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                Dear colleagues, (apologies for cross-posting)

We are pleased to invite you to submit abstract proposals to our panel Research that leads to endings: Reflections about Impacts of Destabilisation and Discontinuation Research (Topic Group A, Track 8) at the Eu-SPRI 2023 summer Conference at University of Sussex in Brighton, UK on the 14th – 16th of June. Find the the description below.

Follow this LINK to submit your abstract until Monday 23rd January 2023, 23:59 GMT.

Best regards,
Peter Stegmaier, Lea Fünfschilling, Frédéric Goulet, Bruno Turnheim


Track description:


Research that leads to endings: Reflections about Impacts of Destabilisation and Discontinuation Research

Organisers
Peter Stegmaier, University of Twente, Netherlands, p.stegmaier@utwente.nl
Lea Fünfschilling, Lund University, Sweden, lea.funfschilling@circle.lu.se
Frédéric Goulet, CIRAD, France, Mexico, frederic.goulet@cirad.fr
Bruno Turnheim, LISIS, INRA, France, bruno.turnheim@inrae.fr


Track description

With this track we would like to stimulate reflection on how research on Destabilisation, Discontinuation, and Decline (DDD) is received in policy, civil society, and corporate management and how (far) it can trigger impact.  We are thinking of organisations that deliver strategic intelligence directly to decision-making and negotiation arenas, but also of more fundamental research that develops indirect influence. Sometimes, research is used to justify and inform the exit from innovation policies and socio-technical systems directly or indirectly. More specifically, we want to investigate whether and how research on DDD can also lead to the termination of an innovation, policy, business model, or else. This can be done, for example, by gathering specific expertise on the scenarios, means, conditions, and consequences of abandoning a technology or innovation; or by assessing how far the phase-out should go - parts of a socio-technical system or entire broad system contexts, pathways, or trajectories. We assume that there is DDD research with a claim to have impact that does not operate with these terms at all (but calls itself whatever fits the institutional context), and such DDD research that rather uses such terms to claim a specific competence.
This reflection is thus firstly about the contributions around the end or reduction of certain problematic technologies in the form of strategic intelligence for the preparation and implementation of upcoming terminations, and secondly about the influence of more fundamental studies of discontinuation and destabilisation on policymaking as a basis for reflection and learning about exits that have already taken place. We could discuss questions like the following:

  1.  Which kind of DDD studies would have indirect or direct effects on discontinuation/destabilisation (feasibility studies, foresight, action research, etc.)?
  2.  What kind of disciplines create knowledge that has a destabilising effect?
  3.  How would through such research incumbent practices be challenged, undermined, exposed, delegitimised, and discredited (creative destruction, emphasis on the endings aspect).
  4.  How would DDD-related research challenge a dominant paradigm in such a way that it breaks down and is replaced (destabilisation and discontinuation towards paradigm shift)?
  5.  How is DDD research itself contributing to the maintenance of current paradigms and socio-technical systems or to the creation of new, undesirable lock-ins (adverse effects)?
  6.  As a cross-check, the question should not be forgotten: what happens to policy and management analysis that does not keep an eye on the tendencies of decline, destabilisation or discontinuation - systematically overlooking, ignoring or misjudging these dynamics (categorical neglect, DDD blindness)?
  7.  Which methods and strategies of claiming competence are in use, which work better, which work less well (know-how and mundane practical competence)?
  8.  How evidence-based or how normative is DDD research that promises or has impact (knowledge-value trade-off)?
  9.  Which institutional, disciplinary, political, cultural circumstances are more conducive to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of DDD research (contextual circumstance)?

​​We would appreciate it if researchers and practitioners wanted to discuss the broadest possible range of varieties of DDD research with impact in this track and at the same time remain open to theoretical and methodical follow-up questions.
We plan a hybrid format that combines (a) scientific studies in the familiar short talk format about full or early-stage research papers with (b) a “policy dialogue” panel of practitioners with insiders from organised research & innovation policy who have used some form of DDD-related research to pursue discontinuation or have observed/used research with the side effect of destabilisation. They would be welcome to share their experiences on the importance of DDD-related research for efforts to exit policies, economies, technologies, innovations, etc. (The conveyors of this track have a list of potential candidates from various countries and types of organisations.)







Dr Peter Stegmaier | Assistant Professor
Science, Technology and Policy Studies (STePS) section
Department of Technology, Policy and Society (TPS)
Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS)
University of Twente, The Netherlands
p.stegmaier@utwente.nl | www.utwente.nl/bms/steps/people/scientific/stegmaier
@pstegm | Discontinuation-governance: @discontgovern

Recent publications:
Koretsky, Z., Stegmaier, P., Turnheim, B., & van Lente, H. (Eds.). (2023). Technologies in Decline: Socio-Technical Approaches to Discontinuation and Destabilisation. Routledge. [PDF]
Aukes, E., Stegmaier, P., & Schleyer, C. (2022). Guiding the guides: Doing ‘Constructive Innovation Assessment’ as part of innovating forest ecosystem service governance. Ecosystem Services, 58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2022.101482
Liersch, C, Stegmaier, P (2022): Keeping the forest above to phase out the coal below: The discursive politics and contested meaning of the Hambach Forest. Energy Research & Social Science, 89, 102537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102537
Loft, L., Schleyer, C., Klingler, M., Kister, J., Zoll, F., Stegmaier, P., Aukes, E., Sorge, S., & Mann, C. (2022). The development of governance innovations for the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services in Europe: A comparative analysis of four pilot innovation processes. Ecosystem Services, 58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2022.101481
Stegmaier, P, Visser, VR, & Kuhlmann, S (2021) The incandescent light bulb phase-out. Exploring patterns of framing the governance of discontinuing a socio-technical regime. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 11, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-021-00287-4
Bussola, F, Falco, E, Aukes, E, Stegmaier, P, Sorge, S, Ciolli, M, Gagliano, C, Geneletti, D (2021): Piloting a more inclusive governance innovation strategy for forest ecosystem services management in Primiero, Italy. Ecosystem Services, 52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2021.101380
Kuhlmann, S, Stegnaier, P, Konrad, K (2019): The tentative governance of emerging science and technology—A conceptual introduction, Research Policy, 48/5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.01.006
Stegmaier, P (2020): Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA): Innovationsmitgestaltung als Prozess gesellschaftlicher Aufklärung und Erwartungsmoderation. In B. Blättel-Mink, I. Schulz-Schaeffer, & A. Windeler (Eds.), Handbuch Innovationsforschung (pp. 1011-1028). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Visscher, K, Stegmaier, P, Damm, A, Hamaker-Taylor, R, Harjanne, A, Giordano, R (2019): Matching supply and demand: A typology of climate services, in Climate Services, 17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2019.100136
Stegmaier, P, Hamaker-Taylor, R, & Jiménez Alonso, E (2020): Reflexive climate service infrastructure relations. Climate Services, 17, 100151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2020.100151
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