Developing Knowledge-Intensive Low Carbon Transitions.Contexts, Challenges and Consequences

Simon Marvin and Beth Perryhttp://www.surf.salford.ac.uk

“Cities of Tomorrow”Workshop 1: Urban Challenges

European Commission, DG Regional Policy

Tuesday 29th June 2010

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SURF’s Work

Urban and Regional

Governance

Urban Knowledge Exchange

Knowledge Regions and

Cities

The Future of Universities

Low Carbon Urban Futures

Urban Transitions

Urban Ecological Security

Cities of Tomorrow

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Argument

• Contexts: – Knowledge and Sustainability in Multi-Scalar, Multi-

Actor Environments

• Challenges: – Eg.Greater Manchester’s Attempts to Build Low-

Carbon Knowledge Economies

• Consequences: – Knowledge for Sustainability: Populating the ‘Missing

Middle’

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A Framework of Understanding

Economic, Scientific, Socio-Cultural, Ecological and Political Rationales

Knowledge Economy and Technological Change

Globalisation and (Sub)Regionalisation

Climate Change and Resource Constraint

Urban Paradigms

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Models of National (Knowledge) Capitalism

Governance Systems Research Systems

Choices, Capacities and Capabilities

UrbanPotentials

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Transition Journeys Emerging Priorities Turning Points

Strengths and Weaknesses of Existing Approaches

Urban Policies

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Manchester: Low Carbon Economic Positioning

• Positioning Manchester as low carbon first mover– To avoid the economic costs of inaction on climate

change and to move rapidly to accrue the economic opportunities and benefits

– To maintain a perceived view of Manchester as entrepreneurially pre-eminent as viewed by comparator cities and national government

• Attracting investment and providing business support

– The provision of relevant forms of support in relation to this agenda for businesses

– The promotion of inward investment

• A test-bed for national targets– GM Dec 2009 UK’s 4th LCEA & 1st LCEA for Built

Environment

– Draft prospectus claims - contribute to saving 6 million tn CO2 - support 34,800 jobs & exemplar for region & UK

– Designation requires GM work with BIS, DECC, Carbon Trust, EST, NWDA etc

– Position GM to attract investment – and showcase the achievement of national targets

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Manchester’s Knowledge/Innovation Journey

•Co-evolution and multi-level interactions

•Broad visions, traditional interpretations

•First-mover status; test-bed and pilot for new models

•Glocal aspirations: excellence, relevance

•Assumptions about knowledge, innovation, space and scale

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An (E)Merging Agenda?

Some overlaps:

• ‘Innovation’; ‘scale’; ‘multi-arena partnerships’

• E.g. IIF: carbon co-op, proposal for low carbon economic area, smart city and ‘living labs’

• E.g. Low Carbon Economic Area for Built Environment – inc. ‘low carbon laboratory’

• Conceptualisation of cities as sites of experimentation

But similarities are greater in the framing of the

issues than in an exploration of synergies

and possibilities

Knowledge economy / low carbon economy as

‘economic’ opportunity

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Styles of Response

Table 1

Dominant Responses Feature Alternative Responses

Econo-centric Objectives Varied

Tangible Measurements Intangible

Global excellence Scales Glocal ‘excellent relevance’ and ‘relevant excellence’

Linear, products, supply/demand, push/pull models

Processes Ecosystems, networks and flows

Narrow; disciplinary; sectoral; codified

Knowledges Broad; interdisciplinary; cross-sectoral; tacit

Technological, mechanistic solutions

Mechanisms Multiple interventions and mechanisms

Transferable models Learning Context-sensitive approaches

Elites: corporate, governments, major institutions

Social Interests Wide stakeholders, potential beneficiaries and participants

Divisible Concepts of Economic and Ecological Security

Collective

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Gaps in Understanding: A ‘Missing Middle’

• ‘Missing Middle’ between expectations, capacities and capability

• Devolution of responsibility without resource• Social processes characterised by ‘making do or improvisation’.• Research resources used to inform standalone evaluation

rather than city-regional learning.• Poor communication amongst stakeholders about knowledge

needs leads to inefficient use of resources.• Weak mechanisms for mediating between stakeholders and

HEIs in understanding how needs and responses could be mutually constructed

• An absence of a space for thinking without consequence to develop, test and critique ideas and policies in a structured and systematic way

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Challenges

• Configuring discourses and visions?• Assumptions and presumptions?• Cities as passive or active, receiving or mediating sites of

activity?• Local experiments, upscaling and managed systemic

transitions?• Actors involved, how positioned, coalitions of power and

interest?• Capacities and capabilities of different cities to respond?• Social and material consequences of transitions? • Where is the space for alternatives to be discussed, conceived

and implemented, by whom and with what effects?• What knowledge is needed and how to inform more sustainable

knowledge-based futures?