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dc.contributor.authorSmith, Adrian
dc.contributor.authorSeyfang, Gill
dc.contributor.authorHielscher, Sabine
dc.contributor.authorHargreaves, Tom
dc.date.accessioned2014-04-15T12:42:26Z
dc.date.available2014-04-15T12:42:26Z
dc.date.issued2013-10-01
dc.identifier.citationTom Hargreaves, Sabine Hielscher, Gill Seyfang, Adrian Smith, Grassroots innovations in community energy: The role of intermediaries in niche development, Global Environmental Change, Volume 23, Issue 5, October 2013, Pages 868-880, ISSN 0959-3780, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.02.008en_GB
dc.identifier.issn0959-3780
dc.identifier.urihttps://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/3812
dc.description.abstractCommunity energy projects are attracting increasing attention as potential sources of innovation to support sustainable energy transitions. Research into ‘grassroots innovations’ like community energy often recognises the difficulties they face in simply surviving let alone in growing or seeding wider change. Strategic niche management theory is potentially helpful here as it highlights the important roles played by ‘intermediary actors’ in consolidating, growing and diffusing novel innovations. This paper presents the first in-depth analysis of intermediary work in the UK community energy sector. New empirical evidence was gathered through interviews with 15 community energy intermediaries and a content analysis of 113 intermediary-produced case studies about community energy projects. Analysis finds intermediaries adopting a variety of methods to try and diffuse generic lessons about context-specific projects, but that trying to coordinate support for local projects that exist amidst very different social and political circumstances is challenging. This is exacerbated by the challenges of building a coherent institutional infrastructure for a sector where aims and approaches diverge, and where underlying resources are uncertain and inconsistent. Applications of relatively simple, growth-oriented approaches like strategic niche management to grassroots innovations need to be reformulated to better recognise their diverse and conflicted realities on the ground. Keywords: Strategic niche management; Intermediary actors; Grassroots innovation; Community energyen_GB
dc.description.sponsorshipESRCen_GB
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherElsevieren_GB
dc.rightsPre-print article.en_GB
dc.rights.urihttp://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IDSOpenDocsStandardTermsOfUse.pdfen_GB
dc.subjectScience and Societyen_GB
dc.titleConstructing grassroots innovations for sustainabilityen_GB
dc.typeArticleen_GB
dc.rights.holderGlobal Environmental Change (Elsevier)en_GB
dc.identifier.externalurihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.02.008en_GB
dc.identifier.teamKnowledge Technology and Societyen_GB


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