We propose 1) to open up the normative complexity of the concept; 2) to appreciate the multi-actor nature of social innovation; 3) to understand it as an analytical entry point for socio-material intertwinement; and, 4) to understand social innovation as premised on experimentalism-based intervention logics. The proposed social innovation understandings provide a broader imagination and strategizing of structural changes in energy systems.

Keywords: Energy transition; Multi-actor perspective; Normativity; Social innovation; Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH); Transformative governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07-19
Note: SCOPUS: re.j
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published in: Energy Research and Social Science (2020) v.70

Downloads: (external link)
https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/312323/28/doi_295967.pdf Full text for the whole work, or for a work part (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/312323

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://hdl.handle.ne ... lb.ac.be:2013/312323

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ULB Institutional Repository from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Benoit Pauwels ().