As climate change can be seen accelerating and intensifying extreme heat waves across Mediterranean Europe, cities like Madrid are facing drastic socio-technical disruptions that are disproportionately threatening the most vulnerable demographics. To deal with this pressure, climate shelters are increasingly integrated into municipal adaptation strategies, public outdoor and indoor shelters designed to offer free and accessible thermal relief to those who need it most and cannot protect themselves. However, these shelters risk underutilization if designed specifically as technical cooling bunkers instead of welcoming comfortable social spaces. This thesis investigates how and to what extent core tacit and explicit community values are currently embedded in Madrid’s climate shelter policies and identifies intervention points in the climate shelter lifecycle to integrate and guard the integration of marginalized values using the following research question: "How are community values currently embedded in Climate Shelter project policies in Madrid, and at what stage(s) of the lifecycle can missing or marginalized values be systematically integrated into municipal climate shelter development?". Using a mixed qualitative-quantitative analysis of 12 municipal policy, planning and guideline documents, this thesis shows a clear and significant misalignment: explicit, measurable values like “Thermal comfort” heavily dominate over tacit, qualitative community values like “Place attachment”. To resolve this imbalance, the core marginalized values are mapped across the climate shelter lifecycle, showing that value integration and sustenance is essential for an equitable climate shelter design. Ultimately, this thesis synthesizes found practical and theoretical insights into a practical toolkit and an updated, value inclusive definition of climate shelters, providing municipal planners in Madrid with an actionable strategy to approach and operationalize equitable urban heat resilience using climate shelters. ... Read more

As global water scarcity intensifies, potable water reuse, the process of treating wastewater to a quality suitable for drinking water, offers a path toward sustainable water management. However, despite its growing technical viability, wide-spread adoption has been hampered by public opposition, often reductively dis-missed as lacking ‘social acceptance’. Potable water reuse blurs the long-established societal and infrastructural separation between wastewater and drinking water, leading to concerns about safety, system reliability, trust in authorities, and disgust (the ‘yuck factor’). This dissertation argues that although addressing social acceptance is critical, current approaches remain largely insufficient and overlook vital social and ethical concerns. For instance, the dominant paradigm of spreading information to combat a lack of knowledge must give way to approaches that better address all relevant public concerns. Moreover, by shifting the lens to incorporate ethical acceptability, this work uncovers critical but neglected issues, including the potential marginalisation of nonvocal publics, the risk that potable water reuse entrenches technological lock-in through unsustainable infrastructure, and unresolved challenges in managing concentrated waste streams. Ultimately, this work highlights that social acceptance and ethical acceptability must be treated in tandem to ensure the desirable and responsible development of a technological system – a strategy for which this dissertation lays the groundwork. ... Read more

This thesis investigates the implementation of Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy (MOIP) in Indonesia, using the country’s Net-Zero by 2060 commitment as a case study to examine how procedural justice influences stakeholder perceptions and policy outcomes in a lower-income context. While MOIP has gained prominence as a framework for addressing grand societal challenges, most empirical studies focus on high-income countries. Indonesia’s recent transition to upper-middle income status and its complex governance landscape provide a compelling setting to explore how missions are interpreted, implemented, and contested.

Using a qualitative case study approach and the policy arena framework, the research maps stakeholder interactions across four arenas: strategic, programmatic, implementation, and performance. Through eight semi-structured interviewsthe study identifies four key procedural injustices: limited participation, restricted inclusivity, lack of transparency, and barriers to legal recourse. These injustices undermine stakeholder trust, fragment mission interpretation, and hinder collaborative learning, ultimately reducing the effectiveness of MOIP.

The findings reveal that Indonesia’s hierarchical and siloed policy culture constrains reflexive learning and reinforces power asymmetries, allowing dominant actors to shape mission outcomes. The thesis argues that procedural justice should be treated as a strategic enabler of mission legitimacy and policy effectiveness. It recommends combining top-down structures with bottom-up co-creation approaches to foster inclusive and adaptive governance.

