Into Transition Space: destabilisation and incumbent agency in an accelerating energy transition

In his doctoral thesis, Rick Bosman shows how incumbent regimes need to destabilize to create room for sustainable alternatives in the energy sector and how such regimes navigate these dynamics.
 

During his PhD Rick focused on three regime actors specifically: The Port of Rotterdam, grid operator Alliander and the pension fund ABP. He observed the repositioning of these regime actors as a result of ongoing transitional pressures. Most importantly, he categorized their repositioning as a change in: discourse, institutions, relations and roles, resources and practices.
 

This repositioning, the tensions and uncertainty around these regime players led to the insight that we can no longer speak of ‘a regime’ within the energy system. Rick describes that in this phase of the transition the current system is “is rather a crazy cocktail, where parts of the old regime are mixed with new elements from niches”. In his dissertation he conceptualizes this as ‘transition space’: “a context that is characterized by the absence of stability, predictability and coherence between actors and their environment” (p. 10).
 

During his research Rick combined roles of a researcher, advisor and activist through action-research.
 

“I don’t believe that as a scientist you should only observe from a distance. If you start poking and pushing into something, you can grasp and understand connections much better and it becomes clear where the real resistance to change is.””
 

Rick will defend his PhD dissertation on Friday 18 November 2022. Follow these links for more info about his defense or research. 

Date
November 18, 2022