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This paper examines key issues raised by consideration of diversity in the study of environmental innovation and societal transitions. In different ways and degrees, these implicate many contrasting perspectives, including innovation studies, evolutionary economics and transitions research. The paper therefore attends equally to the implications of plurality among disciplines as observing subjects and varieties of sociotechnical configurations as observed objects. Inspired by recent literatures in these fields, the argument focuses in turn on: contending social normativities concerning alternative directions for innovation; divergent disciplinary understandings of societal transitions; and disparate conceptualisations of sociotechnical diversity itself. In each area, the paper identifies some persistent forms of ‘misplaced concreteness’. Recommendations are made as to how the implications of diversity might be addressed in more rigorous and reflective ways. In conclusion, it is shown how rigour and reflexivity themselves depend on plural analytical communities paying greater regard to diversity and striking their own balance between pluralism and concreteness. This highlights a series of specific, but hitherto unresolved, research questions.

By sketching out the conceptual framework for research at the Economic and Social Research Council-funded STEPS (Social, Technological, and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre at Sussex University, Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones, and Andy Stirling, in Dynamic Sustainabilities, seek to reframe the contested concept of sustainability. This is not a project for the faint-hearted, given the fierce debates surrounding the concept and the many divergent programmes of action for which it has been invoked. In calling for ` a more concrete clarification of what is meant by sustainability' '' (page 41), the authors are not seeking some new, more authoritative definition with which to adjudicate what is and is not sustainable. Instead they make the very process of clarifying the diversity of sustainability framings and the pathways for achieving them central to what sustainability is all about. Sustainability, they explain, is not some fixed state to be achieved but ` necessarily a political process ... [that] requires an opening up of debate through a diversification of knowledge bases and processes of inclusive deliberation at all steps'' (page 64). This analytical emphasis on understanding relations and dynamic processes rather than identifying essential qualities is increasingly common across the social sciences, particularly in the UK, but the stance adopted by the STEPS team is distinctive in several important respects. Unlike so much actor-network-theory-inspired work, the tone here is pragmatic and the prose accessible. In Dynamic Sustainabilities the authors speak of science and the policy process in ways that will be recognizable to practitioners and should prove interesting too, insofar as they seek to distil for practitioners some practical lessons about the challenges for policy making posed by new understandings of complexity, dynamics, incomplete knowledge, and contested values. In keeping with this practical policy orientation, the authors avoid abstract philosophizing, even as the very suggestive metaphor of sustainability `pathways' begs important questions about the philosophical grounds for understanding and evaluating them. The authors acknowledge constructivist insights about the plurality of environmental knowledge, values, and experience, but eschew the trendy postnaturalist ideas of multiplicity and enactment variously inspired by Bruno Latour and Annemarie Mol. Instead they uphold a traditional Cartesian metaphysics in which competing sustainability narratives are understood as subjective framings, or perspectives, on the same underlying objective reality, rather than, as Mol might say, as practical enactments of Pathways to sustainability: perspectives and provocationsA

In our view, the four principles for making evidence synthesis more useful for policy would be strengthened by taking power and bias into account (C. A. Donnelly et al. Nature 558, 361–364; 2018). Otherwise, the principles could fall short for issues that involve uncertain facts, disputed values, high stakes and urgent decisions — as in global biodiversity loss and climate change, for example.

This paper elaborates a ‘pathways approach’ to addressing the governance challenges posed by the dynamics of complex, coupled, multi-scale systems, while incorporating explicit concern for equity, social justice and the wellbeing of poor and marginalised groups. It illustrates the approach in relation to current policy challenges of dealing with epidemics and so-called ‘emerging infectious diseases’ such as avian influenza and haemorrhagic fevers, which involve highly dynamic, cross-scale, often-surprising viral–social–political–ecological interactions. Amidst complexity, we show how different actors in the epidemics field produce particular narratives which frame systems and their dynamics in different ways, promote particular goals and values, and justify particular pathways of disease response. These range from ‘outbreak narratives’ emphasising threat to global populations, to alternative but often marginalised narratives variously emphasising long-term structural, land use and environmental change, local knowledge and livelihood goals. We highlight tendencies – supported by cognitive, institutional and political pressures – for powerful actors and institutions to ‘close down’ around narratives that emphasise stability, underplaying longer term, less controllable dynamics. Arguing that governance approaches need to ‘open up’ to embrace strategies for resilience and robustness in relation to epidemics, we outline what some of the routes towards this might involve, and what the resulting governance models might look like. Key are practices and arrangements that involve flexibility, diversity, adaptation, learning and reflexivity, as well as highlighting and supporting alternative pathways within a progressive politics of sustainability.

