Intermediaries as Innovating Actors in the Transition to a Sustainable Energy System

Abstract

Introducing intermediaries: innovative actors in system transitionsOne focus of science and technology studies (STS) is the co-production of science, technology and society based on the idea that scientific, technological and social developments influence and shape one another (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987).In other words, sociotechnical systems comprise (technological) objects, people, practices and common, organisational or institutional relations between them.The study of (social) practices is therefore central to an STS approach -also from the methodological point of view (Guy and Shove 2000).It aims to shed light on how changes in the networks of actors, objects and the relations between them can occur (Hughes 1987), be brought about, or possibly even managed (Schot and Geels 2008).Additionally, it allows analyzing how variation in a certain aspect of the sociotechnical system may have both planned and unforeseen repercussions throughout and long-term consequences for the system under scrutiny (Hughes 1987).The term "system transitions" has been coined for large-scale and long-term changes of such systems.The historical developments leading to and following changes in the transport sector (Geels 2005) or the (at the time of writing) still planned technological, organisational and behavioural changes in the system of energy consumption and production towards sustainability are examples of such system transitions.In the context of systems innovation research, Van Lente et al. (2003) describe 'systemic intermediaries' emerging in long-term transitions towards a sustainable future as actors who are 'useful and necessary but not sufficient'.While previously the focus of systems innovation research lay on institutions, Van Lente and his co-authors view the connecting, translating and facilitat- Intermediaries as Innovating Actors in the Transition to a Sustainable Energy System Julia Backhaus1Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN)