Search

The European Union (EU) still retains genetically modified (GM) crop applications within its agriculture and on the EU market. The current EU non-GM crop regime is in fact a ‘fictitious’ or ‘virtual’ non-GM crop regime that has developed into a ‘wicked’ problem. Any progress towards resolving this impasse, either in favour or against GM crops and their applications, is extremely difficult due to the inherent nature of the problem and the high level of conflict, discord and complexity involved. Top-down decisions are ineffective as a solution, which was clearly demonstrated by the failure to induce change when the GM potato Amflora was resolutely authorised for cultivation in the EU. True solutions require multi-level stakeholder engagement and a common understanding of a shared problem to break the impasse in the EU. Reaching this shared understanding remains a major - albeit interesting - challenge for future research

The European Union (EU) still retains genetically modified (GM) crop applications within its agriculture and on the EU market. The current EU non-GM crop regime is in fact a ‘fictitious’ or ‘virtual’ non-GM crop regime that has developed into a ‘wicked’ problem. Any progress towards resolving this impasse, either in favour or against GM crops and their applications, is extremely difficult due to the inherent nature of the problem and the high level of conflict, discord and complexity involved. Top-down decisions are ineffective as a solution, which was clearly demonstrated by the failure to induce change when the GM potato Amflora was resolutely authorised for cultivation in the EU. True solutions require multi-level stakeholder engagement and a common understanding of a shared problem to break the impasse in the EU. Reaching this shared understanding remains a major - albeit interesting - challenge for future research

[Departement_IRSTEA]Territoires [TR1_IRSTEA]DTAM [Axe_IRSTEA]DTAM1-REPRO; International audience; Different scenarios and strategies for development of European regions can be distinguished. To improve their economic development regions are increasingly building up a place-based image as reference for their internal enforcement as well as for the external communication. More and more regions are trying to distinguish theirselves using their unique qualities and cultural story-lines. The opportunities for and the success of regional development depend then on the extent to which regions can exploit their assets to add value and to construct and communicate a distinctive identity. Such a branding strategy can potentially lead to new place-based development perspectives. The branding of places around their core values refers not only to physical aspects (such as the quality of the landscape) but also to economic, social and cultural qualities. Branding can be seen in the wider context of the dependence of places on their ‘cultural load’, in the sense that they are able to create a feeling of belonging, not only among visitors, but also among the local inhabitants. Branding is sometimes narrowly implemented as marketing of the current qualities of a region. In our case, we consider regional branding as a re-orientation on the own resources or re-grounding in territorial capital, based on a joint storyline. This can create opportunities for new networks as well as regional products and services. It is shown in the literature that regional or place branding has to be based on a common understanding of the region in terms of the most important attribute(s), so-called ‘cultural markers.’ The development of a regional ‘storyline’ as a basis for the development of a region has to be organised as an interactive process allowing for learning approaches of regional actors. The success of developing such a story-line will depend on the capacities of the regional actors to initiate a bottom-up process, which includes the different perspectives on the future development of the region. Afterall, the storyline has to be broad enough to include regional identities and a diversity of ideas, so that different actors can attach their activities to this ‘umbrella vision’. The presentation will compare the results of case studies in three different European countries (Belgium, France, and Germany). They are medium sized regions, where a bottom-up process for regional development has taken place. They show a range from rural regions to rural-urban proximities. Their branding approaches are different in terms of products, institutional settings, frame conditions, and the results of the process with respect to a successful development of identity based brands.Underlying theories and methodologies used are discussed and first empirical results are presented.

Eco-industrial parks are receiving increasing attention in light of the sustainability discourse. Although the formation and development of eco-industrial parks have been investigated, these processes are difficult to grasp. In order to better understand and govern the trajectory of these processes, this chapter attempts to reveal some of their complexity. It addresses the formation of industrial parks from a change perspective, with a focus on the interplay between actors and context. We use two lenses to build a combination of change perspectives: transition management theories, and the episodic and continuous change concepts of organisational theory. Both of these lenses distinguish between change that is planned, abrupt and discontinuous, and change that is emergent, incremental and continuous. The main lesson of the paper is that actors’ perspectives of change and development affect possible governance strategies. Planned change assumes that actors are unable to adapt their underlying structures to the new demands for sustainable development and thus require interventions from the outside. In the case of continuous change, actors are seen as self-organising. This process calls more for facilitation and removal of possible stumbling blocks. In order to choose a good governance strategy applied to the circumstances, these perspectives need to be combined.

Digital technologies are often seen as an opportunity to enable sustainable futures in agriculture and rural areas. However, this digital transformation process is not inherently good as it impacts on many aspects (e.g. economic, environmental, social, technological, institutional) and their relations. The Responsible Research and Innovation approach calls for a better understanding and anticipation of the often unknown impacts. To meet this aim we have developed a framework that allows to gain insight on the relations between the social, the cyber and the physical, i.e. a Socio-Cyber-Physical System and have described conditions for a successful digital transformation of such a system. These are design of, and creating access to digital technologies, and navigating system complexity. This framework allows for a better problematisation of digital transformation and has been illustrated through an example of digital dairy farming. It supports an enhanced understanding of moral responsibilities regarding digital transformation, fitting within the Responsible Research and Innovation approach, as well as the succinct step of understanding who is responsible or accountable for the identified (positive or negative) impacts, i.e. responsibilisation.