This research contributes to the literature on MOIP, energy justice, and transition governance by offering a context-sensitive analysis of mission implementation in lower-income countries. It highlights the importance of embedding procedural justice into mission design to ensure equitable, coordinated, and socially legitimate energy transitions. ... Read more

New global climate policies must be deemed just in order to be effective. However, global climate policymaking is complex and subject to normative uncertainties, especially in relation to the distribution of resources, risks, and consequences. These diverging views are dependent on what is distributed and are ultimately based on moral rules and principles that prescribe when a distribution is morally just; distributive justice principles. Enhanced understanding of these distributive preferences is necessary to account for them in both policymaking and modelling. A bottom-up evaluation of stakeholder views in negotiations is a time-consuming but useful method to add to this understanding. This research evaluates the potential of using GPT-4o to perform this task, identifying distributive justice principles in High-Level Segment (HLS) speeches from UNFCCC COP. By identifying distributive justice principles—egalitarianism, utilitarianism, prioritarianism, sufficientarianism, and libertarianism—this research examines the moral foundations of climate policy decisions. Manual annotations of 51 HLS speeches created a ground truth dataset, revealing complexities and class imbalances in principles, with prioritarianism being most dominant. GPT-4o’s performance in identifying relevant sentences and distributive justice principles showed promise but struggled with consistency compared to human annotations. Despite limitations, the model demonstrated efficiency, highlighting its potential for pre-processing and classification tasks. The study underscores the importance of a nuanced, bottom-up understanding of distributive justice in climate negotiations, contributing to climate justice and IAM by offering theoretical insights and practical implications. ... Read more

Responsible innovation considers the impact of a new process/product on society and the environment. It mainly refers to collaboration and communication between parties to obtain an ethically acceptable, sustainable, and socially desirable innovation. This study focuses on the factors influencing the implementing the RI framework, which consists of Anticipation, Inclusion, Reflexivity, and Responsiveness within start-ups.

The following research question has been investigated: ‘’Which factors affect the implementation of Responsible Innovation dimensions in start-ups.’’ ... Read more

Brackish waters can be found in transition zones between freshwater rivers and saltier seas. These dynamic coastal landscapes harbor multiple functions such as housing, agriculture, nature, and industry. Because of climate change, existing borders between fresh and saline water - and between land and water - are becoming contested. Extreme rainfall, typhoons, heat waves, and droughts occur more frequently and are expected to intensify. Shifting water levels and chloride concentrations affect which livelihoods and land use practices can be sustained in the future.

Land use transformations may be needed to adapt to climate hazards such as flooding, drought, and sea-level rise. Climate risks can be reduced when people or infrastructures are moved out of areas exposed to climate hazards. Examples of these so-called exposure reduction measures are zoning, managed retreat, buy-outs, the elevation of the water table in agricultural land or projects such as the Dutch Room for the River program. However, land use changes are often contested by the people currently living and working on those lands.

This dissertation aims to contribute to the debate about just transitions in climate adaptation and land use transitions in the Netherlands and beyond. Anticipating climate risk also means anticipating conflicts about what to protect and what to let go. Not everyone will agree about the necessity of these adaptation measures, nor about what ‘just’ climate adaptation actually means at the local level. This research therefore describes the prevalence of competing justice claims in multiple adaptation controversies. At the same time, this dissertation further develops a capabilities-based approach to climate adaptation ethics. ... Read more