Predicting environmental change and its impacts on ecosystem goods and services at local to global scales remains a significant challenge for the international scientific community. This is due largely to the fact that the Earth is made up of open, coupled, complex, interactive and non-linear dynamic systems that are inherently unpredictable. Uncertainties over interactions and feedbacks between natural and human drivers of environmental change (operating at different spatial and temporal scales) can compound intrinsic intractable difficulties faced by plural societies aiming at sustainable management of ecosystems. Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory addresses these strongly coupled and complex characteristics of social and ecological systems. It can provide a useful framework for articulating contrasting drivers and pressures on ecosystems and associated service provision, spanning different temporalities and provenances. Here, system vulnerabilities (defined as exposure to threats affecting ability of an SES to cope in delivering relevant functions), can arise from both endogenous and exogenous factors across multiple time-scales. Vulnerabilities may also take contrasting forms, ranging from transient shocks or disruptions, through to chronic or enduring pressures. Recognising these diverse conditions, four distinct dynamic properties emerge (resilience, stability, durability and robustness), under which it is possible to maintain system function and, hence, achieve sustainability.

This article is an introduction to a major spectrum opportunity that is now catching the eye of regulators, worldwide, as they seek capacity for more ubiquitous and affordable broadband Internet access. At a time when the demand for spectrum has never been greater, white spaces in television broadcast spectrum are a prime, largely unused, resource. Wireless technologies have advanced rapidly over the last decade, to the point where the technical capabilities to harness white spaces now exist. The missing piece of the jigsaw has been a regulatory framework that would allow the new applications to share the UHF bands with the broadcast television and supporting services. However, spectrum regulators are now laying the foundations for this, with the United States (FCC) and the United Kingdom (Ofcom) leading the way. The most pressing potential application of white spaces is the extension of broadband Internet access. Broadcasters may benefit from this, as the popularity of interactive services grows.

Tourism is an information intensive business and technological advances have transformed the way in which information is stored, managed and transmitted to potential visitors. Despite the wide adoption of Internet technologies in tourism marketing, information is still largely disseminated through printed brochures that have remained unchanged and unaffected by personalization trends. This conceptual paper argues that technological innovations such as digital printing allow the creation of dynamic, customized brochures at a lower cost than that of conventional tourist brochures. The main aim of this paper is to propose a framework for cross-media customization of tourism and travel brochures. The paper concludes that empirical research is necessary to assess the optimum levels of individualization for tourism brochures.

This paper examines apparent tensions between science-based,precautionary, and participatory approaches to decision making on risk. Partly by reference to insights currently emerging in evolutionary studies, the present paper looks for ways to reconcile some of the contradictions. First, I argue that technological evolution is a much more plural and open-ended process than is conventionally supposed. Risk politics is thus implicitly as much about social choice of technological pathways as narrow issues of safety. Second, it is shown how conventional science-based risk assessment techniques address only limited aspects of incomplete knowledge in complex, dynamic, evolutionary processes. Together, these understandings open the door to more sophisticated, comprehensive, rational, and robust decision-making processes. Despite their own limitations, it is found that precautionary and participatory approaches help to address these needs. A concrete framework is outlined through which the synergies can be more effectively harnessed. By this means, we can hope simultaneously to improve scientific rigor and democratic legitimacy in risk governance.

Multicriteria mapping (MCM) is an interactive appraisal method for exploring contrasting perspectives on complex strategic and policy issues. The tool aims to help 'open up' technical assessment by systematically 'mapping' the practical implications of alternative options, issues, uncertainties and values. MCM uniquely bridges qualitative and quantitative approaches, and helps to get the best of both. It allows great flexibility, offering an appraisal method that is strongly grounded in theory but highly unconstrained in practice. This versatility has been reflected in its use internationally to explore contentious decisions in the fields of energy strategy, food production, environmental policy, radioactive waste management and public health. This MCM Manual offers basic advice on how to do multicriteria mapping. It suggests how to: design and build a typical MCM project; engage with participants; and analyse results – and get the most out of the online MCM tool. The online MCM software tool provides its own operational help so the manual is more focused on the general approach.

