OUTPUTS
Inter-sectoral relations to accelerate technological innovation systems formation: determinants of actors’ entry into marine renewable energy technologies
Decarbonizing the energy system requires new technologies, whose formation and diffusion needs the attraction of supply-side actors from different sectors. Sectoral interactions are crucial and dependent on factors including contextual, technological, and firm specific characteristics. This paper examines the determinants of firm diversification towards a new technology and their role in explaining sectoral interactions for the emergence of innovations. We combine concepts from technological innovation systems, sectoral innovation system and organization studies to show that the drivers of actors’ entry have an impact on TIS formation through their effect in sectoral interactions associated with technological variety and relatedness. The development and demonstration of marine renewable energy technologies (MRET) in Portugal over the past two decades provides the empirical case. A database of 237 companies includes responses from a survey to a large part of the actors involved in MRET and potential entrants. A standard binary logit model estimates the effect of a set of drivers of firms’ entry in MRET. Results reveal the importance of the drivers impacting on the construction of an actor base and on technology improvement. We discuss the implications for the operationalization of influence in the direction of search, a key innovative process in emerging technologies.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Energias renováveis marinhas abrem oportunidades para muitos setores e relações
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A análise dos microfundametos permitem perceber a interação entre os setores além da criação de conhecimento nos novos sistemas de inovação tecnológicos
Towards a Blue Economy: the influence of policy strategies in the research and technology orientation of Portuguese firms
The “Blue Economy” was strategically identified as a driver of European growth, through the development of new competences and activities that enable a sustainable exploitation of ocean resources. Research and innovation policies oriented to the Blue Economy, at both European and country levels, can be described as attempts at “mission-oriented” policies, which seek to influence the direction of growth towards sustainable transformative change in the ocean area. The objective of this paper is to analyse the directions followed by the research and technological development (RTD) activities conducted by Portuguese firms in order to understand whether the strategies and policies aiming at the development of the Blue Economy are being effective in their endeavour of steering such development in certain directions, thus creating conditions for a sustainable transformation in ocean related areas. The results provide some evidence of the role being performed by RTD promoted by these policies towards a transformative change in ocean related activities. Particularly, they show that they are contributing to: i) the generation of new areas and the revitalisation of existing sectors, through the creation and exploitation of new technological opportunities; and ii) a sustainable use of resources and the mitigation of negative environmental effects created by previous activities. Moreover, the results show intense interaction between different types of organisations. Particularly, they show that new technology intensive firms and industries are working together with existing firms from traditional sectors to exploit the new opportunities and technologies. The evidence suggests processes of cross fertilisation and technological upgrading of traditional activities, through the interaction in the RTD projects funded by clearly targeted public policies.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Papel transformador das políticas lideradas por desafios
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Investiga efeitos das estratégias e políticas visando a criação da Economia Azul em Portugal
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Alguma evidência de mudança sustentável nas atividades de IDT relacionadas com o oceano
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Fertilização cruzada entre setores/empresas novos e estabelecidos que podem levar a transformação industrial
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Efeitos localizados em algumas industrias, enquanto outras ainda ficam para trás
On the crest of a wave: the geographic trajectory of wave’s energy technology emergence and development
ABSTRACT
The socio-technical transitions literature has turned an increased attention to the role played, in development and diffusion of new sustainable technologies, by the established structures - technological, organisational and institutional - within which these technologies emerge (Bergek et al., 2015; Markard & Hoffman, 2016). However, there is still a limited understanding of the impact of the emerging technologies upon these contextual structures (Fontes et al, 2019). This is namely the case for the territorial impacts of these processes, despite the growing attention to the spatial dimensions of sustainability transitions (Hansen and Coenen, 2015; Boschma et al, 2017) and the contributions of the literature on regional industrial path development (Martin and Sunley, 2006; Trippl et al, 2017).
In this paper we address this question by examining the trajectory of emergence and development a new sustainable energy technology and investigating: (i) whether the activities conducted along that trajectory increasingly engage companies from established sectors with complementary competences (Markard & Hoffman, 2016), whose activities can be influenced and eventually transformed by their involvement with the new technology (Fontes et al, 2019); (ii) whether these processes are simultaneously territorially anchored and connected to more international innovation systems (Binz & Truffer, 2017), with potential impacts on regional diversification (Fornahl et al, 2012; Coenen et al, 2015).