The urgency of the climate crisis emphasizes the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a goal that cities intend to achieve by developing their cycling infrastructure. However, sustainability includes social equity, and transport has been shown to play a role in reinforcing urban inequalities. This study seeks to understand how cycling infrastructure can be developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and urban inequalities by assessing emerging equity-induced trade-offs in prioritizing cycling projects within the Grand Paris Metropolis, France. By combining automated identification of cycling infrastructure gaps with equity frameworks, this research identifies shifts in the prioritization of infrastructure projects based on degrees of equity emphasis. The focus lies on vulnerable populations, specifically children commuting to school coming from neighborhoods with lower educational attainment and adults commuting to work from neighborhoods with lower median income. The outcomes reveal that introducing equity considerations impacts the order of importance of infrastructure projects, though the overall trajectory remains intact, suggesting that integrating equity into transport planning is an achievable goal. ... Read more

Low emission zones tend affect different groups in society disproportionately and there is an urge to include injustices into policy making. Therefore, this research aims to aid the decision making process on recommending adequate locations for low emission zones and the evaluation of existing ones in the Hague based on the vulnerability to air pollution, in combination with vulnerability to transport poverty. Air pollution was operationalised by the NO2 concentration, and the transport poverty was operationalised by a neighbourhood-based mobility indicator that was corrected for proximity of key services to indicate the risk of social exclusion. A single- and multi-objective optimisation was employed.
LEZ locations were optimised for either the total population or the total vulnerable population. For the application of the Hague, some neighbourhoods dominantly come forward from the analysis. These neighbourhoods have favorable transport poverty values and in combination with poor air pollution and a higher number of (vulnerable) population it is only logical that they come forward from the analysis. Also, results for the Hague show that shifting the priority from the total population to the total vulnerable population does not have a significant effect on the outcome, especially when employing the multi-objective problem formulation. This can be explained by the fact that the highest number of vulnerable people are present at the highest populated neighbourhoods. For the case of the Hague, when employing a single-objective problem formulation, shifting from the total population to the total vulnerable population also has insignificant effects on the solution set when considering transport poverty. However, when considering the air pollution objective, there is a significant change in solution set. This implies that when taking a multi-objective approach, optimising for both air pollution and transport poverty vulnerability, the priority within the population has only minor effects on the outcomes, in stead, the trade-off between the objectives is the determining factor in the solution sets for the case of the Hague. Nevertheless, this work proposes a way to transition to a just LEZ allocation and evaluation method, that includes socio-spatial vulnerabilities to air pollution and transport poverty by employing an optimisation tool. ... Read more

Innovators are increasingly called upon to help resolve societal challenges such as pandemics, climate change, and social injustice. The complexity, uncertainty, and contestation associated with such wicked problems require them to leverage approaches that help navigate normative and epistemic considerations for decision-making. A large number of scholars and practitioners believe that the procedural approach of Responsible Innovation could offer this. Responsible Innovation aims to align innovations with societal values and worldviews through forms of anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness. Early anticipatory and reflexive deliberations subsequently provide an understanding of what decisions and outcomes are deemed ethically acceptable in light of uncertainty. This dissertation explores the usefulness of some approaches applied by Responsible Innovation in tackling wicked problems. It suggests that Responsible Innovation paradoxically fosters collaborations while also revealing contestation, and that innovators will need to leverage boundary objects and combine complementary approaches to deal with the (multi-scalar) conflict that is attributed to societal challenges. ... Read more