Global politics is blighted by frustrated needs for transformation (Scoones et al. 2015), but it is also invigorated by the associated hopes. Either way, the many widely acknowledged (but persistently neglected) imperatives centre around poverty and oppression, inequality and injustice, climate change, ecological destruction, toxic pollution, nuclear risks and all the obscenity and waste of war (UNESCO/ICSU 2009; UNEP 2012; Griggs et al. 2013; UN 2013; UNDP 2013). Despite the formidable material drivers, every one of these scourges is socially constituted. And — although progress remains painfully slow at best — history shows all to be politically remediable. So, each imperative presents a defining challenge, spanning all the multivalent aspirations and possibilities for what might count as ‘human progress’. What then could be more compelling as focal priorities — equally in the knowing and the doing of ‘governance’?

Discursive deference in the governance of science and technology is rebalancing from expert analysis toward participatory deliberation. Linear, scientistic conceptions of innovation are giving ground to more plural, socially situated understandings. Yet, growing recognition of social agency in technology choice is countered by persistently deterministic notions of technological progress. This article addresses this increasingly stark disjuncture. Distinguishing between “appraisal” and “commitment” in technology choice, it highlights contrasting implications of normative, instrumental, and substantive imperatives in appraisal. Focusing on the role of power, it identifies key commonalities transcending the analysis/participation dichotomy. Each is equally susceptible to instrumental framing for variously weak and strong forms of justification. To address the disjuncture, it is concluded that greater appreciation is required—in both analytic and participatory appraisal—to facilitating the opening up (rather than the closing down) of governance commitments on science and technology.

Two contrasting, ideal-typical conceptualizations of the relations between governance and socio-technical change are developed, based on different considerations of the roles and links between social appraisal and social commitment in governance. 'Governance on the outside' objectifies the socio-technical and is managerial in approach. 'Governance on the inside' is more reflexive about the role of governance in co-constituting the socio-technical and, consequently, more overtly political. Each conceptualization lends itself to contrasting strategies for dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity and power. Both forms exist to varying degrees in specific instances of socio-technical governance. Tensions between imperfect attempts to reconcile contradictions between the two drive governance dynamics. This paper develops a conceptual framework to help understand these dynamics.

This paper discusses the methodological development of Deliberative Mapping (DM), a participatory, multi-criteria, option appraisal process that combines a novel approach to the use of quantitative decision analysis techniques with some significant innovations in the field of participatory deliberation. DM is a symmetrical process, engaging “specialists” and “citizens” in the same appraisal process, providing for consistency of framing, mutual inter-linkage and interrogation, and substantial opportunities for face-to-face discussion. Through a detailed case study of organ transplantation options, the paper discusses the steps in DM. The analysis shows that DM is able to elicit and document consensual judgments as well as divergent views by integrating analytic and deliberative components in a transparent, auditable process that creates many opportunities for personal learning, and provides a robust decision-support tool for contested science-policy issues.

The Policy Options for Responding to the Growing Challenge of Obesity Research Project (PorGrow) study provided a unique opportunity to develop a large-scale application of a semi-quantitative technique for exploring interviewees' views on options to tackle obesity, using multi-criteria mapping. This 'heuristic' approach utilizes the advantages of a structured interviews framework by predefining a set of options for appraisal, while leaving interviewees free to select their own criteria for making their judgements. Additional information can be gleaned from the interview transcripts and related materials to set the appraisals in their policy context, and allowing interviewees to express their views on the options presented and their own appraisals. The PorGrow study team agreed a predefined set of 20 options for appraisal, and interviewed sets of stakeholders representing more than 20 aspects of policy development in each of the nine participating countries. The details of the methodology adopted are set out in this paper.

This paper addresses the scope for more integrated general analysis of diversity in science, technology and society. It proposes a framework recognizing three necessary but individually insufficient properties of diversity. Based on 10 quality criteria, it suggests a general quantitative non-parametric diversity heuristic. This allows the systematic exploration of diversity under different perspectives, including divergent conceptions of relevant attributes and contrasting weightings on different diversity properties. It is shown how this heuristic may be used to explore different possible trade-offs between diversity and other aspects of interest, including portfolio interactions. The resulting approach offers a way to be more systematic and transparent in the treatment of scientific and technological diversity in a range of fields, including conservation management, research governance, energy policy and sustainable innovation.

There is much high profile concern over apparent tensions between sustainability and precaution on the one hand, and `competitive innovation and `technological progress on the other. How can we balance risk with opportunity and public engagement with `sound science? The outcomes of such debates may undoubtedly be serious for particular technologies, but are there really grounds for concern over the implications for innovation in general? This paper argues that such anxieties often stem from impoverished understandings and strategic misrepresentations of the real nature of scientific creativity and technological possibilities. This can obscure possibilities for achieving more truly sustainable and socially deliberate technological futures.

