Extended deadline: 15/3/18 Call for abstracts: "Social innovations in energy transition through transdisciplinary research"

The Leibniz Research Alliance is hosting an international conference entitled "Breaking the Rules! Energy Transitions as Social Innovations" that will take place on June 14th - 15th, 2018, at WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

The conference invites international scholars to discuss social innovations in the context of energy transitions, and to spark a debate about their meaning for theories of social innovation, for questions of energy governance, for the evolution of energy innovations, and how they challenge existing power structures in the energy sector. The conference is guided by four overarching themes, each of which will be explored in at least two conference sessions. For a detailed overview of conference themes and sessions please click here.

This is a call for abstracts for the session entitled  "Social innovations in energy transition through transdisciplinary research"

Session outline:

Collaborative approaches such as transdisciplinarity research (TDR) are considered promising means of initiating social innovations in the current course of action. While still debated, TDR is understood as a mutual research process that involves scientists from different disciplines as well as non-scientific stakeholders alike. Even though TDR projects slowly move towards mainstream in the field of sustainability sciences, discussions on its potential, effects and malfunctions are ongoing and exchange on empirical studies is much needed.

As of late, TDR projects address the particular issue of regional energy transitions in which they combine different disciplinary perspectives and expert’s knowledge (professional experts and laypersons) that are further developed into research results that may have the potential for social innovations. In the session, we want to elaborate experiences, potentials but also shortcomings of transdisciplinary research approaches in the context of energy transitions. We welcome contributions of ongoing and finished projects and provide a platform for success stories, failed stories and open questions. With respect to the topic of the conference, we are especially interested in contributions in the social innovation context in two ways: one, the potential of TDR in pushing forward social innovation in energy transitions; two, the potential of TDR as a form of social innovation in contemporary science.

Session chairs:  
Sebastian Rogga, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research  (ZALF),
Sara Reimann, Martina Hülz;  Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL)
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Abstracts should not exceed 500 words, and must be submitted in English language to Leslie Quitzow (leslie.quitzow(a)wzb.eu + CC: sebastian.rogga(a)zalf.de) by March 15th, 2018.

Please be sure to include your name, institution, and the name of the conference session that you are applying for. Please direct all questions regarding the session design, presentation format, expected content etc. to sebastian.rogga(a)zalf.de. All questions regarding overall conference organization may be directed to Leslie Quitzow.

Successful applicants will be notified by March 15th, 2018. Presenters are also invited to submit their full papers after the conference for possible publication in a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal (the journal will be announced in March). Those interested in participating in this process are asked to submit their full papers by July 15th, 2018 for review (one month after the conference). The special issue will be published in mid-2019.

PDF: Call for Abstracts