This paper track invites contributions that analyse transition issues in agri-food systems or co-produce knowledge on them. Agri-Food Transitions (AFT) face problems and challenges like other sustainability transitions (e.g. climate change, natural resource and environmental degradation, social injustices). Despite great hope and widely acknowledged need for change, locked-in technologies, practices, institutions, and economic constraints stifle change in practice.

However, AFTs are also special. Primary food production is done by millions of farmers who all contribute to the sustainability impacts of the agri-food sector. Many small contributions add up to massive sustainability problems globally. At the same time many people, including farmers, food processors and consumers, experience strong personal and cultural connections with “their daily food practices” and their professional “way of life”. Farming is spatially and temporally bound, happening predominantly in rural settings, whereas food consumption is mainly urban. Finally, farming input and food supply chains are characterised by high concentrations of power with a small number of multinational corporations.

Manifold alternatives to the dominant, unsustainable agri-food regimes underpin hopes of sustainable AFTs. Agri-food system actors experiment with novel more sustainable supply chains and consumption practices and there are farms that use more sustainable practices, often still in niches, but even in places where unsustainable regimes are strong. A key challenge for sustainability transitions is the scaling of these new practices to affect dominant regimes that often consists of powerful actors.

This paper track explores the main mechanisms behind the inertia and dynamics of AFT and possible approaches to facilitate sustainability transitions of agri-food systems. It will consist of a series of sessions discussing various aspects of AFTs related to the themes listed below. A final panel session will integrate insights from the individual sessions and inform the research and action agenda on agri-food transitions that the AFT group of the STRN will develop in the year following the conference.

We invite abstracts for papers and speed talks from across the world on the following themes:

• Scaling: Exploring the interaction of micro-, meso- and macro-scale dynamics in AFT including the growth of promising niches to large-scale agri-food systems change.
• Triggering: Analysing crisis events, disruptions, societal discourses and sociotechnical imaginaries that trigger change or momentum for AFT.
• Patterns and pressures: Exploring long-term destabilisation of, and pressures on, agri-food systems, as well as current and future pathways of AFT.
• Policy, politics and power: Analysing the role of actors, institutions and power relations in public policy making and governance of AFT.
• Equity and justice: Exploring the role of justice, social resistance, social movements and social innovations in AFT.
• Cultures and emotions: Exploring the role of cultures, traditions, emotions and lived experiences of the people involved in resisting and facilitating AFT.
• Transdisciplinary work: Lessons learned from working across disciplines and with stakeholders in facilitating AFT.
• Reflexivity and learning: Reflexive contributions on the roles, lessons and limitations of promising AFT attempts and their (unintended) sustainability impacts.

Track conveners:
Melf-Hinrich Ehlers (Agroscope), Boelie Elzen (Wageningen University & Research), Bettina König (University of Kassel), Marc Barbier (Université Gustave Eiffel), Michiel de Bauw (KU Leuven), Koen Beumer (Utrecht University), Annemarieke de Bruin (Wageningen University & Research), Claudia Coral (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Ronja Herzberg (Thünen Institute of Market Analysis), Minna Kaljonen (Finnish Environment Institute), Kristiaan Kok (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), David Verdugo-Raab (University of Kassel)

Corresponding conveners: 
Melf-Hinrich Ehlers – melf-hinrich.ehlers@agroscope.admin.ch
Annemarieke de Bruin – annemarieke.debruin@wur.nl

 Charles Dickens’ opening lines of Tale of Two Cities “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times” point to the potential role of the arts in creating and communicating hope in sustainability transitions. In the midst of challenging times, art can help to find hope. At the same time, artistic interventions can uncover and explore the challenges we face. In this sense the arts are political and enable us to critically engage with the status quo and to reimagine different and more hopeful worlds. Sustainability transitions literature emphasizes the importance of imagination and experimentation, and the arts have been enlisted to fill this role through public engagement, connection to values and worldviews, and providing space for reflection and dialogue. By doing so, the arts also raise questions of who imagines and where they imagine from, which are important ways of diversifying and decolonising imaginations, which pose important justice questions about, for instance, epistemologies, participation or recognition concerning the Art of Hope. It is therefore more important than ever to explore the potential role that art can play in opening up imagination and hope around just and sustainable futures – and bringing these futures into being.

Our paper track invites both full paper and speed talk submissions that explore these topics. We encourage submissions from sustainability scholars, practicing artists, and artistic researchers that investigate artistic and imaginative approaches in sustainability transitions, through literature, visual arts, sound, music, theatre, and more. We invite submissions that explore questions such as: How can the arts support and create hope within sustainability transitions research and practice? How might the arts accelerate, deepen, and broaden sustainability transitions? How can the arts support justice in transitions through disruption and operating in terms of flows, disjunctures, and dynamic relations as resistance? How can art create transformative engagement with more-than human entities in transitions research and practice? What role can artistic practice play in fostering urban transformations? How can we assess the impact of arts-based interventions? In addition, we encourage urban transitions scholars and artists working in urban spaces to participate in the linked special session: Staging Hope: Art-Science Methods for Climate-Resilient Cities.

Track conveners:
Stephen Williams (University of Oslo), Valentin Fiala (Universität für Bodenkultur Wien), Merin Jacon (Stellenbosch University)

Corresponding conveners:
Stephen Williams – stephengarywilliams@gmail.com
Valentin Fiala – v.fiala@boku.ac.at

The destabilization and decline of socio-technical systems has become a key theme within sustainability transitions research. This rise in prominence indicates a broadening of focus towards new or previously understudied processes of socio-technical change and has engendered conceptual developments and empirical investigation in a broad range of sectors. Destabilization, discontinuation, phase-out, exnovation, and related concepts are mobilized to understand shifts away from unsustainable socio-technical configurations and are thus charged with a hope of breaking the pattern of ceaselessly cumulating sustainability pressures. However, these processes are inevitably fraught with tensions and conflicts between actors who may resist, champion, or otherwise be affected by such processes, between emergent change and top-down transformative agendas, and between efforts to maintain stability and to disrupt established system configurations to leverage transformative change. The contours of a focused research agenda on DDD are beginning to become visible. In this track, discussions will be organized around three interrelated themes. We invite contributions that aim to describe, understand, and/or explain:

1. Processes, patterns, and mechanisms of socio-technical DDD. Under what conditions do regimes become destabilized? How do lock-ins become unlocked? How do particular technologies or practices passively decline or become actively discontinued?
2. The governance of socio-technical DDD. How do attempts at exnovation, phase[1]out, or deliberate discontinuation unfold? Which elements of socio-technical systems (technologies, substances, practices, infrastructures, etc.) become the targets of such efforts? Under what conditions are they successful, and how, and by whom, are they contested?
3. Effects and consequences of socio-technical DDD. What intended and unintended consequences arise from destabilization and decline? How do destabilization processes and outcomes interact across scales or sectors? What do backlash and anti-transformative political projects mean for these efforts? Which justice claims emerge along destabilization trajectories, and how do they compare to those associated with the emergence of novelty?

Across all three themes, we encourage approaches that foreground the normative orientations of DDD processes. Rather than treating DDD as a generative counterpart to innovation, we invite critical engagement with the values, interests, and power relations that shape how destabilization unfolds; how it is governed and contested; and how its consequences are distributed. Researchers are encouraged to interrogate whose visions and priorities are advanced (or marginalized), and how the politics of societal change structure DDD trajectories and outcomes from the outset. We are interested in a broad variety of research contexts, subjects and case studies through which these topics can be fruitfully explored.

Format of the track
To ensure a mix of deep empirical research, conceptual impulses and discussions for joint learning, we suggest a hybrid format for each session. First, full-paper presentations will provide up-to-date empirical investigation and theoretical advancements. In addition, track sessions may host 1-2 speed talks, in which presenters are invited to pitch research ideas and offer provocations. We will facilitate joint paper discussions at the end of each session, including short summaries and takeaways by session hosts. To conclude the overall track, a closing panel session tentatively named: ”Zooming out: Hope in times of destabilization”, will bring together key insights from all sessions and chart directions for future research. The panel connects with the overarching conference theme, bringing together invited speakers to discuss the broader societal implications for research on DDD.

Track conveners: Leonard Frank (Freiburg University); Tom Hawxwell (Lund University); Laura van Oers (Lund University); Karina Maldonado-Mariscal (TU Dortmund University); Lea Fünfschilling (Lund University); Peter Stegmaier (Twente University); Bruno Turnheim (LISIS – CNRS/INRAE/Uni Gustave Eiffel).

(Members of the STRN Thematic Group on Destabilisation, Discontinuation and Phase-out (D2P))

Corresponding conveners:
Laura van Oers – laura.van_oers@soc.lu.se
Tom Hawxwell – tom.hawxwell@soc.lu.se

As transitions scholars engage more with digitalization, we increasingly learn that digitalization does not automatically contribute to sustainability transitions; rather, while digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins, and platforms hold transformative potential, their relationship with sustainability is complex and contingent (John 2025; Mäkitie et al., 2023; Mouthaan et al., 2023). The digital landscape is consistently characterized by seemingly rapid, high-profile developments, such as recent hype around generative AI or new regulatory frameworks. For example, the European Commission’s recent “Apply AI” strategy expects that AI will contribute to enabling sustainability transformations in various sectors like energy, mobility and agri-food. At the same time, ineffectively regulated digitalization poses real risks to sustainability transition efforts (Bennich, 2025; Lange et al., 2023). For example, it could delay the phaseout of unsustainable practices or create rebound effects. In combination, the hype, speed of change, and risk of negative impacts lead undoubtedly to ‘challenging times’ for both practitioners and researchers in sustainability transitions.