The 17 July special section on Artificial Intelligence (AI) (p. [248][1]), although replete with solid information and ethical concern, was biased toward optimism about the technology. The articles concentrated on the roles that the military and government play in “advancing” AI, but did not include the opinions of any political scientists or technology policy scholars trained to think about the unintended (and negative) consequences of governmental steering of technology. The interview with Stuart Russell touches on these concerns (“Fears of an AI pioneer,” J. Bohannon, News, p. [252][2]), but as a computer scientist, his solutions focus on improved training. Yet even the best training will not protect against market or military incentives to stay ahead of competitors. Likewise double-edged was M. I. Jordan and T. M. Mitchell's desire “that society begin now to consider how to maximize” the benefits of AI as a transformative technology (“Machine learning: Trends, perspectives, and prospects,” Reviews, p. [255][3]). Given the grievous shortcomings of national governance and the even weaker capacities of the international system, it is dangerous to invest heavily in AI without political processes in place that allow those who support and oppose the technology to engage in a fair debate. The section implied that we are all engaged in a common endeavor, when in fact AI is dominated by a relative handful of mostly male, mostly white and east Asian, mostly young, mostly affluent, highly educated technoscientists and entrepreneurs and their affluent customers. A majority of humanity is on the outside looking in, and it is past time for those working on AI to be frank about it. The rhetoric was also loaded with positive terms. AI presents a risk of real harm, and any serious analysis of its potential future would do well to unflinchingly acknowledge that fact. The question posed in the collection's introduction—“How will we ensure that the rise of the machines is entirely under human control?” (“Rise of the machines,” J. Stajic et al. , p. [248][1])—is the wrong question to ask. There are no institutions adequate to “ensure” it. There are no procedures by which all humans can take part in the decision process. The more important question is this: Should we slow the pace of AI research and applications until a majority of people, representing the world's diversity, can play a meaningful role in the deliberations? Until that question is part of the debate, there is no debate worth having. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.349.6245.248 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.349.6245.252 [3]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaa8415

This paper develops a sequential model of precautionary risk regulation that contributes substantively and procedurally to the European Commission's position on precaution. At first, four concepts of precautionary policy are distinguished which are taken into account in the conceptualisation of the precautionary risk regulation. The paper then expounds the four key challenges of characterising, evaluating and managing risks: these are seriousness, uncertainty, complexity, and socio-political ambiguity. Subsequently, the architecture of the model of precautionary risk regulation is set out, which is characterised by the following three key stages: screening, appraisal, and management. It additionally includes a design, development and oversight function which ensures that the overall process is robust to changes in circumstances and to the perspective of all interested and affected parties. Afterwards five approaches to risk analysis are elaborated which are integrated in the formal decision analytic concept. They provide tools for assessing, evaluating, and managing serious, uncertain, complex and/or ambiguous risks and include different methods for selecting objectives, assessing and handling data, and finding the most appropriate procedure for balancing pros and cons.

A quasi-evolutionary model of socio-technical transitions is described in which regimes face selection pressures continuously. Differentiated transition contexts determine the form and direction of regime change in response to these pressures. The articulation of pressures, and the degree to which responses are coordinated and based on resources available within the regime, define the transition context. Four alternative contexts are described: endogenous renewal; re-orientation of trajectories; emergent transformation and purposive transitions. Agency and power in the governance of regime transformation are analysed. Power to affect change depends on regime membership, the distribution of resources for change and expectations. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Current global environmental policy reverberates with talk of a new “Anthropocene epoch” defined by “human domination”, in which a “perfect storm” of catastrophic threats is forcing a singular “great transition” towards “planetary management”. Under growing “environmental authoritarianism”, democracy is increasingly seen as a “failure”, a “luxury”, or even “an enemy of nature”. If charge is to be taken of the “control variables of the Earth”, some say democracy must be “put on hold”. One way of seeing this trend, is that scientific and policy knowledges are becoming increasingly imprinted by the preoccupations of incumbent power with rhetorics of control. Under this growing political mood, it seems there is ‘no alternative’ but compliance – or irrational denial and existential doom. Yet there are alternative ways to address the gravity of current ecological and social imperatives. It can be recognised, for instance, that democratic struggle is the principal means by which knowledges and practices of Sustainability were shaped in the first place. In this view, concentrated power and fallacies of control are more problems than solutions. Here, history can show that the greatest ongoing forms of transformative progress (like release from colonialism, racism or patriarchy), owe more to plural knowledges and values and unruly hope-inspired agonistic contention, than to single orderly technical “transitions” based on formally-integrated science or fear-driven structured control.

