SPRU Electronic Working Paper No 86

Transforming Technological Regimes for Sustainable Development: a role for Appropriate Technology niches?

Dr Adrian Smith

Abstract

Technological choices are influenced by a logic that derives from the accumulated knowledge, past investments and established technological practices. This tendency is called the technological regime. Regimes lead innovations along particular trajectories. Studies into past regime shifts (creating a new selection logic) identify the importance of novel niches in the development and use of the radically-different techniques that became the succeeding regime. A tension between diverse niches and the tendency for regimes to reduce diversity has been recognised by analysts. Maintaining a degree of diversity has been recommended on positive and normative grounds: diversity promotes innovation, and insures against unsustainable technological 'lock-in'. However, little has been said about how diversity could be supported and harnessed. It is a gap in knowledge which this proposal intends to fill. This SEWP describes a SPRU research project which uses a novel methodology (niche experiments) to test theory in the Strategic Niche Management (SNM) of transitions toward sustainable technological regimes. Real-world experiments in appropriate technology (AT) are analysed as though they were deep green niches existing within unsustainable technological regimes. Three sustainable niche case studies will be analysed: local organic food initiatives; low-impact housing; and wind energy. The evolution of these niches will be analysed. Evidence of niche influence on the incumbent regime will be assessed by examining niche growth and/or links with the incumbent regime. To this end, SNM techniques will be used critically to assess whether technological, organisational and institutional reforms could help the niches flourish and become practised more widely, and to test the viability of using niches in transition management to sustainable technological regimes. If viable, practical, policy-oriented recommendations about methods for supporting and harnessing diversity will be a key project output.

pdf no longer available - this paper has now been published in Science and Public Policy, 30 (2) 2003, 127-135.

spruweb@sussex.ac.uk
24 September 2002