Against this backdrop, we call upon the transitions community to approach the relationship between digitalization and sustainability transitions with both curiosity and scepticism. How can we cut through the ‘hype’ surrounding digitalization and use it to create real ‘hope’ for sustainability transitions? Our community has the potential to work on conceptual advances and empirical studies that unravel and explore under which conditions, and in what ways, digitalization may contribute to sustainability transitions, and which potential pitfalls that should be considered by academics, policy makers and decision makers. This can entail expanding upon established transition theory, identifying new conceptual approaches, and formulating actionable solutions.

Based on recent events in the STRN’s thematic group on Digitalization & Sustainability Transitions, we see how the transitions community and IST participants approach digitalization and sustainability from a variety of cases and analytical foci. Consequently, this track aims to serve as a home for discussing digitalization, AI, and sustainability transitions, specifically aiming to (1) bring these diverse perspectives together toward a clearer, shared theoretical understanding for the transitions community, and (2) facilitate reflection on the growing theoretical and empirical body of research.

Submissions to this paper track could include (but are not limited to):

• Digital technology development and usage in sustainability transitions, across sectoral and geographical contexts
• Governance and policy in twin transitions, as well as socio-economic impacts and justice aspects
• Socio-technical systems perspectives on digitalization, AI and sustainability
• Digital regimes, niches and actors in sustainability transitions
• Digital platforms and their implications for transitions in markets, infrastructure and consumption practices
• Rethinking existing transition theories to better address the complexities of integrating digitalization and sustainability
• Incorporating perspectives from adjacent disciplines to provide fresh insights into the systemic interplay between digital and sustainability transitions

We invite submissions of both full papers and speed talks to allow for detailed discussion of completed works as well as providing feedback to early-career researchers and ongoing work.

Track conveners: Jens Hanson (SINTEF), Alexander Herwix (University of Cologne, University of Gothenburg), Nikhil John (Delft University of Technology) Tuukka Mäkitie (SINTEF), Darcy Parks (Linköping University), Ricarda Schmidt-Scheele (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg)

Corresponding conveners:
Darcy Park – darcy.parks@liu.se
Ricarda Schmidt Scheele – ricarda.schmidt-scheele@uni-oldenburg.de

References:

Bennich, A. (2025). Untangling digitalisation: A topic of growing relevance for transition scholars. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.101021

John, N. (2025). Digital innovation and sustainability transitions: Exploring the twin transition in energy-intensive processing industries. [Doctoral Thesis, Utrecht University, The Netherlands]. https://doi.org/10.33540/2693

Lange, S., Santarius, T., Dencik, L., Diez, T., Ferreboeuf, H., Hankey, S., Hilbeck, A., Hilty, L. M., Höjer, M., Kleine, D., Pohl, J., Reisch, L. A., Ryghaug, M., Schwanen, T., & Staab, P. (2023). Digital Reset, Redirecting Technologies for the Deep Sustainability Transformation. oekom Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14512/9783987262463

Mäkitie, T., Hanson, J., Damman, S., & Wardeberg, M. (2023). Digital innovation’s contribution to sustainability transitions. Technology in Society, 73, 102255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102255

Mouthaan, M., Frenken, K., Piscicelli, L., & Vaskelainen, T. (2023). Systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization: A scoping review and research agenda. Futures, 149, 103142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103142 

Over the last years, dialogues at the interface of geography and transition studies have grown into an epistemic community focusing on the ‘geography of sustainability transitions’ (GeoST). Transition challenges increasingly transcend territorial boundaries, and multi-scalar factors play a significant role in shaping transition dynamics. At the same time, places differ in their structural preconditions and their capacities to engage in experiments with new socio-technical configurations. Where and how transitions unfold therefore depends on dynamicsthat co-evolve between (and have impacts on) places in spatially highly complex and uneven ways. This session track welcomes contributions that connect GeoST scholarship with non-naïve narratives of hope. What hopeful developments, dynamics and changes get visible across space, scale and place through a GeoST lens and how can / should our community instill a sense of pragmatic optimism in academia, policy and civil society? We invite theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions, as well as review papers, that identify promising avenues for GeoST research related to topics like:

• How context-specific structural conditions and agentic dynamics shape sustainability transitions
• Developing novel concepts and methodologies for addressing the multi-scalar interdependencies that shape innovation dynamics and socio-technical systems
• Intersections between sustainability transitions and Global Value Chains (GVC) / Global Production Networks (GPN): How these frameworks help explain the multi-scalar nature of transitions and the roles of global actors, value chains, and spatially complex governance arrangements
• The role of place differentiators (e.g., capabilities, values, natural resources), place-making processes, and contested politics in producing spatially uneven transition patterns
• Exploring geographies of transitions in remote or structurally disadvantaged regions, as well as how innovation in low- and middle income contexts interrelates with global transition dynamics
• Developing critical geographical perspectives on salient transition policy approaches like smart specialization, transition management or mission-oriented / transformative innovation policies
• The spatially uneven and politically contested social, economic and environmental outcomes of transitions, in particular related to raising geopolitical tensions and GVC / GPN frameworks

This year, the GeoST track will collaborate with the ‘trans-local food coalitions’ project team in exploring the relevance of a GeoST lens on agri-food transitions. It will focus on multi-scalar cooperation in this sector and explore how transitions emerge from diverse and spatially distributed actor coalitions, from global value chains to international networks and local political movements. Potential topics include:

• How do multi-scalar cooperation arrangements differ from or challenge the dynamics of conventional globalised food markets?
• How do alternative forms of globalised agri-food systems account for (in)justice, (un)sustainability and (loss of) resilience and democracy?
• In what ways do processes of “re-localising” or “re-globalising” offer seeds of hope for just and sustainable agri-food system transitions?

The session will be structured as an open conference track, with contributions being grouped into thematically coherent paper sessions and – if the schedule allows – a final reflection session.

Track conveners and correspondence: 
Christian Binz (Eawag) – christian.binz@eawag.ch
Marta Lopez Cifuentes (BOKU University) – m.lopezcifuentes@boku.ac.at 

Learning is increasingly recognised as a core driver of sustainability transitions, extending beyond knowledge acquisition to encompass shifts in cultures, practices, structures, and institutions. It acts as the connective tissue of systemic change by linking individual sense-making with collective coordination, experimentation, and institutional renewal, cultivating transformative agency to challenge dominant structures, imagine and realise more just and sustainable futures (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2024; Sannino, 2020). Insights from transformative, expansive, transdisciplinary, social, and ecopedagogical learning traditions reveal complementary layers of change—from inner transformation to institutional reconfiguration (Barth et al., 2023; van Mierlo et al., 2020; van Poeck, Östman & Block, 2020; Singer-Brodowski, 2023)—highlighting the need for integrative frameworks that connect micro-level sense-making with meso-level coordination and macro-level paradigm shifts.

This Track on learning as mechanism of transformative change in transitions invites contributions that advance understandings of learning in sustainability transitions. It welcomes work offering theoretical, empirical, or methodological insights into how learning shapes—and is shaped by—the process of transforming toward sustainable futures.

The track is open for speed talks, paper presentations or panel discussions around one or a combination of topics below:

• Learning with desired futures: Roles of desired and hopeful futures, visions, directionality and other normative, futures-oriented concepts in transition learning processes and transformative agency.
• Learning with present systems: Learning in changing dominant cultures, structures, practices, transition dynamics of stability and change, institutional inertia, transgression.
• Learning in spaces of possibility: Co-creative practices, learning-centered interventions, alternatives, potentials for change, leverage points.
• Learning as transformative praxis: Innovation and experiential practices, ethics-led interventions, transformative praxis, learning-led transformations.

Guiding questions for track submissions

• How does learning function as a driver, mechanism, or manifestation of change in socio-technical and socio-ecological transitions?
• How does learning shape transformative agency, enabling actors to challenge dominant structures, articulate alternatives, and enact new practices?
• How do different learning processes—social, transformative, expansive, policy, transdisciplinary, eco-pedagogical—interact and co-evolve across individuals, organizations, networks, and institutions?
• How can we understand the normative, ethical, and temporal dimensions of learning, including directionality, futures-orientation, reflexivity, and meta-learning?
• How can we conceptualise and empirically trace learning across scales, connecting micro-level sensemaking and affective engagement with meso-level systems change and macro-level institutional reconfiguration?
• What forms of facilitation, intermediation, and governance arrangements enable learning-based transformations, especially under conditions of uncertainty, contestation, and power asymmetries? – What methodological innovations are needed to study learning ecologies, multi-level learning dynamics, and cross-contextual learning processes in transitions?

Track conveners:
Annette Bos (Monash University), Juhi Chatterjee, Filia Garivaldis, Johan Holmén (University West), Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang (McGill University), Christopher Luederitz (McGill University), Gavin McCrory (Oslo Metropolitan University, Katrien van Poeck (University Ghent)

Corresponding conveners:
Annette Bos – annette.bos@monash.edu
Johan Holmén – johan.holmen@hv.se

References

Barth, M., Jiménez-Aceituno, A., Lam, D. P., Bürgener, L., & Lang, D. J. (2023). Transdisciplinary learning as a key leverage for sustainability transformations. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 64, 101361.

Lotz-Sisitka, H., Le Grange, L., & Mphepo, G. (2024). Engaged sustainability science and place-based transgressive learning in higher education. South African Journal of Science, 120(9/10).

Sannino, A. (2020). Transformative agency as warping: How collectives accomplish change amidst uncertainty. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2020.1805493

Singer-Brodowski, M. (2023). The potential of transformative learning for sustainability transitions: Moving beyond formal learning environments. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02444-x

van Mierlo, B., Halbe, J., Beers, P. J., Scholz, G., & Vinke-de Kruijf, J. (2020). Learning about learning in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.11.001

Van Poeck, K., Östman, L., & Block, T. (2020). Opening up the black box of learning-by-doing in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 298-310.

