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In the policy discourses of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Commission (EC), modern biotechnology and the life sciences are represented as an emerging “bioeconomy” in which the latent value underpinning biological materials and products offers the opportunity for sustainable economic growth. This articulation of modern biotechnology and economic development is an emerging scholarly field producing numerous “bio-concepts.” Over the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to theorize this relationship between biotechnologies and their capitalization. This article highlights some of the underlying ambiguities in these conceptualizations, especially in the fetishization of everything “bio.” We offer an alternative view of the bioeconomy by rethinking the theoretical importance of several key economic and financial processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing consensus that we are facing epochal challenges in global food security. Moreover, these challenges are multiple and complex. Meeting these challenges will involve nothing less than a wholesale socio-technical transition of the agri-food system. Optimizing the efficacy of the contribution of research to such a food security agenda will probably also need new institutional mechanisms and career structures to facilitate new kinds of collaborations and ongoing, longer-term projects. In short, the multiple challenges of food security demand a different political economy of research for effective intervention by science. In making this argument, the paper summarizes the major findings of a recent report regarding the potential impact of so-called ‘disruptive’ low-carbon innovations in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We examine the stated preference for EVs across generations and cities in China. • Young consumers are not more inclined to adopt EVs than the older generation. • Consumers in small cities prefer EVs more than those in midsized or big cities. • Consumers' evaluation on four aspects of EVs explains the preference (in)difference. China is currently the world's biggest electric vehicle (EV) market, in which mostly mature consumers in first-tier cities are buying EVs. However, the changing market and policy environment are challenging the sustainability of this trend. This study conducts a nationwide stated preference (SP) experiment in China to examine preference heterogeneity towards EVs across (1) different generations and (2) different tiers of cities. Discrete choice analysis reveals that the tier of cities has a significant effect on adoption preferences for EVs. Surprisingly, consumers in smaller cities exhibit stronger preference for EVs, while an insignificant difference in preference is found between consumers of different generations. The interaction effect between the tier of cities and the generations further demonstrates that younger consumers in small cities most prefer EVs. This can be explained by their evaluations of the psychosocial advantages of EVs and their aspiration for a future of EV-based mobility. This research contributes to the broad literature of technology adoption, but more specifically, the research offers new insights on consumers' EV preference heterogeneity with respect to geographic and demographic dimensions. The study has important business and policy implications relating to the EV transition in China in consideration of the two tested dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global goal to limit dangerous climate change has been agreed through the 2015 Paris Accords. The scientific case for action has been accepted by nearly all governments, at national and local or state level. Yet in all legislatures, there is a gap between the stated climate ambitions and the implementation of the measures necessary to achieve them. This paper examines this gap by analysing the experience of the following three UK cities: Belfast, Edinburgh, and Leeds. Researchers worked with city officials and elected representatives, using interviews and deliberative workshops to develop their shared understandings. The study finds that local actors employ different strategies to respond to the stated climate emergency, based on their innate understanding, or 'phronetic knowledge', of what works. It concludes that rapid climate action depends not just on the structures and mechanisms of governance, but at a deeper level, the assumptions, motivations and applied knowledge of decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The typical buying/ownership model is compared to three new EV business models. • Consumer preferences for EV innovative business models is empirically analysed. • Key factors that affect adoption of EV innovative business models are identified. • Preference heterogeneity implies segmented value propositions for EV business models. • Policy makers can encourage the development and acceptance of innovative business models. Although business models are critical to the successful market penetration and diffusion of sustainable innovations, little is known about consumer preferences for adopting electric vehicles (EVs) under innovative business models. Drawing on existing conceptualisations of business models, we study consumers' preferences for three innovative EV business models: (i) battery-leasing, (ii) EV-leasing, and (iii) Business-to-Customer (B2C) EV-sharing, in addition to the conventional EV-buying model. By conducting a nationwide stated preference (SP) experiment in China, we show that consumers perceive battery-leasing and EV-buying models to be close substitutes, while EV-leasing and EV-sharing models are perceived as independent. Important monetary attributes are the operational cost saving in the battery-leasing model and the leasing cost in the EV-leasing model. Critical service and policy attributes include home charging capability, vehicle licensing policy, and the density of battery-swapping stations for the battery-leasing model. We also find that female consumers, those who are well-educated, and those who have a pro-EV attitude are most likely to adopt EVs in innovative business models. Our work has significant value for companies and government in terms of better designing and supporting the innovative business models for EV adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City-level decisions are crucial for delivering a low carbon transition, particularly as urban population dynamics and environments change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring appropriate governance structures, mechanisms and resources to facilitate these