This paper focuses on arguably the single most striking contrast in contemporary major energy politics in Europe (and even the developed world as a whole): the starkly differing civil nuclear policies of Germany and the UK. Germany is seeking entirely to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Yet the UK advocates a ‘nuclear renaissance’, promoting the most ambitious new nuclear construction programme in Western Europe.Here,this paper poses a simple yet quite fundamental question: what are the particular divergent conditions most strongly implicated in the contrasting developments in these two countries. With nuclear playing such an iconic role in historical discussions over technological continuity and transformation, answering this may assist in wider understandings of sociotechnical incumbency and discontinuity in the burgeoning field of‘sustainability transitions’. To this end, an ‘abductive’ approach is taken: deploying nine potentially relevant criteria for understanding the different directions pursued in Germany and the UK. Together constituted by 30 parameters spanning literatures related to socio-technical regimes in general as well as nuclear technology in particular, the criteria are divided into those that are ‘internal’ and ‘external’ to the ‘focal regime configuration’ of nuclear power and associated ‘challenger technologies’ like renewables. It is ‘internal’ criteria that are emphasised in conventional sociotechnical regime theory, with ‘external’ criteria relatively less well explored. Asking under each criterion whether attempted discontinuation of nuclear power would be more likely in Germany or the UK, a clear picture emerges. ‘Internal’ criteria suggest attempted nuclear discontinuation should be more likely in the UK than in Germany– the reverse of what is occurring. ‘External’ criteria are more aligned with observed dynamics –especially those relating to military nuclear commitments and broader ‘qualities of democracy’. Despite many differences of framing concerning exactly what constitutes ‘democracy’, a rich political science literature on this point is unanimous in characterising Germany more positively than the UK. Although based only on a single case,a potentially important question is nonetheless raised as to whether sociotechnical regime theory might usefully give greater attention to the general importance of various aspects of democracy in constituting conditions for significant technological discontinuities and transformations. If so, the policy implications are significant. A number of important areas are identified for future research, including the roles of diverse understandings and specific aspects of democracy and the particular relevance of military nuclear commitments– whose under-discussion in civil nuclear policy literatures raises its own questions of democratic accountability.

The introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and foods into Europe has generated considerable controversy. Despite a risk assessment system that is intended to beprecautionary in nature, the decisions thathave been taken have not gathered publicconfidence. Key attributes of a precautionaryappraisal system include humility,completeness, assessing benefits andjustifications, making comparisons, allowingfor public participation, transparency,diversity, and the ``mapping'' of alternativeviews rather than the prescription of singlesolutions. A comparison of the European GMregulatory system with a different (moreprecautionary) approach using a ``multi-criteriamapping'' technique reveals a number ofproblems. These include the narrow framing ofthe established risk assessment system (therebyexcluding many issues of public concern), alack of public involvement in the process, anda failure to include appropriate comparisons ora diversity of options. Recent changes to theEuropean regulatory system only go part of theway to addressing these issues. Furthercontroversy may therefore be expected. However,practical ways of undertaking a morebroad-based precautionary approach are nowavailable (including the multi-criteria mappingmethod). These new approaches to technologyassessment offer a means for decision making toearn greater public confidence in this complexand difficult area.

‘Climate geoengineering’ is becoming an increasingly prominent focus for global discussion and action. Yet, in academic, policy and wider political discourse, the frequent shorthand term ‘geoengineering’ is routinely used in very broad, ambiguous and multivalent ways. This study aims to contribute to understandings of these divergent current framings of ‘geoengineering’ and their implications. It asks not only about disparate understandings of geoengineering itself, but also what these reveal about deeper political dynamics around climate change, science and technology. To this end, the paper applies Q methodology to analyse geoengineering as a subjective discursive construct, the bounds of which are continually negotiated and contested. Thirty-five participants from a variety of political and institutional backgrounds in the UK, US, Canada and Japan undertook a ‘Q sort’ of 48 statements about geoengineering between December 2012 and February 2013. Four distinctive framings emerged from this analysis, labelled: ‘At the very least we need more research’; ‘We are the planetary maintenance engineers’; ‘Geoengineering is a political project’; and ‘Let's focus on Carbon.’ Results indicate a strong polarity around divergently construed pros and cons of geoengineering as a whole – underscoring the political salience of this term. But additional axes of difference suggest a more nuanced picture than straightforward pro/anti-positioning. The ambiguity of the term is argued to offer interpretive flexibility for articulating diverse interests within and across contending framings. The paper questions whether increasing terminological precision will necessarily facilitate greater clarity in resulting multivalent governance discussions and public engagement. It argues that the merits of any given form of precision and their policy implications will depend on particular framings. Much ambiguity in this area may thus be irreducible, with the challenges lying perhaps less in the ordering of discourse and more in reconciling the wider material political pluralities that this suggests.