As a sustainability transitions community, we are living in a moment marked by the simultaneous emergence of multiple extremes that challenge how we research and approach transitions. We are a community working toward justice aspects of sustainability transitions (Avelino et al. 2025), across and at the nexus of domains such as food, water, energy, housing, mobility, and the environment. At the same time, we witness accelerating transitions that exacerbate injustices, from backlash to the active dismantling of democratic institutions (Patterson 2023).

Embedded in these extremes is a growing fascination with collapse narratives alongside increasing calls for hope and hopeful counter-narratives (Peterson et al. 2024), highlighting that we feel not only the effects but also the affects of our times.

Leaning into hopelessness and giving up on just sustainability transitions is not an option. Doomsday narratives often ignore that many communities have already faced “the end of a world” through colonialism, slavery, and systemic oppression (Moore & Milkoreit 2020). At the same time, critical scholars such as Ahmed, Solnit, or Webb warn that naïve calls for “more hope” can obscure injustices and depoliticise struggles unless grounded in ethical responsibility and collective action. When detached from these commitments, hope risks becoming performative rather than transformative.

How can we, as a community of just transition scholars and practitioners, foster “hope in challenging times” in our conceptual and empirical work, and: should we?

We invite full papers, speed talks, and posters from research and education addressing the following three topical clusters:

Emotions in and about Injustice & (Un)sustainability

• How do affects and emotions such as hope, fear, joy, and despair interact with justice and sustainability struggles across transition contexts?
• How can emotions like hope perpetuate injustices, privileges, and unsustainabilities, including exclusionary or dominant forms of hope?
• What can we learn from urban and rural initiatives where justice and equity efforts drive transformative change affectively and materially?

Affective Politics and Alternative Imaginaries of Hope for Just Sustainability Transitions

• How do affective narratives, counter-narratives, and imaginaries of hope across diverse epistemologies and cultural contexts enable action, and how can they be decolonised to embrace a plurality of desired futures, ways of knowing, and modes of hoping?
• What transformative mechanisms allow hopeful narratives to emerge within contexts of poverty, marginalisation, deprivation, and post-truth politics, and how do such narratives reconfigure power, institutions, and the status quo?
• How are narratives of hope mobilised within movements or policy design, and to what extent do dominant framings uphold or obscure core principles of climate justice, especially from comparative and Global South perspectives?

Navigating (In)justices and Hope Across Intersecting Transitions

• How can scholarship at the intersection of housing, mobility, energy, and the environment support place-sensitive and socially just transformations, and how do intersecting socio[1]economic, historical, spatial, and temporal structures shape lived experiences across neighbourhoods, cities, regions, and generations?
• What sector-specific challenges arise when climate mitigation intersects with livelihood dependence, structural inequality, and developmental needs in sectors such as power, mining, agriculture, housing, and mobility?
• How can just transition scholarship better incorporate justice principles, and what differentiated pathways are needed to align climate action with poverty alleviation, food security, wellbeing, sustainable resource productivity, and social justice?

We end the track with a reflection on how to do research in Just Sustainability Transitions through a World Café Special Session on the transformative power of research in just sustainability transitions.

Track conveners: Flor Avelino (Utrecht University), Katharina Biely (VU Amsterdam), Kristina Bogner (Utrecht University), Aysegül Can (Karlsruhe Institute for Technology), Rafael Carvalho Machado (Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná), Jennifer Duyne Barenstein (ETH Zurich), Phumudzo Mudau (Independent researcher), Juhi Chatterjee (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), Bipashyee Ghosh (University College London), Anne Kantel (Fraunhofer-Institute for Systems and Innovation Research), Marina Novikova (Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development), Katharina Schiller (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), Asieh H. Yazdi (University of Dundee), Julia Wittmayer (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

This track is jointly organised by the STRN Thematic Group Justice in Sustainability Transitions (Ju-ST) and the STRN Thematic Group Transitions in the Global South, together with individual STRN members.

Corresponding conveners:
Kristina Bogner – k.b.bogner@uu.nl
Kathrina Biely – k.biely@vu.nl

Transitions towards net-zero GHG emissions entail system transformations unfolding simultaneously across multiple different – yet interconnected – socio-technical systems including electricity, heating, transportation, construction, agri-food, water, and industry (i.e. steel, petrochemicals, cement). Sustainability transitions occurring within one socio-technical system inevitably influence transition processes unfolding in adjacent systems, and vice-versa. This track will explore such multi-system dynamics (MSD) in sustainability transitions and their implications for theory and policy practice.

Track motivation
This track is motivated by a growing pervasiveness of empirical multi-system phenomena that have direct and far-reaching impacts on e.g. the speed at which net-zero transitions occur, ensuing acceleration and upscaling efforts, the distribution of costs and benefits between systems and related burden-sharing efforts, or the reconfiguration of cross-sectoral value chains, among many other implications. In response to that, past years showed a growing relevance of multi[1]system research in the field of sustainability transitions. Transition scholars are increasingly researching the interactions between multiple sociotechnical systems and patterns of change across systems (Andersen & Markard, 2024; Kanger et al., 2021; Rosenbloom, 2020). To give a few examples, recent research has started to explore causal mechanisms and processes, the emergence of new system connections and associated challenges, the role of multi-system actors like system entanglers and actor strategies, governance, politics and policy in multi-system settings (Andersen & Geels, 2023; Ateş et al., 2024; Käsbohrer et al., 2024; Löhr & Chlebna, 2023; Löhr et al., 2024; Magnusson et al., 2025; Nykamp et al., 2023; Ohlendorf et al., 2023).

The track will contribute to the continued development of the MSD thematic group within STRN and the associated network of scholars. The track organizers will build on the experiences of two successful MSD tracks at previous ISTs in Oslo (2024) and Lisbon (2025).

Invited contributions
The track will be organized as an open track with several full paper sessions, including also a few speed talks. We invite contributions that

• empirically explore MSD in transitions,
• provide new conceptual insights (here we encourage diversity in terms of approaches),
• and/or develop and apply new methodological approaches for studying MSD.

While the list of potential topics associated with MSD is broad, we particularly welcome contributions exploring

• the role of actors and agency in influencing and shaping MSD, and
• policies and politics of MSD, including new multi-system governance challenges

Track conveners:
Meike Löhr (Eawag), Ksenia Onufrey (Chalmers University of Technology), Ingrid Mignon (Chalmers University of Technology), Sophie-Marie Ertelt (Örebro University, University of Tartu), Tuukka Mäkitie (SINTEF), Daniel Rosenbloom (Carleton University)

Corresponding conveners:
Ksenia Onufrey – ksenia.onufrey@chalmers.se
Meike Löhr – meike.loehr@eawag.ch

References

Andersen, A. D., & Geels, F. W. (2023). Multi-system dynamics and the speed of net-zero transitions: Identifying causal processes related to technologies, actors, and institutions. Energy Research & Social Science, 102, 103178.

Andersen, A. D., & Markard, J. (2024). Multi-system dynamics in sustainability transitions: Introduction and outlook. In J. H. Wesche, Abe (Ed.), Introduction to Sustainability Transitions Research Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.33774/coe-2024- x6x8n

Ateş, A., Rogge, K. S., & Lovell, K. (2024). Governance in multi-system transitions: A new methodological approach for actor involvement in policy making processes. Energy policy, 195, 114313.

Kanger, L., Schot, J., Sovacool, B. K., van der Vleuten, E., Ghosh, B., Keller, M., Kivimaa, P., Pahker, A.-K., & Steinmueller, W. E. (2021). Research frontiers for multi-system dynamics and deep transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 41, 52-56.

Käsbohrer, A., Hansen, T., & Zademach, H.-M. (2024). Multi-system interactions and institutional work: Actor interactions at the interface of residential storage systems and electric vehicles in Germany. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 51, 100844.

Löhr, M., & Chlebna, C. (2023). Multi-system interactions in hydrogen-based sector coupling projects: System entanglers as key actors. Energy Research & Social Science, 105, 103282.

Löhr, M., Markard, J., & Ohlendorf, N. (2024). (Un) usual advocacy coalitions in a multi-system setting: the case of hydrogen in Germany. Policy Sciences, 1-31.

Magnusson, T., Onufrey, K., Werner, V., & Gillström, H. (2025). Inter-system linkage formation in multi-system transitions: Incumbents, asymmetries and learning cycles. Research policy, 54(8), 105293.

Nykamp, H., Andersen, A. D., & Geels, F. W. (2023). Low-carbon electrification as a multi-system transition: a socio-technical analysis of Norwegian maritime transport, construction, and chemical sectors. Environmental Research Letters, 18(9), 094059.

Ohlendorf, N., Löhr, M., & Markard, J. (2023). Actors in multi-sector transitions-discourse analysis on hydrogen in Germany. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 47, 100692.

Rosenbloom, D. (2020). Engaging with multi-system interactions in sustainability transitions: A comment on the transitions research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 336-340.

In unruly times, the Anthropocene city is confronted with multiple, co-evolving and deeply ambiguous societal challenges. Rapid urbanisation is entangled with social struggles, displacement, discrimination and marginalisation (Apostolopoulou et al. 2022; Torrens et al. 2021), which leads to contestation over how, for whom and by whom sustainability should be addressed (Bulkeley 2021). These politics of urban transitions and transformations (UTT) call for inter- and transdisciplinary research and practice that integrate and encourage plural conceptual, analytical and methodological perspectives on urban change.

