Week 7

Question 1

Why do we need transformative social innovation?

Answer 1

Because in order to have a just sustainability transition we also need to tackle systemic societal challenges. Technological innovations is not sufficient for this

Question 2

Social innovation

Answer 2

Changing social relations by:
- New doing (technologies, practices, materiality)
- New organizing (modes of organization governance)
- New thinking (knowledge, meaning, visions and images)

Transformative when it challenges, alters or replace the dominant structure

Question 3

Examples for new doing, new organizing, new thinking

Answer 3

new doing: cleaning solar panels
new thinking: creating new words (pro-sumer)
new organizing: cooperative (one member, one vote)

Question 4

Renewal of old things

Answer 4

Important!
Innovation does not always have to be new things it can also revise old ways of doing

Question 5

Social movements

Answer 5

informal networks of interaction, based on shared beliefs and solidarity, mobilized around contentious themes through the frequent use of various forms of protest

Question 6

Examples social movements

Answer 6

Participatory budgeting
The impact hub
Eco villages
Sociocracy
Fab lab

Question 7

Fields of study for social innnovations in energy transition (6)

Answer 7

• Cooperatives
• Gamification and city-level competitions
• Innovative financing
• Participatory incubation and experimentation
• Framing against fossil fuel energy
• Local electricity exchange

Question 8

Common princicples for transformative social innovation (1-4)

Answer 8

1. Physical and mental space for learning and experimentation is a necessary condition.
2. We require alternative and diverse economies.
3. Innovation is just as much about shaping the new as it is about reframing the old.
4. We need to experiment with alternative social relations and relational values.

Question 9

Common principles transformative social innovation (5-8)

Answer 9

5. Social & material change are intertwined: we need both social & technological innovation.
6. Transformative change requires hybrid combinations of civil society, state and market.
7. Social innovation should never be an excuse to dismantle necessary public services –> still needed
8. Translocal empowerment is a promising response to the challenges of globalization (false dichotomy between globalized and localized)

Question 10

Common principles transformative social innovation (9-13)

Answer 10

9. Social innovation is about fostering a sense of belonging, autonomy and competence.
10. Transparent and inclusive decision-making is a necessary condition for change.
11. Alternative and diverse narratives are needed to drive change.
12. More mutual recognition and strategic collaboration is needed –> calling for trans local and intersectional solidarity
13. Embracing paradoxes is key to transformative social innovation.

Question 11

Tranformatice power =

Answer 11

prefigurative + countervailing + reinforce

Question 12

Prefigurative

Answer 12

Capacity to prefigure new ways of doing, thinking and organizing

Question 13

Countervailing

Answer 13

Capacity to challenge, dismantel existing structures and institutions

Question 14

Reinforcive

Answer 14

capacity to (re)produce (existing and new) structures and institutions

Question 15

Nudging factor of power, challenge

Answer 15

people do not believe that they have any power
challenge: power literacy and giving a sense of power

Question 16

Dominant way of deciding who has power

Answer 16

Composition of society: state, market and community
Triple helix: acedemia, government and industry (can add community, environment and nature)

Question 17

Paradoxes of innovation and societal change

Answer 17

making it mainstream will loose innovation
The multi actor perspective of mainstreaming:
- marketized and commodified (market)
- bureaucratized and standardized (state)
- socialized and communalized (community)

Question 18

How to deal with the paradox?

Answer 18

• prepare for dialectics of innovation ‘capture’
• develop flexible repertoire of diverse strategies incl. trojan horse tactics
• translating to mainstream context while also nurturing the radical core.

Question 19

Wittmayer et al 2020
New conceptual framework for social innovation

Answer 19

Technical: generation, distribution and consumption.
Social: values, beliefs, affordability.
Institutional: formal and informal rules, norms, power relations.

Question 20

Wittmayer et al 2020
Social innovation is normatively complex

Answer 20

• Involving values and beliefs will have to include that in the end the innovation is really ethically and socially responsible –> looking at the unintended consequences
• multistakeholder concept, difficult to see them all

Question 21

Wittmayer et al 2020
How to ‘fix’ the normative complexity in social innovation in the energy system

Answer 21

• the normative complexity of the concept: understand values and behavior
• the multi actor nature: inclusive and participatory processes
• socio-material intertwinement: understanding the unintended consequences
• experimentalism-based intervention logics: keep experimenting to find a better alternative

Question 22

Van der Have 2016
Different categories of social innovation

Answer 22

Community psychology
Creativity research
Social and societal challenges
Local development

Question 23

Van der Have 2016
Community psychology

Answer 23

Systematic strategies or models to introduce change in society/behavioral change
Outcome: behavioral change
Focused on process

Question 24

Van der Have 2016
Creativity research

Answer 24

Understangin how social innovations are generated and implemented by organizations to reach a goals
Outcome: new social relationship or change organization
Focused on process

Question 25

Van der Have 2016 Social and societal challenges

Answer 25

Social innovation as a solution for social and technical challenges Outcome: regime transition or specific solutions Focused on outcome

Question 26

Van der Have 2016 Local development

Answer 26

Satisfying human needs by changing relation with government Outcome: social cohesion and change Focus on both process and outcome

Question 27

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Prosumerism

Answer 27

Increased involvement of customers in the production process, typified by the use of customer feedback and direct design request in high-tech industries Helps with the decarbonization

Question 28

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Prosumerism in energy market challenges

Answer 28

- necessary technology - governance and participation - normative aspects: energy justice and democracy - economics aspects: end of the energy markets

Question 29

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Prosumerism was first a niche innovation how to become regime

Answer 29

Needed: cultivated, nurtered and mainstreamed. Breaking the status qua by active participation - social learning and improvement - raising awareness and cultural normalization - enlargment and diversification of innovation networks

Question 30

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Politics of mainstreaming Prosumerism

Answer 30

The power plays and relations will change. Actors will also change. The whole game will be different. -engage citizens - engage politically oriented entrepreneurship - crowdfunding or local ownership

Question 31

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Things that are needed in mainstreaming for different perspectives

Answer 31

State: taxation and administrative burdens (passive citizen, active citizen) bureaucratization & standardization Market: requires expert knowledge and investments marketization & commodification Community: searching for a more competent and relatedness institutional arrangments socialization and communalization

Question 32

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Major issue hybrid institutional arrangments in the energy system

Answer 32

trade-off between burdens and benefits between non-profit, for-profit and not-for-profit institutions Hybrid does give a combination of informatlity and institutional dependence (informal orientation) + instutional shelter to secure resources (formal orientation

Question 33

Wittmayer and Avelino 2021 Some combinations of hybrid that might be a solution

Answer 33

Re-municipalization of energy utilities Combine private capital with open access Allienaces between energy cooperatives and mainstream energy companies

Question 34

Transformative social innovation vs social innovation

Answer 34

to what extent the innovation alters, replaces or challenges the dominant structure and power relations. normal innovation does not necessary has to change things.

Question 35

Van der Have two core conceptual elements SI

Answer 35

- a change in social relationships, systems or structures - such changes serve a shared human need/goal or solve a socially relevant problem

Question 36

Wittmayer and Avelino Multi actor perspective power relations

Answer 36

state, market, community and non-profit across: formal and informal profit-non-profit public-private

Question 37

Logics behind state, market and community

Answer 37

State: redistribution and accessibility through standardization Market: effective and profitible to gain profit Community: mainstreaming of shared beliefs and values

Question 38

Social innovation movements what we could do

Answer 38

About sharing knowledge and teaching people --> try to improve network to gain countervailing power + spreading awareness