A “valuation” perspective on complex transition phenomena
Abstract:
The field of sustainability transitions emerged in a historical context where radical transformations were asked for in rather simple economic sectors – mostly infrastructure-focused public utility services – requiring responding to a rather one-dimensional goal of decarbonization to prevent climate change. Today, we are confronted with needs to transform more complex sectors such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles or food, which show more intricate sectoral and spatial structures and which have to respond to a wide variety of value concerns, like social justice, health or economic impacts in variegated geographies. The talk will elaborate how tackling these complexities requires a more explicit engagement with how diverse values get mobilized to shape directionalities of ongoing transition processes.
To this avail, we will draw on the recent sociological “valuation” literature to specify the institutional structures, processes and mechanisms by which salient societal values get attributed to new technologies. We will show how “valuation devices”, i.e. concrete institutional forms that attribute specific values on technologies, are enacted by actors to shape directionalities according to their interests. However, directionality can rarely be controlled by individual actors alone. Rather it results from the interplay of a multitude of different strategies, constituting a sort of “valuation ecosystem”, which ultimately guides innovators in their activities.
Tracing such micro-level dynamics of valuation and relating them to meso-level structures like valuation ecosystems requires new methodological approaches. The talk will illustrate how the recently developed semantic network method of socio-technical configuration analysis may be leveraged in this regard.
About the speaker:
Bernhard Truffer is a Professor of Innovation Studies at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, where he holds the Chair in Geography of Transitions in Urban Infrastructures. He is also Group Leader for Innovation and Transition Dynamics in the Department of Environmental Social Sciences, leading Group CIRUS.
Professor Truffer is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of sustainability transitions and a recipient of a Highly Cited Research award. His expertise spans the dynamics of innovation, institutional change, and socio-technical transformations. His research focuses on technological innovation systems, industry and institutional dynamics, and the geography of transitions, with applications across key sectors including urban water, energy, transport, and chemicals. A central theme of his work is understanding how innovation processes unfold across places and scales, and how they can be steered towards sustainability through policy, foresight, and strategic planning. He is also deeply engaged in inter- and transdisciplinary research, working at the interface of science, policy, and practice.
Seminar Details:
The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research runs a series of regular seminars given by visiting speakers to Manchester. These seminars are open to anybody who is interested in science, technology and innovation policy and management.
Refreshments will be available for networking from 3:15 pm, before the seminar.
We encourage AMBS and UoM staff and students to join us in person. An online option will be available via Microsoft Teams Online.
