Conference Agenda

For more than two decades, scholars and practitioners have stressed that cities are drivers for local action that leads to sustainability and climate transformations. However, questions remain around how cities can actually advance transformations on the ground. For example, local action is mainly implemented through place-based and temporary experiments. The underlying causal mechanisms of successful scaling across space and time are underexplored, despite the fact that this knowledge could help to facilitate the expansion and diffusion of policies, programmes and projects. In addition, scaling processes are spatially and institutionally heterogeneous, raising the question of the most suitable unit of analysis within cities (locally), beyond cities (regionally) and across cities (nationally and internationally). Third, can scaling proceed by matching cities with similar preconditions? Perhaps because most research has focused on forerunner cities, we do not know enough about the mix of conditions that can frame and enable the “matching” process between different localities. Should matching be based on demographic, socioeconomic and infrastructural conditions, on problem structures, governance modes or policy instruments? Does matching require similarity, or would some differences also be beneficial? This variety of potential preconditions means that archetypes of cities that combine different contextual aspects might constitute more apt analytical grounds to study matching. This panel aims to bring together both conceptual and empirical contributions that explore the link between scaling and urban transformation, as well as the role and conditions and criteria for matching cities. Insights will contribute to the ongoing discussions on the agency of non-state actors within the broader architecture of the global climate regime.

Living Labs (LL) have become influential approaches for innovation and have received growing attention among scholars and practitioners. They are a forum for innovation, applied to the development of new products, systems, services, and processes, employing working methods to integrate people into the entire development process as users and co-creators. LL has an ad hoc nature in the sense that the projects are usually implemented in the form of a specific problem-based experiment. When the project is completed, in some cases LL projects yield just one-time solutions and do not have a stable setting for the continuation of the innovation effect. Thus, the following question arises: Why, in some cases, are the outcomes of experiments utilized in more systematically and applied to similar problems more quickly than others? In this study, we use the term “realization” of LL to investigate the conditions under which the outcomes of LL experiments become available in a stable manner. We define realization as maintenance (prototypes in action), deepening (betterment of the prototype through running experiment), and diffusion (practical application of the experiments to other regions or users) of the outcomes of LL experimentation. These three attributes can appear in tandem or as part of progress. We select seven cases of LL projects that have been successfully implemented in South Korea and examine specific mechanisms by which LL is realized in three of them. We find that universities play a key role in the realization of LL projects in all three cases. Universities support LL projects in the post-experimental stages by assisting them acquire patents and/or establish a start-up company based on their LL results. We also explain that other participants such as local governments and firms can help in the realization of LL projects in their own ways. This study makes three contributions to LL research. First, while existing literature has addressed many key issues and topics in LL, the post-experimental stage has yet to receive academic attention. Second, this study offers theoretical implications by suggesting the term “realization” and illustrating at least three specific mechanisms in which LL projects are realized in post-experimental stages. Third, it adds to the existing literature on LL by illustrating the Korean cases. Although there is abundant research on LL, most of them are based on Europe and North America. The study of LL in the context of non-Western areas, especially East Asia, is still nascent.

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as global visions to attain sustainable development worldwide. While recent studies have shown that the overall political impact of the 17 SDGs remains so far rather limited, cities are often portrayed as progressive actors in the global endeavour to implement and realise the SDGs. Several local governments have adopted strategies and policies to localise the global goals and render urban areas more sustainable. Against this backdrop, this paper explores how local actions to achieve sustainable development in urban areas are embedded in complex interactions between public and private actors operating at different levels and scales. Building upon a multi-level governance approach, the paper analyses how local governments are vertically entangled with regional and national governments as well as international institutions; how they interact horizontally with civil society; and how they organise themselves transnationally in networks. While cities have an advantageous position to conduct governance experiments and engage actors at other levels into a policy dialogue, they depend on steady political support, constant funding flows, and peer-to-peer learning. In a nutshell, this paper aims to enhance our understanding of the success conditions of local sustainability experiments and investigates how cities are embedded in multi-level dynamics of sustainability governance.

City governments around the world are taking actions (strategies, experiments, measures, institutions) to mitigate and adapt to climate change. However, our understanding of the common patterns, city characteristics or governance arrangements that drive successful action remains limited. Moreover, we lack knowledge of how effective actions in one city can be successfully applied in other cities. Thus, van der Heijden has proposed the need of a science of scaling, i.e. the systematic study how successful actions can be multiplied, accelerated, deepened or broadened. Here, we argue that research on horizontal scaling will benefit from studying matching between pairs or clusters of cities, based on shared attributes (like size, cultural heritage, national context, economic structure). This raises fundamental research questions: What attributes are commonly shared by (pairs of) cities that effectively engage in urban climate action? Does horizontal scaling work better between cities that match well in such common attributes? Can scaling be successful between cities that do not match but have complementary attributes? The paper showcases how such questions can be addressed by archetype analysis. Archetype analysis investigates recurrent patterns of a phenomenon of interest by identifying multiple archetypes, each explaining the phenomenon under particular conditions. This comparative approach enables us to identify patterns in cases where general regularities that apply to all cases cannot be expected. When applied to research horizontal scaling, archetype analysis generates multiple city types, each with a particular configuration of attributes and a mechanism that supports or hinders successful climate action. A single city can exhibit several archetypes. We can then study whether scaling works between cities with matching archetypes. We can also assess whether scaling is more effective between cities with specific combinations of non-matching archetypes. The paper concludes by proposing several pairs of matching or non-matching archetypes that may facilitate or impede horizontal scaling. These are based on a thorough literature review and a synthesis of a research workshop. For instance, scaling from “leader” to “follower” cities might not be as straightforward as some suggest, while scaling among cities with matching social problem configurations might scale well. We think that empirically testing such pairs will contribute to the scaling of successful urban climate action.

A decade ago the first Urban Living Labs emerged, as spaces for multi-actor experimentation with novel approaches to the complex challenges that cities are facing. Experimentation in Urban Living Labs was seen by scholars as a way to generate sustainable innovations that stood the test of real-life conditions, and as a novel approach to urban governance of sustainable development. From the beginning, scholars were interested in scaling, mainstreaming and institutionalization of both the outcomes (sustainable innovations) and the process (governance by multi-actor experimentation and learning). In this paper, we focus on the second issue and address the question: to what extent have successful Urban Living Labs been institutionalized and become part of the sustainability governance repertoire of local governments? We answer this question based on a comparative case study of the Urban Living Labs in Antwerp (Belgium), Maastricht (Netherlands) and Heerlen (Netherlands), with particular attention to the institutional mechanisms determining the outcomes in the three cases.