EEA Report Sustainability transitions: policy and practice

I was invited to contribute to the discussion on science-policy-practice interface with a group of experts on sustainability transitions and EU Policy as part of the work of the European Environmental Agency.

The result is a report aimed to go beyond theoretical discussions to explore the practical implications of transitions research for policy and practice, building on the insights from past assessments. It highlights the growing links to established EU policy frameworks and identifies how transitions thinking is being operationalised at different scales across Europe. Co-authored by leading experts in transitions studies, the report has also benefited strongly from interactions with EEA partners in multiple policy areas at a workshop co-hosted with the European Commission’s European Political Strategy Centre in July 2018.

Link to the report

Challenge-led system mapping Handbook

This handbook crystallises more than 3 years working in more than 40 initiatives implemented in 18 countries. Experts, stakeholders, community, business, and policy makes have joined forces to better understand their systems and explore opportunities for transformative innovation. 

The Challenge-led system mapping approach responds to the need to improve the practitioner’s capacity to move towards transformational system change by providing mechanisms by which to work more horizontally with challenge owners and other actors. 

The approach highlights knowledge management as a good practice for analysis and communication responds to the increasing need to co-produce actionable knowledge and make it accessible for practitioners through participatory methods.

The visual narrative of the handbook contained in 106 pages with 55 pedagogic figures illustrate the commitment to better understand what we do, to harvest what we learn and to share our insight with the community.

Link to Handbook

Multi-level governance, policy mixes and wind energy in Spain

This paper is the result of my travel to the policy studies. It is part a main part of my PhD research study and the PICK ME project but it also takes lessons learnt on governance and innovation policy during my research stays in Enschede and Manchester. The objective of this paper is to understand to what extent instruments designed at different levels of policy domains can be coordinated as part of an organic process. At the same time,  it also tries to highlight some aspects of the story behind the emergence of the Spanish wind energy sector, a successful trajectory in terms of both energy and specialized technology production.

Davide and Elvira are my co-authors but also memorable fellows on this trip to policy studies.

Matti, C., Consoli, D. and Uyarra, E. (2016). Multi level policy mixes and industry emergence: The case of wind energy in Spain. Accepted for publication in ‘Understanding regional innovation policy dynamics: actors, agency and learning’ Environment and Planning C

 

 

Wind Energy in Spain: a review of the policy mix

Cristian Matti & Davide Consoli

The European Community (EC) has proactively promoted the development of renewable energy for over 20 years by means of standards and regulation designed to align incentives and opportunities. These actions have spurred a variety of responses and modes of implementation with distinctively local characters among member states. The diffusion of wind energy in Spain is a good case in point to illustrate how coordinated multi-level environmental policy can successfully promote the emergence of new sectors. Building on a wide platform of supranational and national directives, Spanish regional governments have designed and implemented development strategies based on the mobilization of locally available assets. This has resulted in differential growth of industrial, research and policy capacities across regions, and a rich spectrum of development trajectories that leverage on and feed back into regional-specific tangible and intangible assets. This chapter outlines the intertwining of technological, industrial and institutional developments that allowed Spain to become an active pole of innovation and growth in the wind energy sector.

Book: The Economics of Knowledge, Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy

Quality of life, social innovation and living lab methodologies

Fostering quality of life through social innovation: a living lab methodology study case

Mónica E. Edwards-Schachter, Cristian Matti, Enrique Alcántara

Review of Policy Research

Participative processes and citizens’ empowerment are considered crucial aspects of social innovation (SI), involving collaborative activities between the private, public, and third sectors. This article discusses the principal trends in the literature on the concept of SI, its aims and differential characteristics related to the identification of people’s needs, citizen participation processes, and improved quality of life. We present an exploratory case study of SI focusing on the gap between elderly people’s needs and the generation of business opportunities, using a living lab (LL) methodology for collaborative placed-based innovation. Our results suggest that LLs are a useful instrument to detect community needs and improve local development and support and integrate technological and social innovations in policies and local governance processes

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1541-1338.2012.00588.x/abstract

 

Networks and innovation processes in two Argentinean regions

INNOVATIVE PROCESSES AND NETWORKS IN TWO MUNICIPALITIES OF BUENOS AIRES

Procesos innovativos y redes en dos municipios del conurbano bonaerense

Patricio Narodowski, Cristian Matti

This paper was based in my first work in research. It is part of a large study on the Petrochemical – Plastic value change and it base in a series of interviews to firms of two mayor industrial districts. I got big lesson on research methods and fieldworks by doing this job but I also start to explore the concept of networks from a much applied perspective.

Link to full document (in Spanish): http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-170-29.htm

Transport Systems, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Mitigation Measures: A Study in Argentina

World bankSome of the results from the consultancy on Transport sector for the Second comunicaction of Argentina for the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Chgue were introduced here as part of the 5th urban research symposium on cities and climate change responding to an urgent agenda, held in Marseille in June 2009

Ravella, O., Matti, C., Giacobbe, N., Aon, L., Frediani, J. (2011). Transport Systems, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Mitigation Measures: A Study in Argentina. In Gupta, R., Chandiwala, S. Cities and Climate Change.  Responding to an Urgent Agenda. Urban Development Studies, World Bank, Appendix pp. 278.

Online resource

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