The recent controversy over genetically modified (GM) foods amply demonstrates the general difficulties encountered in the social appraisal of technological risk. Existing procedures for regulatory appraisal neglect many possible forms of impact and routinely exclude important cultural and social dimensions of risk. A narrow, expert, ‘science-based’ approach is now widely acknowledged to be insufficient. There is a need for new approaches that are more broadly based, transparent, pluralistic and ready to acknowledge uncertainty as well as being practically feasible and robust. The authors investigate the potential for a novel ‘multicriteria mapping’ (MCM) method as one such possible tool. Drawing on a variety of perspectives in the current UK debate, a range of agricultural strategies for the production of oilseed rape, including both GM and non-GM options were explored in this MCM pilot exercise. The results demonstrate the general feasibility and positive potential of this type of approach, with specific findings providing modest insights for policymaking in this difficult area.

When knowledge is uncertain, experts should avoid pressures to simplify their advice. Render decision-makers accountable for decisions, says Andy Stirling.

This article provides a review and methodological critique of recent influential "first-generation" government-sponsored studies seeking to derive monetary values for the environmental effects of electricity supply technologies. It is observed that environmental valuation suffers from many of the general methodological difficulties faced by other quantitative appraisal techniques. In addition, environmental valuation is found to present its own specific methodological difficulties and theoretical problems. The practical policy efficacy of environmental results is called into question. It is concluded that there exist alternative approaches to the social appraisal of the environmental impacts of generating technologies that warrant greater attention to further development than does environmental valuation.

There is increasing recognition in comparative risk assessment of the intrinsic subjectivity of fundamental framing assumptions and the consequent necessity for active participation in analysis by all interested and affected parties. Despite this, there remains considerable inertia in the implementation of these insights in formal policy making and regulatory procedures on risk. Here, the issue seems as often to be seen as a need for better 'communication' and 'management' as for better analysis, with attention devoted as much to the classification of divergent public perspectives as to techniques for direct stakeholder participation. Pointing to the fundamental methodological problems posed in risk assessment by the conditions of ignorance and Arrow's impossibility, the present paper contends that public participation is as much a matter of analytical rigour as it is of political legitimacy. It is argued that straightforward techniques such as multi-criteria and sensitivity analysis, along with a formal approach to diversification across portfolios of 'less risky' options, may go some way toward addressing these apparently intractable problems.

This paper slightly amends a concluding chapter in the above book on ‘vulnerability in technological cultures’. It offers a personal view of key governance implications of this fruitful concept. Picking up earlier arguments, technological vulnerability is seen in a dual fashion – both in terms of the vulnerability of particular technological trajectories to subversion by powerful incumbent interests, as well as the vulnerability of societies and ecologies to the effects of technology. Either way (in common with other kinds of vulnerability), those interests which tend to be most adversely affected by these dynamics, are those that are already most disadvantaged. The argument begins by pointing out that governance institutions and discourses around Sustainability hold particular significance for this challenge. By contrast with prevailing (simply emergent) notions of progress, Sustainability constitutes political space and traction for more assertively publicly-deliberated normative frames. These in turn help enable greater social agency concerning the appropriate orientations for innovation pathways that pay greater respect to qualities of ecological integrity, social equity and human wellbeing. Beyond these normative dimensions, however, Sustainability also focuses attention on diverse possible dynamics of vulnerability. Distinguishing between styles of agency variously conceived as controlling or responsive, and temporal patterns perceivable as episodic shock or cumulative stress, four distinct dynamic properties are resolved (stability, durability, resilience and robustness). Each holds contrasting practical implications for governance institutions and instruments. But all address vulnerabilities in a fashion that assumes a normative interest in maintaining a given trajectory. The contrasting face of vulnerability also requires attention to an alternative normative aim: that of disrupting a given trajectory. Here, the same four dimensions of agency and temporality highlight four corresponding dynamics of disruption (transduction, transition, transilience and transformation). If governance is to escape from the powerful conditioning effects of incumbent interests, this framework may offer a basis for greater critical reflexivity over contrasting normativities and dynamics of vulnerability. So, the paper ends with a brief exploration of the implications for three interlinked aspects of diversity – involving the ‘opening up’ of ways in which technological trajectories are: epistemically understood; normatively appreciated; and ontologically performed in practice. It is argued that taking the dual faces of technological vulnerability seriously, requires attending more symmetrically to these essential conditions for more distributed and relational forms of social reflexivity. Only by this means, is it possible to escape not only the diverse ways in which incumbent concentrations of power close down technological trajectories themselves, but also the plural ways in which the general dynamics of technological vulnerability can even be imagined.