In the search for new modes of transformative governance that strengthen inclusion, participation and democracy, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, learning and reflexivity, local experimentation has emerged as a key approach to research and practice of UTT. Such experiments challenge (ecologically) modernist approaches to planning and control that have repeatedly reproduced unsustainability and reinforced growth-oriented economic paradigms. Yet, despite their promise to generate actionable knowledge, local experiments often remain fragmented, episodic and ephemeral within projectified governance settings (Bulkeley 2021; Evans et al., 2018; Torrens and von Wirth 2021). This raises a critical question: how can local experimentation be embedded as a pluralistic, dynamic, and enduring mode of urban governance that enables continuous collective learning and transformation?

As the contradictions of growth-oriented paradigms (e.g. ecological modernisation) come to the fore, scholars increasingly criticise the silence of sustainability transitions research on underlying economic paradigms and the deeper reasons for unsustainability (Feola 2020; Feola et al. 2021; Newell 2020). Given the pivotal role of cities for sustainability transformations, this prompts renewed attention to how post-growth imaginaries can be envisioned, tested, and institutionalised within local governance contexts.

These shortcomings raise questions of justice and unevenness in urban change: who benefits and who bears the costs of UTT, and whose knowledge, rights and responsibilities are recognized in shaping sustainable urban futures? How can social justice and ecological justice be reconciled and evolving tensions be addressed through transformative governance? Interventions might often overlook the needs and rights of the most vulnerable and the least able to make their voices heard (Bulkeley 2021). This might deepen social divides within cities as well as between urban and rural communities. Importantly, just transitions and transformations call for a politics of recognition which challenge structures of knowledge production that deepen divides between Global South and Global North communities and which instead recognise the plurality of knowledge (Fratini et al., 2019; Ashton, et al, 2022; Ludwig and El-Hani 2025).

To foster dialogue on the governance of UTT in turbulent times, we encourage submissions that explore and critically reflect alternative imaginaries and advance inter-/transdisciplinary and co[1]creative approaches to UTT. We invite contributions that address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• How can the governance of local experimentation be redefined to support institutional learning and long-term transformative change?
• How can alternative urban imaginaries – e.g. post-growth cities – be envisioned, explored and experimented with?
• What are conceptual relations between post-growth planning discourses and just transition theories?
• What are the drivers of injustices in UTT? How can transformative governance approaches address questions of (in)justices in UTT?
• Which conceptual and methodological frameworks can be applied to examine and co-create the dynamics of UTT?

Our paper track invites both full paper and speed talk submissions. It also integrates the interactive special session “Letting Go: Designing Real-World Experiments for Exnovation and Deceleration in Urban Sustainability Transitions”.

Track conveners:
Led by the Thematic Group “Urban Transitions and Transformations”, the lead organisers are:

Franziska Ehnert (Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development), Markus Egermann (Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development), Marina Novikova (Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development), Alexandra Polido (University of Aveiro), Pia Laborgne (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Chiara Fratini (Technical University of Denmark), Timo von Wirth (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences)

Corresponding conveners:
Franziska Ehnert – f.ehnert@ioer.de
Alexandra Polido – a.polido@ua.pt

References

Apostolopoulou, E., Bormpoudakis, D., Chatzipavlidis, A., Cortés Vázquez, J.J., Florea, I., Gearey, M., Levy, J., Loginova, J., Ordner, J., Partridge, T., Pizarro, A., Rhoades, H., Symons, K., Veríssimo, C., Wahby, N., 2022. Radical social innovations and the spatialities of grassroots activism: navigating pathways for tackling inequality and reinventing the commons. Journal of Political Ecology 29. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2292

Ashton, W.S., Fratini C.F., Isenhour, C., Krueger, R., 2022. Justice, equity, and the circular economy: introduction to the special double issue. Local Environment 27 (10-11), 1173-1181.

Bulkeley, H., 2021. Climate changed urban futures: environmental politics in the anthropocene city. Env Polit 30, 266–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1880713

Evans, J.P.M., Bulkeley, H., Voytenko, Y., McCormick, K., Curtis, S., 2018. Circulating Experiments : Urban Living Labs and the Politics of Sustainability, in: Ward, K., Jonas, A.E.G., Miller, B., Wilson, D. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics. Routledge, New York, NY, USA; Abingdon, UK, pp. 416– 425.

Feola, G., 2020. Capitalism in sustainability transitions research: Time for a critical turn? Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 35, 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.02.005

Feola, G., Vincent, O., Moore, D., 2021. (Un)making in sustainability transformation beyond capitalism. Global Environmental Change 69, 102290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102290

Fratini, C.F., Georg, S., Jørgensen, M.S., 2019. Exploring circular economy imaginaries in European cities: A research agenda for the governance of urban sustainability transitions. Journal of Cleaner Production 228, 974–989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.193

Ludwig, D., El-Hani, C.N., 2025. Transformative Transdisciplinarity: An Introduction to Community-Based Philosophy, 1st ed. Oxford University PressNew York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197815281.001.0001

Newell, P., 2020. Towards a global political economy of transitions: a comment on the transitions research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 34, 344–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.10.007

Torrens, J., von Wirth, T., 2021. Experimentation or projectification of urban change? A critical appraisal and three steps forward. Urban Transform 3, 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-021-00025-1

Torrens, J., Westman, L., Wolfram, M., Broto, V.C., Barnes, J., Egermann, M., Ehnert, F., Frantzeskaki, N., Fratini, C.F., Håkansson, I., Hölscher, K., Huang, P., Raven, R., Sattlegger, A., Schmidt-Thomé, K., Smeds, E., Vogel, N., Wangel, J., Von Wirth, T., 2021. Advancing urban transitions and transformations research. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 41, 102–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.10.026

Sustainability-oriented laboratories such as Living Labs and Real-World Labs (Reallabore) have become central infrastructures for multi-stakeholder experimentation, co-creation, and governance innovation in sustainability transitions (McCrory et al., 2022;  Wanner et al., 2024; Goebel et al., 2025). They are increasingly implemented across local, regional, and national contexts to advance transformative change through participatory, practice-based experimentation. Yet, stark conceptual and methodological fragmentation persists: definitions vary, management approaches differ, impact evidence remains unclear (Paskaleva and Cooper, 2021, Forbat et al., 2025), anecdotal (Ballon et al., 2018), and scattered across projects and scales, with diffusion and scaling strategies still being developed (von Wirth et al., 2019, Torrens and von Wirth, 2021)

This track invites contributions that critically investigate the concepts, practices, and transformative potential of labs in sustainability transitions. We seek theoretical, methodological, and empirical papers examining how labs contribute to systems change — from situated experimentation to institutional transformation. The discussion will connect transitions theory, governance perspectives, transdisciplinary research approaches and lab-based innovation practice such as Living Labs to foster a coherent analytical and practical understanding of “labs in transition.”

Recent work (Bernert et al., 2024; Parodi et al., 2024; Schneider et al., 2025) highlights how labs function as hybrid infrastructures that bridge research, policy, and society. Moreover, research also indicates the orchestration potential of (Living) labs in (local) innovation ecosystems (Fauth et al., 2024). However, uncertainties remain—about the set-up, organisation and governance of labs, their relationship to local and spatial contexts, the ability to create sustainable value for their stakeholders, and their capacity to scale and sustain transformative, innovative outcomes. Against this backdrop, the session seeks to explore four interlinked themes:

1. Conceptual clarity and frameworks – How do sustainability labs relate to major Sustainable Transitions Research frameworks? Which epistemologies and normative orientations underpin different lab concepts?
2. Modes of experimentation and learning – How do labs enable iterative and reflexive knowledge co-production? Under what conditions can co-creation and participatory science achieve transformative learning (Sengers et , 2019;  Wanner et al., 2024)?
3. Governing and managing labs – What institutional arrangements and infrastructures foster long-term engagement, inclusivity, long-term sustainability and cross-sectoral collaboration? How can labs address power asymmetries and “participation fatigue” among societal partners?
4. Assessing and scaling impacts – Which tools and typologies help evaluate the social and institutional effects of labs across scales (von Wirth et , 2019;  Bernert et al., 2024)?
   How can labs evolve from project-based structures to long-term ecosystems and generate transferable insights across diverse contexts? How can the three analytical layers of (living) labs (organisation – project – activities) (Schuurman, 2015) be aligned to foster long-term impact and systemic change?

The session invites full paper presentations and speed talks and will close with a panel discussion with Swiss and international Real-world and Living Lab practitioners. The discussion will bridge academic and practical perspectives on how experimental infrastructures can be institutionalised within transition governance frameworks and regional policy initiatives. As a collective outcome, the panel will formulate a Call to Action including a research agenda for sustainability-oriented labs, exploring and strengthening connections between existing research communities, and define the next steps towards establishing a STRN thematic group on “Labs in Transition.”

Track conveners: Karoline Augenstein (University of Wuppertal), Svenja Bickert-Appleby (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg), Verena Hermelingmeier (Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences),  Maria Konstantinidou (Hellenic Institute of Transport, CERTH), Dimitri Schuurman (Ghent University, European Network of Living Labs), Anton Sentic (Zurich University of Applied Sciences)

Corresponding conveners
Anton Sentic – anton.sentic@zhaw.ch
Dimitri Schuurman – dimitri.schuurman@imec.de

References

Ballon, P., Van Hoed, M., & Schuurman, D. (2018). The effectiveness of involving users in digital innovation: Measuring the impact of living labs. Telematics and Informatics, 35(5), 1201- 1214.

Bernert, P., Binder, M., Wanner, M., & Lang, D. J. (2024). Scaling the impacts of urban labs: Typologies and mechanisms. GAIA, 33(1), 34-42.

Goebel, C., Kern, K., & Seyfang, G. (2025). Embedding experimental governance in European sustainability transitions. Environmental Policy and Governance, 27(1), 1-12.

Fauth, J., De Moortel, K., & Schuurman, D. (2024). Living labs as orchestrators in the regional innovation ecosystem: a conceptual framework. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 11(1), 2414505.