Conventional meat (CVM) and the related livestock industry are considered to contribute significantly to negative environmental impacts, animal suffering and threats to public health. Nevertheless, the demand for meat is still growing which is majorly due to global population growth. Lab-grown cultured meat (CM) is anticipated to be environmental-friendlier, animal-friendlier and potentially allows for public health benefits. However, it is not yet introduced in the market and faces multiple development challenges related to the technology, consumer acceptance and socio-politics. Furthermore, while CM stakeholders possibly aim for a meat transition, the challenges are hardly addressed in transition context. Transitions are generally studied across the levels of landscapes, regimes and niches using the Multi-level perspective (MLP). Moreover, Strategic niche management (SNM) can be used for assessing the internal processes that determine the success of a niche. On the basis of the MLP, SNM and the CM niche industry, this research therefore is intended to answer the following research question: What are the barriers to the transition of cultured meat from niche to regime perceived by stakeholders? Hence, this study provides niche stakeholders insight into supporting and accelerating a CM transition. For this purpose, the case of the Dutch CM industry is chosen. By means of conducting interviews with academic, business, government and society stakeholders combined with an analysis of related policy documents, 12 barriers are identified. The landscape level involves mutually reinforcing barriers (The environmental paradox & The Dutch political climate). The CVM regime level also involves reinforcing barriers that provides its dominant and stable character (Socio-Cultural lock-in, Techno-Economic lock-in, Institutional-Political lock-in and Regime perspectives). The CM niche industry level in turn, involves barriers that impede the process of the articulation of expectations (Operational constraints & Imagining), impedes network formations (Insufficient incentives & Network disunity) and impedes learning processes (Limited accumulation of knowledge & Dependent on innovation diversity). As these niche processes also reinforce each other, the CM niche industry possibly is entangled in a vicious circle, affecting niche nurturing and hindering reciprocal interactions between the levels. The barrier interactions and reciprocal interactions between the levels combined, determine that the window of opportunity for a CM transition is potentially only limitedly on the rise. Moreover, the effects of moderate landscape change, gradual regime reorientation to the landscape, limited institutional change and an insufficiently well-developed niche, are indicators that the transition is potentially on a transformation pathway. Based on the theoretical implications of this study, future research should aid a better articulation of niche expectations by the CM industry to attract new stakeholders and enhance learning processes. Furthermore, studying the CVM regime capabilities and specifying intentions in relation with CM, especially since the regime barriers could become CM enablers, potentially gives further insight into how the transition could be governed. With regard to practical implications, the potentially occurring transformational directionality failures could be addressed with mission-oriented innovation policies. Moreover, the possible transformational demand articulation failures would optimally be resolved if participation possibilities with the general public for exploration would be implemented. The mentioned failures also relate to transformational reflexivity failures for which CM stakeholders should anticipate the effects that impact the pathways for transition. Furthermore, when comparing the used policy documents with the interviews, the documents predominantly address the need for facilities and incentives regarding the CM niche industry. Although this also is constructive and necessary for the establishment of the Dutch CM industry, the influential landscape and regime developments are hardly considered. Hence, addressing the regime with true pricing for CVM and the landscape with implementing societal challenge-based mission policy instruments, possibly also accelerates the transition. Although CM is still fraught with uncertainty and has not yet been introduced in the market, approved by the regulatory authorities and is yet to be scaled up, it could have a major impact on a better sustainable future. In the end, as it will benefit all, that projection in itself makes CM worthy of further investigation. ... Read more

