OUTPUTS
Inter-sectoral relations to accelerate technological innovation systems formation: determinants of actors' entry into marine renewable energy technologies
ABSTRACT
Several innovations promise to accelerate transition but only a few can engender broader socio-economic effects beyond environmental improvement. This research questions under which conditions the development of new technological systems contributes to changes in other sectors. We conceptualize the transformative potential of innovations in three dimensions: context; complementarities; and competition. We discuss this framework against the empirical case of the development of marine renewable energies – whose growth benefit from spillovers of existing activities – in different contexts, such as Portugal and Norway. While the existence of an offshore oil & gas industry accelerates the emergence of offshore wind in Norway, the absence of an offshore energy sector raises challenges, but also creates opportunities for the transformation of several sectors in Portugal. We also perform a sectoral mapping and a survey of the actors in Portugal. Support to mature innovations lead to faster results in the focal sector; combined technology development results in more diversified activity, innovation and organizational change in adjacent sectors. Implications include a framework for assessing the socio-economic impacts of innovations, as well as the identification of policy-relevant circumstances that can simultaneously accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system and stimulate its transformative potential.
HIGHLIGHTS
Towards Blue Economy: the influence of policy strategies in the research and technology orientation of Portuguese firms
The “Blue Economy” was strategically identified as a driver of European growth, through the development of new competences and activities that enable the sustainable exploitation of ocean resources. Research and innovation policies oriented to the Blue Economy, at both European and country levels, can be described as attempts at “mission-oriented” policies, which seek to influence the direction of growth towards sustainable transformative change in the ocean area. The objective of this paper is to analyze the directions followed by the research and technological development (RTD) activities conducted by Portuguese firms in order to understand whether the strategies and policies targeting the development of the Blue Economy are being effective in their approach of steering Such development in certain directions, thus creating conditions for a sustainable transformation in ocean related areas. The results provide some evidence of the role being performed by RTD promoted by these policies towards a transformative change in ocean related activities. In particular, they show that they are contributing to: i) the generation of new areas and the revitalization of existing sectors, through the creation and exploitation of new technological opportunities; and ii) the sustainable use of resources and the mitigation of negative environmental effects created by previous activities. Moreover, the results show intense interaction between different types of organisations. In particular, they show that new technology intensive firms and industries are working together with existing firms from traditional sectors to exploit the new opportunities and technologies. The evidence suggests processes of cross fertilization and technological upgrading of traditional activities, through the interaction in the RTD projects funded by clearly targeted public policies.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Transformative role of challenge-led policies
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Investigate effects of strategies and policies aiming at the creation of a Blue Economy in Portugal
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Some evidence of sustainable change in ocean related RTD activities
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Cross fertilization between new and established sectors/firms that can uphold industrial transformation
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Effects localized in some industries while others still left behind
On the crest of a wave: the geographic trajectory of wave's energy technology emergence and development
ABSTRACT
The socio-technical transitions literature has turned an increased attention to the role played, in development and diffusion of new sustainable technologies, by the established structures - technological, organisational and institutional - within which these technologies emerge (Bergek et al., 2015; Markard & Hoffman, 2016). However, there is still a limited understanding of the impact of the emerging technologies upon these contextual structures (Fontes et al, 2019). This is namely the case for the territorial impacts of these processes, despite the growing attention to the spatial dimensions of sustainability transitions (Hansen and Coenen, 2015; Boschma et al, 2017) and the contributions of the literature on regional industrial path development (Martin and Sunley, 2006; Trippl et al, 2017).
In this paper we address this question by examining the trajectory of emergence and development a new sustainable energy technology and investigating: (i) whether the activities conducted along that trajectory increasingly engage companies from established sectors with complementary competences (Markard & Hoffman, 2016), whose activities can be influenced and eventually transformed by their involvement with the new technology (Fontes et al, 2019); (ii) whether these processes are simultaneously territorially anchored and connected to more international innovation systems (Binz & Truffer, 2017), with potential impacts on regional diversification (Fornahl et al, 2012; Coenen et al, 2015).
For this purpose we analyse the process of emergence and development of a renewable energy technology – wave energy. The analysis draws on an exhaustive database of all wave energy research, development and demonstration projects supported by the European Union, from 1992 to 2019 (from CORDIS database), enabling an assessment of 25 years of technology geography evolution, including its very early stages. Social network analysis methods support the identification of the composition and structure of the networks formed along different periods, which are territorially localised with the support of GIS tools.
Wave energy is still in a pre-commercial stage. However, experimental activities, which require the construction and sea deployment and operation of conversion systems (from prototype to full scale), have been conducted from early stages, requiring complementary resources and competences present in existing industries. The technology development have also been characterised by the interplay between the activities conducted in transnational networks and the actors’ territorial embeddedness (Fontes et al, 2016). The evidence of interaction with the industrial context and the multi-scalarity make this technology a relevant empirical setting.
This paper contributes to understand how the geographies of energy innovations are structured along the process of emergence and development of sustainable energy technologies, namely whether windows of opportunity are opened to the involvement of local/regional actors from established industries in the international technology development networks. This can create conditions for the transformation of their activities, with impact upon the regions where they are located.
Creating a Blue Economy: Research and innovation partnerships to accelerate the development of ocean-related industries
ABSTRACT
The Blue Economy can be a driver of European growth, through the development of new competences and activities that enable the sustainable exploitation of ocean resources. This paper assesses the directions followed by the research and innovation activities performed by Portuguese organizations in the fields encompassed by the "Blue Economy", at the light of national and EU strategies. It analyzes the projects developed by Portuguese actors in the context of European framework programs to uncover: the privileged areas - namely the relative importance of emerging areas vs. new advances targeting established ones - and the relative position of different types of organizations in the developments taking place.
The results point to stronger efforts in system domains related to marine resources and the marine environment and in some industry oriented domains. Among the latter, new industries emerge such as marine biotechnology and marine renewable energies and established industries exploiting marine living resources (fisheries, aquaculture). The results highlight the prominent position of research organizations in both new and established areas, as well as the relevant position of new technology intensive firms, in areas that require the development of application-oriented activities, where they often intermediate between research and industry. The results suggest that the international cooperation favored by these projects allowed to open-up the national system, contributing to broaden the organizations' knowledge bases and to extend their international networks.
HIGHLIGHTS
development, counteracting periods of decline
Fontes, M., Sousa, C. and Conceição, O. (2019)
Creating a Blue Economy: Research and Innovation Partnerships to Accelerate the Development of Ocean-Related Industries, Proceedings of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University International Scientific Conference on Innovations in the Digital Economy (SPBPU IDE'19), October 24-25, 2019 , Saint – Petersburg, Russia. ACM, New York. (ISBN 978-1-4503-7244-2/19/10).
Unleashing the transformative potential of innovations
ABSTRACT
Several innovations promise to accelerate transition but only a few can engender broader socio-economic effects beyond environmental improvement. This research questions under which conditions the development of new technological systems contributes to changes in other sectors. We conceptualize the transformative potential of innovations in three dimensions: context; complementarities; and competition. We discuss this framework against the empirical case of the development of marine renewable energies – whose growth benefit from spillovers of existing activities – in different contexts, such as Portugal and Norway. While the existence of an offshore oil & gas industry accelerates the emergence of offshore wind in Norway, the absence of an offshore energy sector raises challenges, but also creates opportunities for the transformation of several sectors in Portugal. We also perform a sectoral mapping and a survey of the actors in Portugal. Support to mature innovations lead to faster results in the focal sector; combined technology development results in more diversified activity, innovation and organizational change in adjacent sectors. Implications include a framework for assessing the socio-economic impacts of innovations, as well as the identification of policy-relevant circumstances that can simultaneously accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system and stimulate its transformative potential.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Transformative technologies induce a change in the industrial context
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Focus on the extent and nature of activities in adjacent sectors that engage with the emerging technologies
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Support to more mature technologies leads to faster results in the emerging sector; support to combined development of different technologies results in more diversified activity, innovation and organizational change in adjacent sectors
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Comparison with Norway reveals that context constrains the intensity and nature of complementary and competitive relationships
Global emergence of new technologies: a dynamic analysis of territorial knowledge communities and relational proximity in wave energy
ABSTRACT
The emergence of a new technology is a process that takes place within an existing, economic and social context, benefitting from established structures and also contributing to their transformation. Although much research has been conducted on technology emergence, the territorial dynamics behind this process are still underexplored.
