Voss, Jan-Peter | Germany
Jan-Peter Voß is policy analyst and project leader at the Öko-Institut e.V. (Institute for Applied Ecology) in Berlin. He studied political science and economics at Freie Universität Berlin and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
He is working on transdisciplinary sustainability research with a focus on the governance of transformation in infrastructure systems, especially in the electricity system. Another focus is on methodological questions of sustainability research. His theoretical background is governance theory, science and technology studies, evolutionary and complexity theory. Current project assignments include
- co-leadership of a sustainability foresight process in the German utility Systems
- PhD thesis at the University of Twente on the transformation of governance patterns in electricity systems the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany as part of an interdisciplinary research project on transformation and innovation in power systems,
- coordination of the cross-cutting working group on “Governance and Transformation” in the socio-ecological research programme of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research,
- member of the steering group of a project for the evaluation of transdisciplinary research projects.
Project at IAS-STS: Sustainability Foresight as a method to shape socio-technical transformation: Achievements and constraints in light of experimental application to utility systems
Utility regimes have been stable for decades after the second world war, albeit many attempts have been made to change them. Since the mid-1990s they entered into a process of accelerating structural change with liberalisation, privatisation and internationalisation playing a central role. This new phase of structural dynamics creates opportunities for more sustainable configurations but also risks of new path dependencies with adverse ecological, social or economic impacts. Strategies are required to shape this transformation process with a long-term perspective. But there are fundamental challenges: (a) uncertainty about complex dynamics of socio-technical change, (b) ambivalence of sustainability goals against the background of scientific uncertainty and conflicting values and (c) distributed steering capacities among actors with heterogeneous interests.
The paper presents Sustainability Foresight as an approach to deal with these challenges. It is discussed in light of process experience and interim results from an experimental application in the German utility sector (electricity, natural gas, water, telecommunications). The method aims at providing a platform for collective, future oriented learning across the different action domains of production, consumption and regulation. It comprises three phases
- Transformation dynamics: Exploration of alternative paths of transformation, identification of highly dynamic fields of innovation.
- Sustainability assessment: Elicitation of evaluation criteria held by different stakeholders in order to identify critical innovations with respect to sustainability impacts.
- Strategies: Analysis of options and constraints for actors to shape transformation, development of measures to modulate innovation processes with respect to sustainability.
The general approach is related to participative foresight methodology and constructive technology assessment. Yet, it is not oriented towards a focal technology or one focal actor, but addresses structural patterns on the sector level and collective goals and action capacities on a societal level. And it includes a third phase beyond scenario building and assessment that contains cooperative strategy development with participation of stakeholders.
In conclusion the achievements of the Sustainability Foresight approach are discussed against the background of its limitations such as the diffusion of foresight results into everyday practices and resource intensity of the procedure. Based on this recommendations for further applications of the proposed method are presented.