In order to combat the global climate crisis, our energy provision needs to be decarbonized. One of the potential methods that can help is Green Hydrogen Energy Storage (GHES). GHES is a complex technology/energy carrier combination. It comprises of a conversion process of renewable electricity to hydrogen to then be used for conversion back to electricity at times of high electricity demand and low renewable supply e.g., in winter. Describing sociotechnical imaginaries on this technology/energy carrier combination can provide better alignment of the technology/energy carrier combination with the normative ideas of actors & stakeholders. The research question is thus formulated as: “What are the different sociotechnical imaginaries of green hydrogen energy storage (GHES) in the Netherlands?” These sociotechnical imaginaries will be described by using Q method. The scientific relevance is twofold. First, insight into the conflicting and overlapping imaginaries on this topic. Second, methodological because Q method is relatively new for studying sociotechnical imaginaries. The master Management of Technology is organized around technology, innovation, organization, commercialization, engineering economics, research, and reflection. Research and reflection are by design embedded in this research thesis and technology and innovation are connected because the aim of the thesis is to describe the sociotechnical imaginaries of GHES in the Netherlands and to have that knowledge be utilized by the stakeholders to better align the technology to the sociotechnical imaginaries. And finally, organization relates to the industry stakeholders who will be aware of desired technology futures and can innovate towards those desired futures. The imaginaries have been named: [1] “We are hydrogen-optimistic and critically realistic”, [2] “Hydrogen: a driver for economic opportunity”, [3] “We’re not excited”, [4] “Welcome state intervention”, and [5] “Hydrogen storage is the way to go but be aware of big industry”. The first imaginary mainly describes how hydrogen should be a part of the energy mix, not the sole solution. The second imaginary emphasizes the economic opportunity that GHES can have with an emphasis on cooperation between parties. The third imaginary shows that there are respondents who feel concerned for climate change, but don’t see hydrogen as a solution at all. The fourth imaginary sees government intervention as the only way to facilitate this transition. The final imaginary shows that there is a concern for social implications on who will benefit from the transition towards GHES. Practical and theoretical implications are subsequently formulated to better align the technology/energy carrier combination to the normative ideas of stakeholders. According to the respondents, the case looks promising for GHES as there is agreement on GHES becoming a part of the Dutch energy mix. Methods of achieving this goal are e.g., a higher fossil fuel tax, development of technology standards, and the need for international cooperation. Furthermore, conflict items are defined, as is also the goal of Q method, the degree of the focus of economic development, the role of the government to guide and intervene, and the focus on the social implications of the transition towards GHES. These conflict items could be addressed according to an agonistic approach by utilizing social learning and reflexive governance. These practices defined in the literature that have gained eminence and are becoming more accepted. Pertaining to the theoretical implications, sociotechnical imaginaries as a concept fall short of describing the normative future visions as expressed by the respondents. Other scholars have also recognized that the concept might miss diversity in future visions because of its singular interpretation. However, it has been proven possible to, in a quantitative manner (using Q method), describe the sociotechnical imaginaries of around 3/4 of the respondents. The results of this study could be thus for further research be placed in a different social concept such as one of the concepts in the rich umbrella of foresight studies. An example being ‘normative scenarios’ which recognizes more diversity. Another implication is that it is also possible to use Q-method to peek in the ‘black box’ of wicked problems. The results show that conflicting visions about the future could be better understood in the context of contestation, uncertainty, and complexity (in other words; wicked problems). Additionally, according to the results, private sector stakeholders are divided on their views of GHES, meaning that shared value creation using open innovation is problematic. An alignment of normative future visions or even a possibility of open innovation without such an alignment is designated as a direction for future research. ... Read more

In the wake of tackling energy poverty by its roots and protecting vulnerable groups, the European Commission introduced the so-called Renovation Wave, aiming to renovate 35 million inefficient buildings by 2050. However, even though the Renovation Wave was aimed to tackle energy poverty, recent studies have shown that renovation policies have failed to address energy poverty as renovation and social policies lack intersectoral integration resulting in the exclusion of vulnerable groups and an increased risk of social inequity. Moreover, various scholars have tried to identify vulnerability indicators that give rise to energy poverty; however, these have only focused on identifying socio-
economic and energy indicators. Consequently, scholars have called to include justice in renovation policies and explore how vulnerable groups can be identified. To address this knowledge gap, the following main research question was formulated:

Using a Case-Study Mixed Methods (CS-MM) approach, how can justice be included in renovation policies considering the socio-spatial vulnerability to energy poverty?

The results showed that by identifying vulnerable groups based on a locally developed index of the socio-spatial vulnerability to energy poverty and acknowledging their vulnerability, recognitional justice can be included in renovation policies. Besides, identifying tailored policy strategies in a multi-stakeholder environment that, on the one hand, focus on the distribution of renovation resources based on the needs and characteristics of the identified vulnerable groups and, on the other hand, on how the vulnerable groups can be included in the decision-making, distributional and procedural justice can be included in renovation policies. Thus, it can be concluded that by deploying the current CS-MM approach, justice can be included. 
The outcomes of the present study are twofold. Firstly, from a scientific perspective, the present study contributes to the current body of scientific knowledge on: (1) how vulnerable groups in need of renovation can be identified, (2) how justice can be included in renovation policies to address energy poverty and (3) how a CS-MM approach can be deployed to research how justice can be included in renovation policies considering the socio-spatial vulnerability to energy poverty. Secondly, from a societal perspective, this study provides insights to improve policy strategies that enable local decision-makers to identify vulnerable groups and include justice in renovation, considering the socio-spatial vulnerability to energy poverty. ... Read more