This paper addresses some key implications in momentous current global energy choices – both for social science and for society itself. Energy can be over-used as a lens for viewing social processes. But it is nonetheless of profound importance. Understanding possible ‘sustainable energy’ transformations requires attention to many tricky issues in social theory: around agency and structure and the interplay of power, contingency and practice. These factors are as much shaping of the knowledges and normativities supposedly driving transformation, as they are shaped by them. So, ideas and hopes about possible pathways for change – as well as notions of ‘the transition’ itself – can be deeply constituted by incumbent interests. The paper addresses these dynamics by considering contending forms of transformation centring on renewable energy, nuclear power and climate geoengineering. A series of challenges are identified for social science. These apply especially where there are aims to help enable more democratic exercise of social agency. They enjoin responsibilities to ‘open up’ (rather than ‘close down’), active political spaces for critical contention over alternative pathways. If due attention is to be given to marginalised interests, then a reflexive view needs to be taken of transformation. The paper ends with a series of concrete political lessons.

Innovation is about more than technological invention. It involves change of many kinds: cultural, organisational and behavioural as well as technological. So, in a world crying out for social justice and ecological care, innovation holds enormous progressive potential. Yet there are no guarantees that any particular realised innovation will necessarily be positive. Indeed, powerful forces ‘close down’ innovation in the directions favoured by the most privileged interests. So harnessing the positive transformative potential for innovation in any given area, is not about optimizing some single self-evidently progressive trajectory in a ‘race to the future’. Instead, it is about collaboratively exploring diverse and uncertain pathways – in ways that deliberately balance the spurious effects of incumbent power. In other words, what is needed is a more realistic, rational and vibrant ‘innovation democracy’.

This Manual offers basic advice on how to do multicriteria mapping (MCM). It suggests how to: go about designing and building a typical MCM project;; engage with participants and analyse results – and get the most out of the online MCM tool. Key terms are shown in bold italics and defined and explained in a final Annex.The online MCM software tool provides its own operational help. So this Manual is more focused on the general approach. There are no rigid rules. MCM is structured, but very flexible. It allows many more detailed features than can be covered here. MCM users are encouraged to think for themselves and be responsible and creative.But there are some key underlying MCM values. The most crucial are as follows:1) Inclusion: MCM aims to promote more inclusive, equitable and accessible appraisal. This means engaging in a respectful and balanced way, with a diversity of relevant perspectives – especially those most often marginalized.2) Opening Up: MCM aims to help ‘open up’ appraisal. This means giving balanced attention to exploring and illuminating contending views. Using MCM just to aggregate a single final view has the effect instead of ‘closing down’.3) Agency: MCM aims to ‘put participants in the driving seat’. An MCM project should be designed, implemented and analysed to maximise the agency of participants over the ways in which their own perspectives are represented.4) Transparency: MCM only ‘opens up’, if results are conveyed fully and clearly to all parties with an interest in debates over the focal goal. Depending on context, this means publishing results and giving reasonable access to data.This Manual gives advice on how these values can best be realised in practice. But there are so many detailed ways of doing this, that it is impossible fully to cover all. For instance, the basic steps described here apply equally to small student exercises or large research projects; conducted as face-to-face or remote engagements; in 1-to-1 interviews or small groups; or as some combination of these kinds of process.For purposes of illustration, however, this Manual directly addresses the use of MCM only in a typical individual interview (rather than a small group session) and assumes that interviewees are ‘specialists’ with a broad familiarity with quantitative appraisal, comfort with computer tools and confidence in at least some of the issues at stake.The same basic steps are involved in engaging with other kinds of participant in different ways. But the approach needs to be adapted to be used with non-specialist members of the public. This is especially important, in relation to Principle (2) above.This Manual is intended mainly for members of an MCM project team (designers, researchers, interviewers, facilitators and analysts). So, it is quite technical in places. Although it might usefully be made available in some way to them, participants are likely to need briefer and simpler guidance, tailored to the particular project.This Manual should be read in conjunction with other available MCM materials, which include many published reports and academic articles. These cover in more detail, the underlying rationale, and issues of wider project design and different modes of usage.