Forbat, J., Sahakian, M., Annaheim, J., Sentic, A., 2025. Assessing processes and results of living labs: toward a general framework. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 21, 2526892. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2025.2526892

McCrory, G., Sengers, F., & van Mierlo, B. (2022). Reframing sustainability-oriented labs in transitions research: Advancing conceptual clarity and analytical scope. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 35-47.

Parodi, O., Coenen, L., von Wirth, T., & Firkowski, M. (2024). Reallabore as infrastructural ecosystems for transformation. GAIA, 33(3), 215-222.

Schneider, F., Buser, T., & Kaliampur, A. (2025). Institutional pathways for embedding real-world labs in European transition governance. Sustainability Science, 20(1), 1-18.

Schuurman, D. (2015). Bridging the gap between Open and User Innovation?: exploring the value of Living Labs as a means to structure user contribution and manage distributed innovation (Doctoral dissertation, Ghent University).

Sengers, F., Wieczorek, A. J., & Raven, R. (2019). Experimenting for sustainability transitions: A review and typology of experimental approaches. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 29, 1-14.

von Wirth, T., Frantzeskaki, N., & Loorbach, D. (2019). Modes and impacts of urban experimentation for sustainability: Towards a refined understanding. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31, 110-125.

Torrens, J., Von Wirth, T., 2021. Experimentation or projectification of urban change? A critical appraisal and three steps forward. Urban Transform 3, 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-021- 00025-1

Wanner, M., Kläy, A., & Lang, D. J. (2024). Impact typologies in real-world laboratories: A heuristic framework for analyzing and fostering transformative change. GAIA, 33(2), 102-109.

Post-growth transitions involve restructuring socio-economic systems to ensure the universal satisfaction of human needs within planetary boundaries, without relying on continuous economic growth. This way, postgrowth transitions inherently challenge Capitalism as the dominant form of socio-economic organisation in modern societies.

This paper track explores the trajectories of post-growth forerunners, such as (some) grassroots initiatives, community economies, cooperatives and their associated modes of innovation and alternative business models, once they are implemented within or alongside capitalist systems. While post-growth scholarship has extensively theorized alternatives to growth-centric paradigms, less attention has been paid to what happens when these alternatives interact with dominant socio-economic structures. To what extent and how do they transform the system from within, coexist in tension, or become co-opted and neutralized?

The track invites contributions that critically examine the conditions under which post[1]growth initiatives maintain and exert their transformative potential, and the mechanisms through which they may be diluted, reversed, or strategically adapted during transitions. We aim to discuss the layered and often counterintuitive dynamics, including scaling, simbiosis, and capture, which characterise the relation between post-growth alternatives and dominant socio-economic structures. We invite contributions that investigate the political, regulatory, organizational, labor, and socio[1]cultural dynamics that shape these outcomes, drawing on empirical case studies as well as conceptual frameworks.

Kex questions include:

• Under what conditions do post-growth alternatives retain their integrity within capitalist contexts?
• What influence do post-growth alternatives exert on capitalist socio-economic structures? (How) Do they transform those structures?
• What mechanisms lead to the transformation, coexistence, or reversal of post-growth alternatives?
• How do different organizational forms (e.g., cooperatives, social enterprises, community groups, voluntary organizations, digital platforms) mediate these dynamics?
• What evidence from related fields and theoretical perspectives (community economies, post- and de-growth, social movement studies, collective action, commoning, institutional theories, STS, open user innovation, etc), across economic sectors can contribute to understanding post-growth transitions?

Expected contributions: Full papers

Track conveners
Nicolas Chevrollier (Nyenrode Business University), Giuseppe Feola (Utrecht University), Mario Pansera (University of Vigo), Sabrina Chakori (The University of Sydney), Koen Frenken (Utrecht University)

Corresponding conveners
Nicolas Chevrollier – n.chevrollier@nyenrode.nl
Giuseppe Feola – g.feola@uu.nl

References

Chakori, S., Grigg, N. J., Biely, K., Hinton, J. B., Plumecocq, G., Richards, R., & Robra, B. (2026). From innovation to exnovation: Insights from post-growth food enterprises in Australia. Ecological Economics, 239, 108785. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108785

Feola, G. (2020). Capitalism in sustainability transitions research: Time for a critical turn? Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 35, 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.02.005

Käyrä, M., & Kuhmonen, I. (2024). Institutionalising degrowth regime: A review and analysis of degrowth transition proposals. Sustainability Science, 19, 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01566-7

Khmara, Y., & Kronenberg, J. (2020). Degrowth in the context of sustainability transitions: In search of a common ground. Journal of Cleaner Production, 267, 122072. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122072

Merino, A., Nicolopoulou, K., & Salama, A. (2025). Between the ‘Other’ and the ‘Same’: The alterity of the alternative economies in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.101030

Pansera, M., & Fressoli, M. (2021). Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era. Organization, 28(3), 380–404. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420973631

Vandeventer, J. S., Cattaneo, C., & Zografos, C. (2019). A Degrowth Transition: Pathways for the Degrowth Niche to Replace the Capitalist-Growth Regime. Ecological Economics, 156, 272–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.10.002

In the context of overlapping global crises (such as climate change, biodiversity loss, geopolitical instability, and social inequality) justice has become a central concern in sustainability transitions (Wiliams & Doyon, 2019; Heffron, & McCauley, 2018). Yet, justice-related inquiries (i.e., pertaining to distributional, procedural, recognitional and restorative justice) often remain siloed across sectors, disciplines, and geographies (Kortetmäki et al., 2025; Tschersich & Kok, 2022). While justice concerns are central to sustainability transition research, the role of law in addressing these concerns is overlooked, too simplified, or confined within policy discourses, sectoral and/or geographical boundaries (Soininen et al., 2021; Schøning et al., 2023). Our track aims to bridge these divides by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between just transitions and complex legal systems.

Law is not a monolithic or static entity; it is a layered, multi-scalar, and often contradictory system shaped by diverse actors, norms, and institutional arrangements (Argyrou et al., 2025). So much so that portrays complex system characteristics, such as emergence, non-linear dynamics and subsequent uncertainty (Soininen et al., 2021; Ruhl, 1997). These dynamics are particularly salient in the times of polycrises, where sustainability transitions are urgent, contested, and deeply political. At the same time, law does not function in isolation of sustainability transitions but determines much of the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of transitions alongside technical, physical and other sociocultural dimensions (Du et al. 2022; Dunn et al. 2025).

Complex legal systems portray various dynamics in the context of just transitions. Whereas legal frameworks can enable novel social arrangements and drive societal, technological, and environmental innovations in sustainability transitions, they can also reinforce existing path dependencies when shaped by complex actor dynamics and institutional inertia (Boon et al., 2022; Hyysalo et al., 2022; Patterson, 2021; Sareen et al., 2021; Schøning et al., 2023; Soininen et al., 2021). Even more, ill-timed legal interventions may hinder innovation or spark crises that lead to new transitions (Argyrou et al., 2025; Sareen et al., 2021). In this context, ‘Juridification’ (i.e., the expansion of legal regulation into domains traditionally governed by informal or democratic processes) can both enable and/or constrain transformative action (Habermas, 1984; Jansen, 2025).

This track builds on interdisciplinary work that explores the evolving role of law in sustainability transitions,1 highlighting law’s capacity to shape market practices, institutional change, and normative expectations (Argyrou et al., 2025; Soininen et al., 2021), but also recognizing the fundamental uncontrollability of legal system dynamics (Murray et al., 2018). It invites contributions that critically examine how legal systems interact with sustainability goals, how law – through its facilitating and safeguarding functions – can contribute to sustainability transitions, and how legal interventions can be designed to tackle with systemic counterforces and institutional inertia.

Themes and corresponding research questions

We welcome papers that:

• Explore legal complexity in sustainability transition governance
  What particular legal interconnections and feedback loops shape transition processes and outcomes?
• Examine the role of law in shaping justice dimensions
  How do legal systems interact with the justice dimensions of sustainability transitions?
• Investigate legal path dependencies and institutional inertia
  How do legal path dependencies affect the pace and direction of sustainability transitions?
• Analyze legal pluralism and multi-level governance
  What are the implications of legal pluralism and multi-level governance in sustainability transitions?
• Reflect on methodological approaches to studying law in transitions
  What insights do legal methodologies offer that are not captured by standard approaches in sustainability transition studies?
• Present integrated models for transition pathways and further develop the concept of ‘legal solution space’
  How can law contribute to feasible, fair and acceptable transitions and how does law relate to other disciplines in developing transition pathways?

Formats and contributions sought:

• Abstracts & Full papers (submitted in advance)
• Speed talks (short presentations)
• Final panel discussion (to synthesize insights and foster dialogue)

Track conveners:
Aikaterini Argyrou (Nyenrode Business University), Niko Soininen (University of Eastern Finland), Herman Kasper Gilissen (Utrecht University, Delta Climate Center)

Corresponding conveners:
Aikaterini Argyrou – a.argyrou2@nyenrode.nl
Niko Soininen – niko.soininen@uef.fi

Selected references

Argyrou, A., Chevrollier, N., & Veldman, J. (2025). Legal institutionalism and the role of law in market transformation during sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.101011

Boon, W.P.C., Edler, J., & Robinson, D.K.R. (2022). Conceptualizing market formation for transformative policy. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 152–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.12.010

Du, H., Triyanti, A., Hegger, D., Gilissen, H. K., Driessen, P., & van Rijswick, H. (2022). Enriching the concept of solution space for climate adaptation by unfolding legal and governance dimensions. Environmental Science and Policy, 127, 253-262.