As the effects of climate change are more and more materializing around the globe it is ever more important to reduce our reliance on a fossil fuel based energy system. When coupling this to an ongoing trend of urbanization in many places across the world, the energy systems of our cities become of particular interest. However, the transition away from a fossil fuel based system towards a renewable energy based system is a complex sociotechnical process that in part relies on the extent to which households are able to adopt energy efficient technologies. Not all households are equally capable of investing in these technologies, causing some households to have better access to participate in the renewable energy transition. This unequal access to the renewable energy transition causes an unequitable distribution of energy efficient technologies and could potentially lock-in or perpetuate current injustices. To prevent this from happening there is a need for energy policy that supports socioeconomic groups across society, that have inadequate access to the renewable energy transition. In order to design such policy it is essential to first of all identify who these groups are, and secondly where they are located. As the renewable energy transition is still in its early stages, these insights are currently lacking in literature.

Considering the fact that solar PV is a major driver of the renewable energy transition, this thesis in part addresses this knowledge gap by spatially analyzing which socioeconomic groups in the urban environment lack access to solar PV and where these groups are located. Access to solar PV in this context is defined as: the freedom of individuals or households to decide whether or not to adopt residential solar PV energy resources, dependent on the existence of one or more barriers. Secondly, does the research assess how access to solar PV resources spatially intersects with the ability to generate solar energy through these resources. The location that is selected as the area of study for this research is the city of The Hague, Netherlands. A framework is constructed to assess access to solar PV using the Theory of Planned Behavior originating from social sciences, which is frequently used to model adoption behavior of novel energy technologies. To evaluate the technical PV potential of the case-area the ArcGIS Solar Analyst Tool is applied. A K-means clustering analysis is performed to find any meaningful patterns in the distribution of access to solar PV across the area of study.

The key findings of this study are:
•Access to solar PV resources is unequally distributed across the Hague. Large parts of The Hague have unfavorable characteristics for solar PV adoption.
•The highest levels of technical PV potential are found in areas that are considered to have poor access to solar PV. As a consequence, currently the majority of technical PV potential within the case area is likely to remain unexploited due to poor access to solar PV within these areas.
•There is a need for energy policy that focuses on the groups that have poor access to solar PV and are unserved by current energy policy focused on stimulating adoption of solar PV. These groups are non-home owners in the private rental sector, home-owners that share ownership of the roof of a shared building and households that are provided housing by social housing corporations.

Further research could focus on exploring and evaluating policy design that is aimed at supporting socioeconomic groups that currently lack access to the renewable energy transition. This is important in order to ensure that the renewable energy transition makes its way throughout all layers of society.
... Read more

in this research, I study the Nitrogen Crisis by comparing Twitter content to real-life events, answering the following research question: How does the intensity of emotions and discussed topics on social media relate to the characteristics of real-life demonstrations during a sustainability policy crisis? To characterise online events, sentiment analysis and topic modelling are applied to analyse tweets about the nitrogen crisis to paint a picture of what subjects were discussed online, and how people are feeling about them. To characterise offline events, a codebook is developed with categories that reveal information on the scale, intensity and extremism during real-life demonstrations. The most promising finding is that topic models with higher numbers of topics but lower coherence scores prove to be more interesting sources of information on underlying topics and trends on Twitter. ... Read more

