As part of post COP21, a series of initiatives are launched to explore collaboration in different areas and at different level of actions. The “THE PARIS SUMMARY STATEMENT ON LEARNING FOR AN INCLUSIVE GREEN ECONOMY” is an initiative aimed to provide a set of guiding principles to support learning strategies and delivery mechanism as a reference framework for decision makers, learning institutions and professionals to refer to and apply in their work, covering multiple areas regarding de definition, design and implementation of action in Inclusive Green Economy Learning.
I was invited to take part in the launching event of this initiative and facilitate the participation of Climate KIC in this big network of institutions that support the debate on the need of Inclusive Green Economy and Learning toward creation of bridges in the research-policy-practice continuum. The initiative promotes interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-level approaches to empower individuals, communities and societies toward achievement of the regional and national strategies related to low-carbon economy.
The launch event “Opening the development agenda,” the STEPS center – Sustainable Alternatives for Latin America, was held on 5 and 6 November in Buenos Aires. STEPS Latin America is part of a network of universities based China, USA, Kenya, India, the UK and Sweden. STEPS Latin America seeks to renew and open innovation agenda and sustainability of the region, based on the idea that there are different paths to development. During the two-day panel on Open Science, Innovation inclusive, horizontal innovations for sustainability and natural resources and development which will have important guests were made internationally. My participation in this event was to design and facilitation of participatory workshops with the aim of thinking policies to promote open knowledge production and think a new research agenda on innovation and sustainable development for the region.
The workshop Policies to open the generation of knowledge was based in participatory techniques aimed to allow jointly identification of a number of items such as tools, methodologies and priorities related to S & T policy. Brainstorming techniques and World Cafe are used to enhance the diversity of perspectives and facilitate the exchange of ideas between different actors. The outcome of this workshop will be digitized and shared with participants to encourage collaboration in different areas.
The workshop Research agenda for sustainable development was based in participatory techniques for making maps on areas of knowledge and research priorities through a prospective approach. By visualizing a future scenario, the exercise seeks to help participants to relate different elements at different levels and over time in order to facilitate change processes at the system level. The outcome of this workshop will be digitized and shared with participants to encourage collaboration in different areas.
The event was part of the new line of collaboration between Transition Hub – Climate KICand the STEPs center. Further actions are related with the co-development of learning materials and exploring research opportunities in the area of resilient and smart agricultural systems
See full agenda of the event here & summary of event in STEP website
This study provides analytical evidence on new practices to transform the policy agenda in European cities. We carry out a participatory method approach to facilitate a process of mapping socio technical system and enable cities to articulate better their needs and challenges.
We run several rounds of networks analysis based in real projects data gathered in workshops through collaboration between actors and researchers as part of the Transition Cities project funded by the Europe’s Climate-KIC initiative. This exercise illustrates the combination of science and practice in the search of a more coordinated model to signal the market opportunities for co‐creation of low carbon innovative products and services. The preliminary results of this study have been presented in the following academic conference during 2015:
International Sustainability Transitions Conference 2015 – Sustainability Transitions and Wider Transformative Changes: Historical Roots and Future Pathways
University of Sussex, Brighton 24-28 August 2015
Qualitative and Mixed Methods in Research Evaluation and Policy Workshop
Brunel University London, 1-2 October 2015
EU-SPRI Early Career Researcher Conferences (ECC)
IRCRES Rome, 14-16 October 2015
Poster presentation
Transition Cities project of Climate KIC to collaborate in the search of methodologies to facilitate the analysis of opportunities on environmental project from a socio-technical perspective through a co-creative collaboration between actors and researchers (transdisciplinary research).
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.
Javier de Vicente López, Cristian Matti and José Jiménez Pérez
This document summaries the results obtained as a result of the participatory process that is part of the “Foundations for a Provincial Strategy Biomass” in the province of Castellon.
These actions are ultimately aimed at laying the foundations for sustainable biomass strategy, which included the set of actors in the territory and the entire value chain that the use of biomass genera.La idea behind all the participatory process It is incorporating the different viewpoints, knowledge and experience of all actors in the work of treating biomass as “an element to assess forest biomass” capable of “generating economic wealth, clean energy and employment, especially in the interior villages helping the development of these rural areas. ”
The Transitions Hub is an in-house lab unit for knowledge development aimed to embrace the complexity of applying system innovation to climate change and make it accessible and useful for practitioners and policy-making processes. In doing so, the Transitions Hub enables science-policy-practice interface on system thinking and transitions.
Climate-KIC offered an eight day coached sustainability transitions course for experienced environment and water management professionals, held in Valencia (Spain) from 22nd until 29th November 2014. It was designed to provide the key competencies and capabilities to be an innovator in the broad sense of this term. More than 35 people, from 15 different countries, were working on ‘Green skills’ in a programme designed to upgrade professional competences to face climate and sustainability challenges. The principal novelty of the course was to introduce horizontal and cooperative methods of working, involving low-profile hierarchies and greater autonomy. Hence, participants were collaborating hand-by-hand with international, regional specialists and problem owners related with climate change within a “project meeting” atmosphere. Cristian Matti, social science researcher, together with Professor Anne J. Wieczorek and Coach Javier de Vicente, coordinated a team of well-known international experts including Jan Jonker, Corporate Sustainability; Todd Gartner, Water Management and Innovation; Caroline Van Leenders, Process Manager in Sustainable Transitions; and, Fernando J. Díaz López, Eco-innovation for Green economies. Furthermore, several regional experts participated in debates activities trying to reproduce real working negotiations with stakeholders. Additionally, participants have enjoyed study visits to actual projects in the regeneration area of Turia River and Naturals Park l´Albufera. A diverse set of activities such as breakfast and lunch seminars, workshops, world cafe or pitching, were performed horizontally in order to help participants to realize which skills are needed the most to deal with sustainability transitions enforced by climate change: thus, first, to be able to identify barriers, identify opportunities or stakeholders analysis; second, to be able to develop solutions –new business models– with system innovation projects, focus priorities for further exploration or low carbon innovation; and, finally, make transitions happen –plans into actions–. This pilot initiative performed as a living lab experience for both participants and experts who explored new learning techniques by shifting the role of experts, participants and speakers towards a more horizontal context of professional interaction. This particular program forms part of the Innovator Catalyst series and was aimed at experienced professionals with the enthusiasm and potential for influencing organizational change and system innovation. It was also organized by INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Polytechnic University of Valencia and Vaersa.
Networking event for practitioner on management of environmental innovations
As coordinator of Valencian coaching team in the Pioneers into Practice programme 2014 (Climate KIC), I have had the opportunity to explore the introduction of new practices to foster stakeholder collaboration on projects related to Climate Change issues. We got a very good attendance of firms, researchers and local government officers from Valencia region and Portugal.
CRISTIAN MATTI 