Dunn, F., Haasnoot, M., Du, H., Karabil, S., Minderhoud, P., Schippers, V., Scown, M., Triyanti, A., Vu, T., & Middelkoop, H. (2025). Mapping the solution space for local adaptation under global change: A test of concept for the Vietnamese Mekong delta. Global Environmental Change, 95, Article 103071. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2025.103071.

Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Heffron, R. J., & McCauley, D. (2018). What is the ‘Just Transition’? Geoforum, 88, 74–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.016

Hyysalo, S., Heiskanen, E., Lukkarinen, J., et al. (2022). Market intermediation and its embeddedness – Lessons from the Finnish energy transition. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 184–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.12.004

Jansen, B. (2025). The politicization of business ethics: State, corporation, and society seen from a Schmittian perspective. Business Ethics Quarterly, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2025.6

Kortetmäki, T., Timmermann, C., & Tribaldos, T. (2025). Just transition boundaries: Clarifying the meaning of just transition. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 55, 100957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2024.100957

Murray, J., Webb, T. E., & Wheatley, S. (Eds.). (2019). Complexity theory and law: Mapping an emergent jurisprudence. Routledge.

Patterson, J. J. (2021). Remaking political institutions in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 41, 64–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.10.011

Sareen, S., & Haarstad, H. (2021). Digitalization as a driver of transformative environmental innovation. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 41, 93–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.09.016

Schøning, L., Hausner, V. H., & Morel, M. (2023). Law and sustainable transitions: An analysis of aquaculture regulation. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 48, 100753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2023.100753

Soininen, N., Romppanen, S., Huhta, K., & Belinskij, A. (2021). A brake or an accelerator? The role of law in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 41, 71–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.09.012

Ruhl, J. B. (1997). Thinking of environmental law as a complex adaptive system. Houston Law Review, 34, 933. https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/526/

Tschersich, J., & Kok, K. P. W. (2022). Deepening democracy for the governance toward just transitions in agri-food systems. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 43, 358– 374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2022.04.012

Williams, S., & Doyon, A. (2019). Justice in energy transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31, 144–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2018.12.001

While transitions research has prioritized socio-technical and economic dimensions, a growing body of work argues that transformation requires addressing the cultural “meta” level (Göpel, 2016; Hedlund-de Witt, 2013; Schlaile et al., 2022; 2023).

This includes humans’ worldviews, paradigms, mindsets, and (religious and secular) value systems, which are often considered both a deep cause for unsustainability as well as a potential deep leverage point for systemic change (Ives et al., 2020, 2024; Koehrsen & Ives, 2025; Taveras-Dalmau et al., 2025; Woiwode et al., 2021). As overarching systems of meaning, worldviews shape what people consider to be true, worthwhile, and possible, as well as how they perceive problems, solutions, and their causal relations (De Witt et al., 2015; Schlaile et al., 2017; van den Broek et al., 2024). As Tarnas (2007) put it, “worldviews create worlds”, and as such, they are crucial to sustainability transitions.

While worldviews and paradigms tend to be stable and slow to change, sensemaking is the more dynamic process of giving meaning to events in the world, often expressed in (micro-)narratives, discourses, memes, mental models, or religious repertoires – which may enable or inhibit sustainability transitions (Hector et al., 2025; Riedy & Waddock, 2022; Schlaile et al., 2023, 2024; Stacey, 2024; van den Broek et al., 2024). Differences in sensemaking can therefore help explain why conflicts over transition pathways persist (Bruehwiler et al., 2025; Köhrsen, 2025; Schlaile et al., 2022). Collective sensemaking processes, for example, supported by generative dialogue or transformative learning (De Witt et al., 2024a,b), may also be a vital pathway to worldview change for more sustainable futures.

This relates to an understanding of culture as evolutionary (e.g., McCaffree, 2022; Schlaile et al., 2022), also meaning that humans can develop in the ways they make sense of the world – with their understanding over time increasing in breadth, depth, and complexity, thus becoming more expansive and inclusive, as well as less distorted, egocentric, and reactive (e.g., Kegan & Lahey, 2016; Mezirow, 2009). This evolutionary understanding connects culture to fields like developmental psychology, adult development, transformative education, and the ‘inner dimensions’ of sustainability (e.g., Schlaile et al., 2017; 2022; 2023; Wamsler et al., 2021; Waring & Tremblay, 2016), as well as to transitions research’s intellectual roots in evolutionary theory (e.g., Köhler et al., 2019; van den Bergh et al., 2011).

A related issue is the role of ‘crisis’ in instigating cultural change. This is of growing relevance as humanity faces crises on all fronts, thus potentially constellating at scale the experiences long known to foster profound changes in worldviews and sensemaking (Weber, 1963/1922; Mezirow, 2009; Schlaile et al., 2024). Therefore, transitions research must better understand when and under which conditions crises can open “windows of opportunity” for change in a more sustainable direction.

Contributions and questions
We welcome submissions from all disciplines contributing to these debates, for example, by addressing questions like:

• How do worldviews (paradigms, values, mindsets, etc.) and sensemaking (narratives, memes, discourses, religious repertoires, etc.) obstruct or enable sustainability transitions?
• How do worldviews and sensemaking relate to one another, and how can insights into this relationship be used to foster positive change towards more sustainable futures?
• How can an evolutionary understanding of culture help us facilitate positive change towards more sustainable futures?
• How do worldviews change, and how can change processes be supported?
• How does the experience of crisis instigate changes in culture, worldviews, and sensemaking, and how may this be leveraged for sustainability transitions?
• And what are the differences and overlaps in concepts and frameworks – with different scholarly communities using distinct terminologies for related concepts – that help us navigate the cultural “meta level” of transitions?

Format: Mixed – Full paper presentations and speed talks, ideally with a dedicated synthesis session or panel discussion at the end (the format of this synthesis session depends on the final number of submissions)

Track conveners:
Annick de Witt (Worledview Foundation, Utrecht University), Jens Köhrsen (University of Oslo), Maja Kofod Jensen (University of Oslo), Michael P. Schlaile (University of Hohenheim, University of Hohenheim), Adrian Wagner (Complexity Partners, Witten/Herdecke University)

Corresponding conveners:
Annick de Witt – annick@worldviewjourneys.com
Michael P. Schlaile – schlaile@uni-hohenheim.de

References

Bruehwiler, N., Koehrsen, J., Malin, J., Roysen, R., & Kos, L. (2025). Does religious difference have an impact on the diffusion of sustainable innovations? A mixed-methods analysis of ecovillages worldwide. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2025.101024

De Witt, A., Hedlund, N. H., & De Boer, J. (2015). Climate change and the clash of worldviews: An exploration of how to move forward in a polarized debate. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, 50(4), 906–921. https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12226

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This paper track brings together scholars engaged in the ‘critical turn’ within sustainability transitions research (STR). That is, challenging techno-optimism, capitalist conditions, and the very meaning of sustainability often embedded within mainstream transition concepts and frameworks (Feola, 2020; Longo et al., 2021; Susur & Karakaya, 2021).

STR traditionally studies socio-technical transitions towards sustainability, oftentimes with vague understandings of what sustainability entails (Garud and Gehman, 2012), relying on implicit assumptions regarding the persistence of economic growth (Feola, 2020) and consequences of new technologies (Lai & Karakaya, 2024). Scholars therefore advocate a shift, for instance, drawing on heterodox political economy, political ecology or Eco-Marxism, to move beyond “trasformismo” (Tilsted, Newell & Hunt, 2026) or co-option (Kalt, 2024; Lauer et al., 2025); and governance and system dynamics, to prevent the new problems arising from solutions (Guzzo et al., 2024; Adipudi et al., 2025).

This track provides a dedicated forum for work on transformative change that challenges the accumulation imperative, critically thinking about how we organise our social, economic, and political lives; and how we understand and relate to material and imaginative limits.

Proposed topics include, but are not limited to:

• Problem/burden shifting, including rebound effects (Lange et al., 2021), and their classist, gendered and racialized consequences.
• Reflexive methodologies in transition studies; the practice of reflexivity in system definitions, case delineations and research methods (Christley et al. 2025).
• Conflicting resource claims and tensions as societies race to eliminate fossil fuels (Olsson & Johansson, 2025); principles and mechanisms for resource allocation (Scharnigg, 2024).
• Normative foundations and value pluralism in defining what is ‘sustainable’ or ‘unsustainable’: tensions between universalist sustainability agendas (e.g. SDGs) and context-dependent, culturally and spiritually grounded understandings (worldviews, eco-/spiritual and religious repertoires) (Kates et al., 2005; Hedlund-de Witt, 2014; Lestar & Böhm, 2020; Martin et al., 2024; Stacey, 2024).
• ‘Relative’ vs. ‘absolute’ sustainability, e.g., multi- and interdisciplinary research to assess the effects of sustainability transitions and account for absolute carrying capacities implying limits to scaling (Lai & Laurent, 2025; Lindfors et al., 2025).
• Critical reflection on how capitalism structures sustainability transitions in relation to, inter alia, concepts such as degrowth and post-growth (Warlenius, 2023) as well as other post-capitalist pathways and imaginaries (Merino et al., 2025).
• Unpacking geoeconomic and geopolitical developments as they relate to climate change, new technological fixes and militarization.
• How insights from critical social science research can feed into political strategies that instill productive hope and speed up the transformations towards more sustainable, democratic and equitable societies.

The importance of engaging critically with these topics lies in strengthening STR by gaining a deeper understanding of the consequences of transition trajectories and reflection on the implications of where sustainability assumptions may lead us as a research community. The intention is to spark constructive dialogues on the proposed topics, culminating in a panel session that synthesizes key insights from the papers presented in the track. In addition, we hope to convene a meeting with all those presenting to discuss the possibility of creating a network of transition scholars who are interested in or already work in this critical transition studies tradition.