In 2014 the Chinese government announced implementation of a so-called ‘Social Credit System’ which should solve three existential threats China is facing: 1. instability of the financial credit sector, 2. limitations in financial services, and 3. threats of social instability. By increasing the collection and centralization of (personal) data, which would result in increased control and transparency, the financial sector should be stabilized and penetration of financial services should increase. Additionally, social instability would be addressed by social management, in which good behaviours are rewarded and bad ones are punished, eventually inducing mechanisms of self-regulation. Although the system aims to solve existential issues China struggles with, the system has gotten a lot of criticism mainly coming from non-Chinese sources. Whereas most studies have focused on how the systems works, aim of this thesis has been to provide insight into the opinion and approval of individuals on SCSs. Based on a survey conducted among Chinese and Dutch respondents strong and higher levels of approval were found among Chinese respondents. Mostly, this higher approval among Chinese respondent can be attributed to the almost negligible share of disapproving Chinese respondents. An explanation to the lower share of disapproving Chinese respondents can be found in the explanatory factors that were identified for both samples, which are: 1. perception whether SCSs would increase accountability taken for actions, and 2. perception whether SCSs increase quality-of-life. As both variables were positively correlated with approval, the correlates show Chinese respondents perceive SCSs more as benefit-generating than Dutch respondents. Furthermore, another interesting correlate showing a positive relation which was only found for the Chinese sample, is trust in government with personal data. As Chinese respondents also reported a nationwide SCS should be run by the government, privacy concerns of approving Chinese respondents most likely is low (or even absent) for government-run SCSs. ... Read more

Nowadays, research and innovation sectors undergo continuous change through innovations. Innovations consist of numerous environmental, social and financial factors that need to be linked with social and moral values. Towards this direction, the Responsible Innovation (RI) concept has emerged. Although RI is an extensively researched topic, there is a considerable gap between scholars referring to RI and those capturing RI’s institutionalisation in driving organisational change (Genus & Iskandarova, 2018; Yaghmaei, 2018). Therefore, this research seeks to answer the following question: “How effective is the use of Key Performance Indicators for Responsible Innovation in driving organisational change?” This analysis studies eight research (performing or funding) organisations, part of the H2020 Co-Change project, which aims to boost changes in organisational behaviour. Firstly, lab representatives from the studied organisations selected, clustered and weighed the most relevant Key Performance Indicators for their innovation projects. Secondly, participants were asked to measure their selected KPIs over time to assess performance within their labs regarding RI values. Thirdly, between these two rounds of assessment, exploratory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with lab managers and representatives to ask for clarifications behind their choices. Results indicate that anticipation is a highly relevant and desirable aspect in the innovation process that often remains at a theoretical level due to the lack of established, institutionalised activities for innovation processes. Inclusion of diverse stakeholders is essential for balancing all interests. However, it is challenging due to conflicting interests and scarcity of resources, resulting in the under-representation of several societal groups, such as end-users. Reflexivity it is perceived as the most complex dimension. Being utterly objective and putting personal assumptions, motivations or interests aside is challenging. Responsiveness is essential to point out the importance of receiving feedback from society and being attentive to needs regarding innovation (Stilgoe et al., 2013; Kupper et al., 2015). Finally, Openness and Transparency are desirable, but cannot always be possible due to privacy limitations. The main dimensions identified as relevant for the studied labs are diversity, transparency and inclusion in the design processes of the projects. The labs participating in this study benefit from it in various ways; either by small, incremental changes, as a result of gaining learning experience. However, even when no changes occur, the use of RI Key Performance Indicators is considered a helpful reflection tool that can eventually result in actual organisational change. Raising awareness and making researchers reflect on Responsible Innovation’s practices and values through the use of KPIs can eventually become more effective than what can be derived by simply looking at formal assessments, leading to more positive and responsible organisational behaviour. Future research in organisations operating in other industrial sectors, for prolonged periods, with quantitative methods, could be studied and introduced to the KPIs assessment to look for actual changes in organisational performance. ... Read more