The paper investigates the structure and dynamics of the territorial knowledge communities that engage, over time, in the development of a new technology, with a view to understanding how their behavior shapes the processes of technology emergence. More specifically, the paper addresses the following questions: How changes in the territorial knowledge communities in terms of geographical reach, actor composition and relational dynamics co-evolve with the emergence of a new technology? Which specific spatial and actor configurations contribute to the development of new interdependences between existing industries and the emerging technology, promoting its structuration?
The empirical research focuses on wave energy, a technology field that experiences a protracted emergence process and is still far from commercialisation. It analyzes all the wave energy research, development and demonstration projects supported by the European Union (from 1992 to 2018), enabling an assessment of 25 years of technology evolution, including its very early stages. Social network analysis methods support the identification, along different time periods, of the knowledge communities with the highest relational proximity, which are territorially localized with the support of GIS tools and further characterized in terms of composition and relational behaviour.
The results show a non-linear process of evolution, but also reveal an increased complexity in the behavior of territorial knowledge communities, expressed in growing intra and inter-community, variety and diversity, both at relational level and in terms of the constellations of actors, with impacts on the pace and directions of technology development.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Knowledge communities in wave energy both transnationally connected and territorially embedded.
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Slow and non-linear evolution, but spatial diversification and growing complexity of communities’ composition and relational behaviour
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Territorially anchored activities and strategy definition at global level shaped direction of technology development, counteracting periods of decline
(Fontes, M., Sá-Marques, T., Santos, H., Sousa, C., Nuno, B., 2019) “Global emergence of new technologies: a dynamic analysis of territorial knowledge communities and relational proximity in wave energy” – Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2019 – 05-07/June – Santiago de Compostela, Spain – oral presentation
Emergence of floating offshore wind energy: Technology and industry
ABSTRACT
The paper investigates the construction of strategies aiming to up-scale low-carbon innovations from pilot to full commercial scale. This requires a systemic understanding of the evolution of the technology along with the organizations and infrastructures supporting its development. Technological innovation systems concepts operationalize system building processes, including the establishment of constituent elements and the performance of key innovation activities. The study surveys the national roadmaps published between 2009 and 2014 for offshore wind energy in deepwaters (more than 50 m deep) which informs on how actors expect the system to grow, including the innovation activities crucial to achieve it. The roadmaps point to the role of guidance and legitimacy as triggers of changes in other innovation processes (knowledge creation, experimentation and so on) needed for take-off . The analysis reveals that the growth plans conveyed in the roadmaps are overly optimistic when compared with the time taken to develop offshore wind energy in fixed structures for shallow waters. Several countries have adopted supporting policies following the publication of the roadmaps, but weaknesses in crucial innovation processes (eg specialized skills) and external crisis factors, regulatory approvals, resulting in a delay of the first large investments. Policy should be based on realistic expectations and adequate to the phase of innovation, such as the promotion of technology-specific institutions (standards, codes, regulations and so on) in technology up-scaling. New directions for research are also provided.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Up-scaling involves changes at technological and institutional levels.
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10 proposals for the development of floating offshore wind energy are surveyed.
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Visions and strategies converge for accelerating diffusion take-up.
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Larger scale projects but also regulation and codes required for system up-scaling
(Bento, N., Fontes, M., 2019) “Emergence of floating offshore wind energy: Technology and industry”. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 99, Pages 66-82, ISSN 1364-0321.