For this purpose we analyse the process of emergence and development of a renewable energy technology – wave energy. The analysis draws on an exhaustive database of all wave energy research, development and demonstration projects supported by the European Union, from 1992 to 2019 (from CORDIS database), enabling an assessment of 25 years of technology geography evolution, including its very early stages. Social network analysis methods support the identification of the composition and structure of the networks formed along different periods, which are territorially localised with the support of GIS tools.
Wave energy is still in a pre-commercial stage. However, experimental activities, which require the construction and sea deployment and operation of conversion systems (from prototype to full scale), have been conducted from early stages, requiring complementary resources and competences present in existing industries. The technology development have also been characterised by the interplay between the activities conducted in transnational networks and the actors’ territorial embeddedness (Fontes et al, 2016). The evidence of interaction with the industrial context and the multi-scalarity make this technology a relevant empirical setting.
This paper contributes to understand how the geographies of energy innovations are structured along the process of emergence and development of sustainable energy technologies, namely whether windows of opportunity are opened to the involvement of local/regional actors from established industries in the international technology development networks. This can create conditions for the transformation of their activities, with impact upon the regions where they are located.
Creating a Blue Economy: Research and innovation partnerships to accelerate the development of ocean-related industries
ABSTRACT
The Blue Economy can be a driver of European growth, through the development of new competences and activities that enable a sustainable exploitation of ocean resources. This paper assesses the directions followed by the research and innovation activities performed by Portuguese organisations in the fields encompassed by the "Blue Economy", at the light of national and EU strategies. It analyses the projects developed by Portuguese actors in the context of European framework programmes to uncover: the areas privileged - namely the relative importance of emerging areas vs. new advances targeting established ones - and the relative position of different types of organisations in the developments taking place.
The results point to stronger efforts in system domains related to marine resources and the marine environment and in some industry oriented domains. Among the latter, emerge new industries such as marine biotechnology and marine renewable energies and established industries exploiting marine living resources (fisheries, aquaculture). The results highlight the prominent position of research organisations in both new and established areas, as well as the relevant position of new technology intensive firms, in areas that require the development of application-oriented activities, where they often intermediate between research and industry. The results suggest that the international cooperation favoured by these projects permitted to open-up the national system, contributing to broaden the organisations' knowledge bases and to extend their international networks.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Comunidades de conhecimento na energia das ondas: internacionalmente conectadas e com forte inserção territorial.
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Evolução lenta e não-linear, mas diversificação espacial e complexidade crescente na composição e comportamento relacional das comunidades.
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Ancoragem territorial das atividades e definição de estratégias a nível global influenciaram direção do desenvolvimento, contrariando períodos de declínio.
Fontes, M., Sousa, C. and Conceição, O. (2019)
Creating a Blue Economy: Research and innovation partnerships to accelerate the development of ocean-related industries, Proceedings of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University International Scientific Conference on innovations in digital economy (SPBPU IDE’19), October 24-25, 2019, Saint – Petersburg, Russia. ACM, New York. (ISBN 978-1-4503-7244-2/19/10).
Unleashing the transformative potential of innovations
ABSTRACT
Several innovations promise to accelerate transition but only a few can engender broader socio-economic effects beyond environmental improvement. This research questions under which conditions the development of new technological systems contributes to changes in other sectors. We conceptualize the transformative potential of innovations in three dimensions: context; complementarities; and competition. We discuss this framework against the empirical case of the development of marine renewable energies – whose growth benefit from spillovers of existing activities - in different contexts, such as Portugal and Norway. While the existence of an offshore oil & gas industry accelerates the emergence of offshore wind in Norway, the absence of an offshore energy sector raises challenges, but also creates opportunities for the transformation of several sectors in Portugal. We also perform a sectoral mapping and a survey of the actors in Portugal. Support to mature innovations lead to faster results in the focal sector; combined technology development results in more diversified activity, innovation and organizational change in adjacent sectors. Implications include a framework for assessing the socio-economic impacts of innovations, as well as the identification of policy-relevant circumstances that can simultaneously accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system and stimulate its transformative potential.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Tecnologias com capacidade transformadora induzem mudanças no contexto industrial
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Foco na extensão e natureza das atividades de setores adjacentes que se envolvem nas tecnologias emergentes
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Apoio a tecnologias mais maduras permite resultados mais rápidos no setor emergente; apoio ao desenvolvimento combinado de diferentes tecnologias resulta em atividades mais diversificadas, inovação e mudança organizacional em setores adjacentes.