The rapid development of renewable technologies has opened the opportunity for households to produce their own energy, and to either self-consume or sell it. In the Netherlands, it is projected that not less than 7 GW of solar PV capacity will be installed in 2020. Therefore, the Netherlands is expected to experience abundant energy supply from solar generation in the near future. Energy sharing can be a reliable method to manage a great number of solar PV production. This direct sharing might reduce the strain and improve the stability of the main grid because it lessens the power to be transported and balanced across the main grid. Such an energy sharing method is also known as peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading. Despite its potential benefits, the pre-established requirements to perform such trading can be perceived unjust for some communities, such as for the community of Bospolder-Tussendijken in Rotterdam-West which can be considered as one of the poor communities in the Netherlands. As an illustration, P2P energy trading by design requires people to own solar PV to generate distributed power, in which not everybody could afford it economically. This study is then aimed at specifying a set of norms for a just P2P energy trading system by operationalising the framework of value-hierarchy. Accordingly, the abstract level of energy justice as a value will be translated into a more concrete set of norms, and the practical actions to support the realisation of those norms in Bospolder-Tussendijken will be suggested to the Municipality of Rotterdam. This set of justice norms for P2P energy trading is expected can guide the system a step closer to be a just energy innovation. ... Read more

In today’s fast growing and competitive environment, keeping up with changing trends has become a necessity for firms to beat the competition. A relatively new form of innovation with a growing community of people have stated that Business Model Innovation is essentially the key to successful organizations nowadays. Several companies are failing to achieve this in practice particularly in the implementation of new Business Models. This graduation research is carried out to tackle the problems in apprehending the key drivers, key barriers and key enablers along with process of a successful Business Model Innovation within Philips. The main research question is: “How can insights about various drivers, barriers and enablers help in the process of a successful Business Model Innovation transforming business within companies?”To achieve the objectives, the research was segregated into three main stages namely Literature Study, Phase 1, Phase 2.In Literature Study, the basic understanding of Business Model Innovation concepts was made aware. After having a clear comprehension, the literature study forayed into desk research where Secondary Articles like Harvard Business Review in addition to documents from within the companies were reviewed. A list of Drivers, Barriers and Enablers were identified from literature review alone along with several inputs for framework. Thus, Literature Study facilitated the development of questions for conducting interviews in Phase 1 of the research.In Phase 1, semi-structured interviews were conducted to support the findings from a practical perspective. The target group included practitioners from different functional background dealing with Business Model Innovation of some sort and were considered as subject matter experts. A total of 11 participants were interviewed. The recommendations provided by the interviewees along with an in-depth literature helped to identify a total of 16 Drivers, 32 Barriers and 22 Enablers.Following the analysis, the research proceeded with Phase 2. Here a survey was devised. This was done to rank the various Drivers, Barriers and Enablers. A total of 32 participants answered the questionnaire and the top three of each of Drivers, Barriers and Enablers were listedFurther to this, the findings added to the integrative framework. This framework was based on 4I process framework by Frankenberger, Weiblen, Csik, & Gassmann (2013). Inputs from interviews, survey and in-depth analysis went on to adding components to the framework. The proposed framework contributes in two ways: First, it lists a comprehensive list of key drivers, key barriers and key enablers which come up during the process of Business Model Innovation. Secondly, a process model of Business Model Innovation with key tasks have been outlined. As literature suggests so far there has been no process model developed for Business Model Innovation. This integrative framework incorporates the quite dispersed literature and helps to organize existing contributions and in identify any “blind spots” of Business Model research.Among the many other Recommendations, an important one is that the scope of the research in developing the conceptual framework is at a holistic level, since the key focus of the research was to identify key drivers, key barriers and key enablers that incorporates various perspectives. When Business Model Innovation is being undertaken at a rapid pace within the company it would be interesting to analyze in-depth on the individual elements of the framework. It would also be interesting to develop metrics around the drivers, barriers and enablers which could be adopted within projects of any nature. ... Read more