By Caroline A. van der Weerdt, Antonio De Carluccio, Anouck Guillou and Julia C. Broderick-Hale.
2. Antonio De Carluccio (biography)
3. Anouck Guillou (biography)
4. Julia C. Broderick-Hale (biography)
How can research and innovation projects that aim to support major societal transitions, such as cleaner energy, more sustainable food systems, smarter mobility, and better digital services progress from being pilot projects to affecting systemic change? How can they move from being focused on the solution to attending to the wider system in which the solution must land, examining benefits, costs, decision-making processes and which policies, behaviours, infrastructures and power relations need to change? How do these questions relate to a just transition pathway and how can researchers operationalise the underlying principles?
A just transition pathway is a structured, forward-looking process for connecting practical innovations to wider systemic change. It combines system analysis, stakeholder engagement, scenario development, evidence gathering, and policy translation. Its purpose is not only to ask what transition is needed, but also how that transition can be fair, inclusive and workable. Here we propose a nine-step process to develop such a pathway. The pathway is also illustrated in the figure below.