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Comparação com a Noruega revela que o contexto influencia a intensidade e a natureza das relações complementares e competitivas.
Global emergence of new technologies: a dynamic analysis of territorial knowledge communities and relational proximity in wave energy
ABSTRACT
The emergence of a new technology is a process that takes place within an existing technological, economic and social context, benefitting from established structures and also contributing to their transformation. Although much research has been conducted on technology emergence, the territorial dynamics behind this process are still underexplored.
The paper investigates the structure and dynamics of the territorial knowledge communities that engage, over time, in the development of a new technology, with a view to understanding how their behaviour shapes the processes of technology emergence. More specifically, the paper addresses the following questions: How changes in the territorial knowledge communities in terms of geographical reach, actor composition and relational dynamics co-evolve with the emergence of a new technology? Which specific spatial and actor configurations contribute the development of new interdependences between existing industries and the emerging technology, promoting its structuration?
The empirical research focuses on wave energy, a technology field that experiences a prolonged emergence process and is still far from commercialisation. It analyses all the wave energy research, development and demonstration projects supported by the European Union (from 1992 to 2018), enabling an assessment of 25 years of technology evolution, including its very early stages. Social network analysis methods support the identification, along different time periods, of the knowledge communities with highest relational proximity, which are territorially localised with the support of GIS tools and further characterised in terms of composition and relational behaviour.
The results show a non-linear process of evolution, but also reveal an increased complexity in the behaviour of territorial knowledge communities, expressed in growing intra and inter-community variety and diversity, both at relational level and in terms of the constellations of actors, with impacts on the pace and directions of technology development.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Comunidades de conhecimento na energia das ondas: internacionalmente conectadas e com forte inserção territorial.
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Evolução lenta e não-linear, mas diversificação espacial e complexidade crescente na composição e comportamento relacional das comunidades.
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Ancoragem territorial das atividades e definição de estratégias a nível global influenciaram direção do desenvolvimento, contrariando períodos de declínio.
(Fontes, M., Sá-Marques, T., Santos, H., Sousa, C., Nuno, B., 2019) “Global emergence of new technologies: a dynamic analysis of territorial knowledge communities and relational proximity in wave energy” – Regional Studies Association Annual Conference 2019 – 05-07/June – Santiago de Compostela, Spain – oral presentation
Emergence of floating offshore wind energy: Technology and industry
ABSTRACT
The paper investigates the construction of strategies aiming to up-scale low-carbon innovations from pilot to full commercial scale. This requires a systemic understanding of the evolution of the technology along with the organizations and infrastructures supporting its development. Technological innovation systems concepts operationalize system building processes, including the establishment of constituent elements and the performance of key innovation activities. The study surveys the national roadmaps published between 2009 and 2014 for offshore wind energy in deepwaters (more than 50 m deep) which inform on how actors expect the system to grow, including the innovation activities crucial to achieve it. The roadmaps point to the role of guidance and legitimacy as triggers of changes in other innovation processes (knowledge creation, experimentation and so on) needed for take-off. The analysis reveals that the growth plans conveyed in the roadmaps are overly optimistic when compared with the time taken to develop offshore wind energy in fixed structures for shallow waters. Several countries have adopted supporting policies following the publication of the roadmaps, but weaknesses in crucial innovation processes (e.g. specialized skills) and external factors (e.g. crisis, regulatory approval) resulted in a delay of the first large investments. Policy should be based on realistic expectations and adequate to the phase of innovation, such as the promotion of technology-specific institutions (standards, codes, regulations and so on) in technology up-scaling. New directions for research are also provided.
HIGHLIGHTS
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O aumento de escala envolve mudanças a nível tecnológico e institucional.
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São analisadas 10 propostas para o desenvolvimento da energia eólica offshore flutuante.
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Visões e estratégias convergem para acelerar a difusão.
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Projetos de maior dimensão, mas também regulamentação e codificação são requisitos para um aumento de escala do sistema.
(Bento, N., Fontes, M., 2019) “Emergence of floating offshore wind energy: Technology and industry”. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 99, Pages 66-82, ISSN 1364-0321.