Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

The journal offers a platform for reporting studies of innovations and socio-economic transitions to enhance an environmentally sustainable economy and thus solve structural resource scarcity and environmental problems, notably related to fossil energy use and climate change. This involves attention for technological, organizational, economic, institutional and political innovations as well as economy-wide and sector changes, such as in the areas of energy, transport, agriculture and water management. The journal aims to tackle the most difficult questions, dealing with social, economic, behavioral-psychological and political barriers and opportunities as well as their complex interaction. The journal is multidisciplinary in spirit and methodologically open, and invites contributions from a broad range of disciplines within the social, environmental and innovation sciences.

Specific research areas covered include: Theoretical analysis, formal modeling, empirical studies, policy discussion and a critical survey of relevant literature. Practical cases may address transitions in specific sectors, cities or regions. Articles on historical transitions not specifically related to environment and sustainability are welcome if they include a section with unique lessons for sustainability transitions.

A non-exhaustive list of keywords and themes is as follows: behavior in line with bounded rationality, development theories, diffusion of innovations, environmental regulation, formal modeling, geography of innovations, historical transitions, increasing returns to scale and path dependence, innovation policy, institutional barriers, international cooperation and coordination, learning-by-doing, learning curves, lock-in, new governance, niche markets, optimal technological diversity, regime analysis, social and political power, strategic niche management, rebound effect, recombinant innovation, sector structure, social learning, transition experiments, technological regimes, transition pathways/mechanisms, vested interests, visions of the future.