Track conveners:
Hanna Cardol (Halmstad University), Emily Christley (University of Copenhagen) , Jens Ergon (Uppsala University), Henrik Ernstson (Emrah Karakaya), Christina Gratorp (Lund University) , Daniel Guzzo (Technical University of Denmark), Anders Hylmö (Halmstad University), Emrah Karakaya (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)* , Rakhyun Kim (Utrecht University), Yat Yin Lai (KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Thomas Magnusson (Linköping University) , Alexandra Nikoleris (Lund University) , Ebru Susur (Technical University of Madrid), Joachim Peter Tilsted (University of Copenhagen), Eugenia Perez Vico (Halmstad University), Rikard Warlenius (Södertörn University)

Corresponding conveners
Christina Gratorp – christina.gratorp@miljo.lth.se
Emrah Karakaya – emrahka@kth.se

References

Adipudi, A. V., Kim, R. E., & Biermann, F. (2025). The potential negative impact of the UNFCCC: An analysis of sectoral, geographical, and temporal problem shifts from climate policies and measures in 25 industrialized countries. Global Environmental Change, 95, 103075.

Christley, E., Lai, Y.Y., Björner Brauer, H. and Almqvist-Ingersoll, A., (2025). A beginner’s guide to reflexivity in energy research and social science. Energy Research & Social Science, 127, 104267.

Feola, G. (2020). Capitalism in sustainability transitions research: Time for a critical turn?. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 35, 241-250.

Garud, R., & Gehman, J. (2012). Metatheoretical perspectives on sustainability journeys: Evolutionary, relational and durational. Research policy, 41(6), 980-995.

Guzzo, D., Walrave, B., Videira, N., Oliveira, I. C., & Pigosso, D. C. A. (2024). Towards a systemic view on rebound effects: Modelling the feedback loops of rebound mechanisms. Ecological Economics, 217, 108050.

Hedlund-de Witt, A. (2014). Rethinking sustainable development: Considering how different worldviews envision “development” and “quality of life”. Sustainability, 6(11), 8310–8328.

Kalt, T. (2024). Transition conflicts: A Gramscian political ecology perspective on the contested nature of sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 50, 100812.

Kates, R. W., Parris, T. M., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2005). What is sustainable development? Goals, indicators, values, and practice. Environment, 47(3), 8–21.

Lai, Y. Y., & Karakaya, E. (2024). Rethinking the sustainability of transitions: An illustrative case of burden-shifting and sociotechnical dynamics of aviation fuel in Sweden. Energy Research & Social Science, 113, 103574.

Lai, Y. Y., & Laurent, A. (2025). Can hydrogen-powered air travel grow within the planetary limits?. Sustainable Production and Consumption.

Lange, S., Kern, F., Peuckert, J., & Santarius, T. (2021). The Jevons paradox unravelled: A multi-level typology of rebound effects and mechanisms. Energy Research and Social Science, 74, 101982.

Lauer, A., de Castro, C., & Carpintero, O. (2025). Beyond Green capitalism: Global scenarios for fast societal transitions toward sustainability. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 56, 100981.

Lestar, T., & Böhm, S. (2020). Ecospirituality and sustainability transitions: Agency towards degrowth. Religion, State & Society, 48(1), 56–73.

Lindfors, A., Kanda, W., Gustafsson, M., & Anderberg, S. (2025). Interactions between Sustainability assessment and Sustainability transitions research: The benefits of combining approaches. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101019.

Longo, S. B., Isgren, E., Clark, B., Jorgenson, A. K., Jerneck, A., Olsson, L., … & York, R. (2021). Sociology for sustainability science. Discover Sustainability, 2(1), 47.

Martin, A., Balvanera, P., Raymond, C. M., et al. (2024). Sustainability-aligned values: Exploring the concept, evidence, and practice. Ecology and Society, 29(4), 18.

Merino, A., Nicolopoulou, K., & Salama, A. (2025). Between the ‘Other’and the ‘Same’: The alterity of the alternative economies in sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 57, 101030.

Olsson, A., & Johansson, J. (2025). Legitimising different futures: Swedish forest management as a climate change mitigation measure. Environmental Science & Policy, 171, 104174.

Scharnigg, R. (2024). Implicit negotiations in niche-regime interactions: Relational aspects of agency, accountability, and anticipation in transition studies. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 51, 100834.

Stacey, T. (2024). Religious repertoires of sustainability: Why religion is central to sustainability transitions, whatever you believe. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 50, 100821.

Susur, E., & Emrah K. (2021) A reflexive perspective for sustainability assumptions in transition studies. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 39 : 34-54.

Tilsted, J. P., Newell, P., & Hunt, O. B. (2026). Trasformismo: Advancing understandings of the relationship between stability and change in transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, 131, 104467.

Warlenius, R. H. (2023). The limits to degrowth: Economic and climatic consequences of pessimist assumptions on decoupling. Ecological Economics, 213, 107937.

Transitions to a circular economy require profound reconfigurations of production-consumption systems, shifting from linear resource flows to regenerative cycles, mobilizing diverse actors, aligning competing institutional logics, and scaling niche innovations to challenge incumbent regimes. While transitions research has advanced our understanding of how policy design enables and impedes circular economy transitions (Domenech and Bahn-Walkowiak, 2019; Haswell et al., 2024; Pfeffer et al., 2025), the legitimacy and discourse surrounding circular economy technologies (Zepa et al., 2024), and the role of different actors in driving the transition (Hobson et al., 2026; Tabares and Kanda, 2026), research has typically focused on specific sectors, single technologies, or individual actor groups in relative isolation.

As a result, critical knowledge gaps remain regarding the systemic and interactive dimensions of circular economy transitions. First, the contributions and trade-offs of circular economy strategies in relation to other sustainability transitions, particularly net-zero emissions and biodiversity protection (see, e.g., Gast et al., 2022, Pauliuk et al., 2024; Tang et al., 2025; Bolson et al., 2026), remain underexplored. Second, we lack a clear understanding of how knowledge, technologies, and resource flows between sectors enable or constrain circular transitions (Stephan et al., 2019, Schnyder et al., 2025). Third, coordination mechanisms across diverse actors, spanning households, incumbents, intermediaries, and policymakers, require further investigation (Kuhlmann et al., 2023).

This track invites empirical and conceptual contributions that advance understanding of cross[1]sectoral dynamics in circular economy transitions. Material and waste flows increasingly link sectors, for example, waste-to-energy connects waste management and energy systems, while bio-based plastics bridge agriculture and manufacturing. Research is needed to identify and evaluate sustainable cross-sectoral circular economy strategies, how the circular economy transition interacts with other sustainability transitions such as net-zero emissions and the role of policy in shaping these interactions. Equally, circular economy transitions depend on actors who span sectoral boundaries, municipalities, material brokers, logistics providers, and industrial symbiosis intermediaries. We seek studies that explore how coordination along value chains emerges and scales, and the role of policy in governing this coordination.

We welcome interdisciplinary submissions, including empirical case studies and theoretical frameworks. Suggested methods include qualitative case studies, quantitative evaluation, and mixed-method approaches.

Key questions include:

• What are the synergies and trade-offs between circular economy strategies and other sustainability transitions, such as net-zero emissions and biodiversity protection?
• How can circular economy strategies be effectively implemented across multiple sectors?
• What environmental, social, and economic trade-offs arise from different cross-sectoral circular pathways?
• What institutional, regulatory, and market arrangements enable coordination across sectors?
• How do different actor groups, such as municipalities, material brokers or incumbents, facilitate coordination across value chains?
• What role can policy play in governing distributed coordination and balancing competing transition goals?

Track convenors:
Catharina Bening (ETH Zurich), Assiya Kenzhegaliyeva (SINTEF), David Pfeffer (ETH Zurich), Sophie Führer (ETH Zurich)

Corresponding convenors:
Sophie Führer – sfuehrer@ethz.ch
David Pfeffer – dpfeffer@ethz.ch

References

Bolson, N., Ahmadinia, M., Setchi, R., Evans, S., & Cullen, J. (2026). Material circularity in the UK’s foundation industries. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 227, 108728.

Domenech, T., & Bahn-Walkowiak, B. (2019). Transition towards a resource efficient circular economy in Europe: policy lessons from the EU and the member states. Ecological Economics, 155, 7-19.

Gast, L., Cabrera Serrenho, A., & Allwood, J. M. (2022). What contribution could industrial symbiosis make to mitigating industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in bulk material production?. Environmental Science & Technology, 56(14), 10269-10278.

Haswell, F., Edelenbosch, O. Y., Piscicelli, L., & van Vuuren, D. P. (2024). The geography of circularity missions: A cross-country comparison of circular economy policy approaches in the Global North and Global South. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 52, 100883.

Hobson, K., Lynch, N., Lilley, D., & Smalley, G. (2018). Systems of practice and the Circular Economy: Transforming mobile phone product service systems. Environmental innovation and societal transitions, 26, 147-157.

Kuhlmann, M., Meuer, J., & Bening, C. R. (2023). Interorganizational sensemaking of the transition toward a circular value chain. Organization & Environment, 36(3), 411-441.

Pauliuk, S., Carrer, F., Heeren, N., & Hertwich, E. G. (2024). Scenario analysis of supply‐and demand‐side solutions for circular economy and climate change mitigation in the global building sector. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 28(6), 1699-1715.

Pfeffer, D., Reike, D., & Bening, C. R. (2025). Analyzing policy mixes for the circular economy transition: The case of recycled plastics in electronics. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 56, 100982.

Schnyder, M., Huo, J., & Hellweg, S. (2025). Assessing decarbonization strategies and industrial symbiosis in the chemical and waste‐to‐energy sector. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 29(2), 486- 502.

