The Great Reconfiguration

This book is intended for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the dynamics and governance of low-carbon transitions. Drawing on the Multi-Level Perspective, it develops a whole system reconfiguration approach that explains how the incorporation of multiple innovations can cumulatively reconfigure existing systems. The book focuses on UK electricity, heat, and mobility systems, and it systematically analyses interactions between radical niche-innovations and existing (sub)systems across techno-economic, policy, and actor dimensions in the past three decades. Comparative analysis explains why the unfolding low-carbon transitions in these three systems vary in speed, scope, and depth. It evaluates to what degree these transitions qualify as Great Reconfigurations and assesses the future potential for, and barriers to, deeper low-carbon system transitions. Generalising across these systems, broader lessons are developed about the roles of incumbent firms, governance and politics, user engagement, wider public, and civil society organisations. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Frank W. Geels is Professor of System Innovation and Sustainability at the University of Manchester and a world-leading scholar on socio-technical system transitions. He has published six books and more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, and he was selected in the list of Highly Cited Researchers. He is a lead author of the Working Group III contribution to the 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Agenda for Economic Growth and Recovery.

Bruno Turnheim is a permanent research scientist at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), based at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Science, Innovation and Society (LISIS), Gustave Eiffel University. His research focuses on socio-technical transitions, notably processes of destabilisation and experimentation. He currently leads the WAYS-OUT project on the governance of socio-technical destabilisation pathways and phase-out strategies in the context of climate governance.