The goal of this case study is to examine how foresight, embodied in the precautionary principle, can lead to robust and flexible decisions that meet the needs of the present, but that can be adapted to meet the changing needs of the future. Recently there has been much debate over the use of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in petrol. Concerns in particular over the potential for contamination of groundwater supplies have prompted regulative authorities in western nations to reassess the risks associated with the use of MTBE.

Foreword by Tim O'Riordan * Preface by Domingo Jimenez Beltran * Introduction * Fisheries: Taking Stock * Radiation: Early Warnings, Late Effects * Benzene: a Historical Perspective on the American and European Occupational Setting * Asbestos: from 'Magic' to Malevolent Mineral * PCBs and the Precautionary Principle * Halocarbons, the Ozone Layer and the Precautionary Principle * The DES Story: Long-term Consequences of Prenatal Exposure * Sulphur Dioxide: from Protection of Human Lungs to Remote Lake Restoration * MTBE in Petrol as a Substitute for Lead * Early Warnings of Chemical Contamination of the Great Lakes * TBT Antifoulants: a Tale of Ships, Snails and Imposex * Hormones as Growth Promoters: the Precautionary Principle or a Political Risk Assessment? * 'Mad Cow Disease' 1980s-2000: How Reassurances Undermined Precaution * Twelve Late Lessons * Conclusions * About the Authors * References * Index

Lawrence, A., Sovacool, B., & Stirling, A. (2016). Nuclear energy and path dependence in Europe’s ‘Energy union’: Coherence or continued divergence? Climate Policy, 16(5), 622–641, http://dx.doi.or...

The urgency of charting pathways to sustainability that keep human societies within a "safe operating space" has now been clarified. Crises in climate, food, biodiversity, and energy are already playing out across local and global scales and are set to increase as we approach critical thresholds. Drawing together recent work from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Tellus Institute, and the STEPS Centre, this commentary article argues that ambitious Sustainable Development Goals are now required along with major transformation, not only in policies and technologies, but in modes of innovation themselves, to meet them. As examples of dryland agriculture in East Africa and rural energy in Latin America illustrate, such "transformative innovation" needs to give far greater recognition and power to grassroots innovation actors and processes, involving them within an inclusive, multi-scale innovation politics. The three dimensions of direction, diversity, and distribution along with new forms of "sustainability brokering" can help guide the kinds of analysis and decision making now needed to safeguard our planet for current and future generations.

The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence; the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties; and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy.

Public engagement is not in tension with science, but actually a way to be more rigorous - as well as more democratic - about social choice of biotechnology.

The need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the UK electricity supply sector. It is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention. Yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept. Why is diversity good? What is meant by 'diversification'? What is it that must be 'diversified'? What trade off should be struck between 'diversity' and other measures of performance? The resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading. Despite this, this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach. A quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government's implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the UK electricity supply mix. This is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio. Although provisional, the results are relevant to the government's forthcoming Nuclear Review, particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy.

Current approaches to managing spectrum are polarized and inflexible. They underplay the value that license exemption and opportunistic access could deliver. This paper describes how new geolocation database technology could enable the use of hybrid models combining the advantages of licensing with those of license exemption. It considers how such models could help accelerate infrastructure investment for wireless broadband access, as well as facilitating innovation in wireless technology and services.

The effect of man-made noise in wireless microphone operation has been studied in this paper. Man-made noise measurements were taken in different locations in Vienna, VA and the amount of interference from man-made noise in potential wireless microphone channels were analyzed. Data collection results show that man-made noise levels can be up to 30 dB above the thermal noise floor. Our results show that wireless microphones have to have a high signal-to-noise ratio in order to cope with the adverse effects of high man-made noise levels (>60 dB). Furthermore, wireless microphone path loss measurements were conducted in Vienna, VA to determine the required exclusion distance for DSA devices to ensure reliable wireless microphone operation. The results show that the required exclusion zone can be safely and conservatively set at around 130 m when the results from man-made noise measurements and wireless microphone propagation measurements are used. Shared Spectrum Company also worked on a wireless microphone simulation to determine the required sensing threshold levels for impairment-free wireless microphone operation. An indoor-to-outdoor path loss model was created based on the wireless microphone path loss measurement results. This statistical path loss model was used to determine the received signal level at DSA devices and wireless microphone receiver (interference level). Our results show that the required sensing threshold can be set at around -110 dBm (in a 110 kHz channel) when man-made noise and representative propagation models are used.