Stephan, A., Bening, C. R., Schmidt, T. S., Schwarz, M., & Hoffmann, V. H. (2019). The role of inter-sectoral knowledge spillovers in technological innovations: The case of lithium-ion batteries. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 148, 119718.

Tabares, S., & Kanda, W. (2026). Upscaling niche innovations by circular start-ups for sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 58, 101067.

Tang, C., Tukker, A., & Mogollón, J. M. (2025). The demand and recycling potential for lithium, cobalt, and nickel in the European electric-mobility transition. Environmental Research Communications, 7(6), 061007.

Zepa, I., Grudde, V. Z., & Bening, C. R. (2024). Legitimising technologies for a circular economy: Contested discourses on innovation for plastics recycling in Europe. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 50, 100811.

A process perspective conceives reality as a stream of events in which entities (individual or collective actors, fields, socio-technical configurations / systems etc.), are constructed, persist, and dissolve over time (Abbott, 2001). What requires explanation is not (only) the occurrence of change itself, but why particular lineages of events stabilize while others fade. This stance contrasts with variable-based approaches that treat entities as fixed and overlook sequence effects, and highlights mechanisms that unfold temporally and relationally, recognising that minor, situated actions can trigger large-scale transformations. Sustainability transitions theory often builds on this understanding, emphasizing the co-evolution of technologies, institutions, and practices, while accommodating different conceptions of causality (Geels, 2022). Yet, despite this orientation, empirical work often relies on narrative, single-case designs that fall short of the processual ambitions of transition theories. Event[1]sequence approaches offer a way forward by rendering temporal order and patterning analytically explicit, enabling more systematic and comparative insights than conventional descriptive methods. This track invites contributions that explore methodologies that make the unfolding of transitions empirically traceable, translating the language of “process” into transparent strategies for systematically collecting, coding, and analysing event data. Existing relevant methods include Event Sequence Analysis (ESA) (Boons et al., 2014; Spekkink & Boons, 2016), event history analysis (Tziva et al. 2020; Adeyeye and Grobbelaar, 2024), socio-technical configuration analysis (STCA) (Heiberg et al., 2022), and historical event analysis to assess functions of innovation systems (Hekkert and Negro 2009). Concurrently, a growing frontier in this area concerns the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) to extract, classify, and align events from variegated large textual corpora offering new opportunities and challenges for automation, reliability, and transparency(e.g. Zhang et al., 2019).

Contributions and Questions
We seek full paper submissions (including work in progress). We especially welcome empirical studies that use process methodologies to analyse transition dynamics, and we encourage contributors to reflect on the methodological choices and implications underpinning their work.
Submissions may include, but are not limited to:

• Empirical studies applying event-centred approaches to analyse, and/or compare, transitions, phase-outs, or tipping processes;
• Applications of processual thinking to adjacent methodologies such as protest event analysis, network dynamics, or comparative process tracing;
• Methodological contributions presenting event-sequencing protocols, coding manuals, analytical toolkits, or LLM-based extraction pipelines;
• Critical reflections on the limitations and complementarities between narrative and formal temporal methods, feeding into theoretical advances.

Guiding questions include:

1. How should events sequences be conceptualised and coded in transition research, and what reliability standards are feasible?
2. For case-based research, how can event-sequence methods strengthen explanation and comparison, linking detailed process narratives to generic insights across systems or countries?
3. How can NLP and LLMs be used for event extraction, and what validation procedures ensure reliability and reproducibility?
4. What types of data and theoretical frameworks best support event-sequence extraction across different transition contexts?

Track conveners:
Frank Boons, Alejandro Ciordia, Jacob Moody, Filippo Oncini – Maastricht University
Wouter Spekkink – Erasmus University Rotterdam
Riza Thereza Baptista Navarro, Andy McMeekin, Rishi Ravikumar – University of Manchester

Corresponding conveners:
Frank Boons – f.boons@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Filippo Oncini – filippo.oncini@maastrichtuniversity.nl

The STRN Research Agenda (Köhler et al 2019) included a section specifically on methods in transitions research. The reason for this is that there was, and is still, a limited literature on what methodological questions challenge transitions research.

The theme of this conference is to recognise that society is still becoming less sustainable and the nature and importance of the problem is being challenged. The issue for transitions research is to be realistic and include this challenge in analysis, but still to investigate conditions under which the current negative trends could be reversed and a transition to sustainability be achieved.

An argument for hope is that transitions in socio-technical systems are understood as complex, co-evolutionary processes which are open-ended. This implies that a wide range of outcomes in the social, scientific, production, political and cultural (sub)-systems are still possible. While the process may be very turbulent or chaotic, system change can still happen and is indeed inevitable. The question is more: which fluctuations and feedbacks will determine the system changes in the medium to longer term of 20-50 years?

The track welcomes further debate on the methodological orientation of the field. Developments in methods include process tracing (Geels 2022) and typology building (Kanger 2024). Socio-technical configuration analysis (Heiberg et al. 2022) can be appreciated as a more systematic pursuit of patterns in case studies, similar in spirit to Qualitative Comparative Analysis, minding for example the attendant paradoxes (Pel et al. 2022). Other relevant developments in qualitative methodology are the attention to issues of epistemic justice, the deepening of critical methods (queer, feminist, and decolonial perspectives), and the exploration of the emotive-psychological side of transitions – which extends into transition research methodology.

In terms of quantitative modelling, system dynamics and agent-based models are becoming more common (Köhler 2023). Transdisciplinary forms of research, integrating knowledge from and collaborating with different actors in sustainability-oriented lab settings (McCrory et al., 2020) is developing. The insights from such research are used to deepen theoretical insights (Avelino et al. 2023) or exploring the role(s) and impact of labs in system-level transition processes (von Wirth et al., 2019). Experimental settings may require both adaptations of traditional research methods and the development of new methodologies to navigate differing aims and expectations of academic and non-academic actors (van Waes et al., 2021) and to support co-creation and co-design of sustainable innovation between specialist and non-specialist actors.

This track will explore methodological advances in these areas in relation to the key scientific challenges for the field. Papers on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods for analysing transitions starting from a state of social and political contestation are invited.

Methodological areas include, but are not confined to:

experimental methods, scenario studies, ethnography, sustainability-oriented laboratories, surveys, discourse analysis, process tracing, qualitative comparative analysis, simulation modelling, soft systems methodology, configuration analysis, agent-based modelling, critical approaches (queer, feminist, decolonial), typology construction, artistic/creative/embodied methods.

Connections to methods from other research fields that address similar or relevant themes is also an important area for research.

Track conveners:
Jonathan Köhler (Fraunhofer ISI), Floor Alkemade (TU Eindhoven), Klaus Kubetzko (AIT), Bonno Pel (UniUtrecht), Anton Sentic (ZHAW), Julia Wittmayer (DRIFT)

Corresponding conveners:
Jonathan Köhler – jonathan.koehler@isi.fraunhofer.de
Anton Sentic – sent@zhaw.ch

Modelling is an important tool for researching sustainability transitions (Holtz et al., 2015; Köhler et al., 2019). As societies face unprecedented sustainability challenges—from climate change to resource depletion—quantitative models can test counter-factual scenarios, identify tipping points, and anticipate unintended consequences across temporal and spatial scales (Alkemade et al., 2023; Nuñez-Jimenez et al., 2022). However, model representations of sustainability transitions still face important limitations. Aggregated models can capture interdependencies across economic sectors but struggle to consider path-dependency and emergence (Mercure et al., 2016). Bottom-up models, such as agent-based models, can capture individual behaviors and psychological factors as well as social dynamics, but often overlook system-level structures that constrain individual behaviors. More generally, models tend to omit the social and political aspects of transitions (Trutnevyte et al., 2019).

Yet, in recent years, the modelling community is experiencing a hopeful evolution. Models are becoming increasingly sophisticated as computational tools, data availability, and methodological innovations advance rapidly (Axtell and Farmer, 2022). A small but growing number of models incorporate aspects related to transition studies and are applied to cases relevant for sustainability transitions.

This paper track explores emerging trends in modelling for advancing sustainability transitions. The track recognizes several developments reshaping the modelling landscape, including a move to include social, political, and behavioral factors into quantitative models (Fisch-Romito et al., 2025; Krumm et al., 2022; Niamir and Creutzig, 2025), a growth of hybrid models that combine methodological approaches such as agent-based modelling, system dynamics, optimization, survey and experimental data, or econometric insights (Filatova et al., 2025; Hirt et al., 2020; Savin et al., 2023; van der Kam et al., 2024), and a push to expand the range of solutions considered by optimization models (Neumann and Brown, 2021), integrate stakeholders (Lombardi and Pfenninger, 2025) and multiple decision-makers (Shu et al., 2024), and consider other objectives beyond minimum costs (Rahdan et al., 2025). The track invites contributions that advance these or other emerging trends, examining how modelling methods can bridge disciplinary boundaries and demonstrate relevance for policy and practice.

This track welcomes full papers and speed talks presenting innovative approaches that advance modelling tools and demonstration how modelling methods can be applied to questions important to the transitions community. We particularly encourage contributions that bridge methodological traditions, integrate interdisciplinary perspectives, and demonstrate policy relevance. Early-career researchers are particularly encouraged to participate.

This paper track aspires to organize two sessions around: (1) expanding and bridging modelling methods, and (2) modelling applications in transitions. The track will conclude with a panel session to jointly reflect about emerging trends in modelling and their contribution to transitions research. In case of a reduced number of applications, this track will be become part of the methods track.

Track conveners: Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez (ETH Zurich), Floor Alkemade (TU Eindhoven), Marten van der Kam (University of Basel)

Corresponding convener:
Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez – anunez-jimenez@ethz.ch
Marten van der Kam – marten.vanderkam@unibas.ch

References

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