decisions is therefore essential. Based on a systematic literature review by van der Heijden (2019), this paper develops a simple framework to assess the state of ten enabling factors for effective urban climate governance, and applies it to low-carbon passenger mobility in London. Drawing on documentary evidence and a series of semi-structured expert interviews, it finds that London's city authorities have a strong capacity for autonomy, stakeholder participation, local leadership and coordination on climate action and mobility, of which they make extensive use. The national legal and political framework remains broadly supportive following the UK's departure from the EU, but multi-level co-ordination is thin, and funding issues have intensified conflict over political jurisdiction since the pandemic began. Spatial variation in urban form and infrastructure, coupled with dual-layer city administration, complicate the socio-political landscape and drive for climate action in mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure moving to the cloud and the increasing role of ‘Big Tech’ in the sector. However, there are many unknowns about the aggregate impact of digitalisation on the sector, and hence, questions about potential risks and harms remain unanswered. Our approach in this collective piece is to reflect on particularly relevant and impactful dynamics of higher education digitalisation. We first identify assetisation as an emergent mode of governance linked to the digitalisation of HE, which brings new temporal, relational, and lock-in challenges for universities and their constituents. Second, we examine the macro-level structural transformation of higher education with the increasing role of Big Tech and Big EdTech. We conclude by discussing the consequences of the identified macro power dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We explore the dynamic consumer preferences for EVs in China. • Three-wave stated preference experiments elicit dynamic preferences for EVs. • Dynamic preference for EVs by generation and geography are captured. • We highlight the dynamic and non-linearity patterns of EV transition. Sustainable innovations such as electric vehicles (EVs) are important means to address global environmental and energy sustainability challenges – one of the key agendas of current strategic government policy. Although EVs have gradually penetrated the market, existing research on consumer preferences for EVs is mostly based on cross-sectional analysis, without sufficient attention devoted to consumer preference changes over time. To fill this gap, this study proposes a longitudinal approach to extend the EV adoption research. Specifically, this study illustrates the value of studying consumer preferences for EVs from a dynamic perspective and focuses on changes in preference heterogeneity across different marketA segments over time. This study conducts three waves of stated preference experiments from 2017 to 2019 from a same group of respondents. The mixed logit analysis shows that, over these three years, Chinese consumers have become less sensitive to running cost but have been consistently valuing home charging capability and prioritized licensing for EVs. Furthermore, the perceived importance of the density of fast charging stations and overall preferences for EVs fluctuated over this period. Further analysis on preference heterogeneity finds that consumers in small cities were developing stronger preferences for battery EVs in 2018 and 2019 than in the base year of 2017, while those living in midsized and big cities did not present the preference change for battery EVs over the same period. Our study provides important managerial and policy implications for the diffusion of EVs, in particular with respect to specific insights obtained by taking a dynamic perspective to study consumer preferences for EVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But unable and/or unwilling as societies to think seriously and anew about how a pandemic demands understandings of freedom (of movement) different to those of the mythical unrestricted individual - a predicament notably marked in societies at the core of the neoliberal world order such as the US and UK, where Covid deaths have been high and government responses notably incompetent, or worse, venal (Monbiot [50]) - the result is paradoxical. In this Special Issue on "Pandemic (Im)mobilities" we have invited leading contributors in the field of mobilities studies to address the multiple issues generated by the pandemic's relation to complex (im)mobilities at many scales, as well as deeper theoretical issues that arise when we consider the pandemic from a critical mobilities approach. We might also interpret the problem of tourism recovery after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in relation to discourses of "disaster capitalism", "disaster tourism", and the wider understanding of tourism as a form of extractive economy founded upon uneven mobilities and the consumption of labor, natural resources, and produced spaces as places for some to play (Sheller and Urry [66]). The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it the prospect of greater biometric surveillance, biophysical testing regimes to pass through borders, self-registration into contact-tracing technologies and regimens, and the idea of developing some kind of "immunity passports" that would potentially be registered into a global database for tracking of mobilities. Pandemic tourism (Im)mobilities One of the first sectors of the global economy to be severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was tourism. [Extracted from the article]

What is 'relational theorizing' in International Relations and what can it offer? This article introduces a thematic section that responds to these questions by showing two things. First, relational theorizing is not a doctrine or a method, but a set of analyses that begin with relations rather than the putative essences of constitutively autonomous actors. Second, relational theorizing has emerged from different geo-linguistic traditions, and a relational approach to International Relations (IR) can offer the language and space for increased and productive engagement beyond Anglophone scholarship. This thematic section takes a significant step in this direction by staging a dialogue between Sinophone and Anglophone scholarship on relational IR theorizing. Such an engagement shows points of comparison and contrast, convergence and divergence. In this way, the essays presented here contribute to developing a more 'global' IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]