To safeguard justice in energy system change, it is important that potential grievances of affected publics are adequately anticipated in decision-making processes. The many studies under the headings of ‘Energy justice' and 'Just transition', in which grievances are brought to the fore, suggest that this is often insufficiently done. What is needed is a conceptual lens through which to view (i) what affected publics consider important in terms of what energy systems of the future will deliver and how these systems function, and (ii) if and how these preferences are factored into decision-making processes by decision-makers. In this conceptual article, we explain how the public values concept can serve as such a lens. The public values concept draws attention to different – and often contested – views on what publics consider worth striving for. As such, the concept provides a sharp insight into potential grievances of affected publics and the extent to which these relate to considerations of justice or other considerations, such as cost-effectiveness, technical robustness, or environmental sustainability. In addition, from a public values perspective it is possible to see how values are implicitly and explicitly considered in decision-making processes and, more specifically, the extent to which considerations of justice are overlooked, ignored, sidelined or misunderstood. In order to stimulate EJ and JT research using the public values concept, we also share an analytical framework and a research agenda.

Two decades of research on sustainability transitions has proposed a broad set of activities that governments ‘should do’ to steer and accelerate transitions (Köhler et al, 2019). However, many of these activities are not put to practice. Especially on a national and local level these include destabilizing and transforming vested ‘unsustainable’ sectors and practices, prioritizing the needs of future generations and the environment over short-term economic gains and efficiency and implementing policies and plans that credibly add up to reaching the long-term goals policy makers have set for themselves (Braams et al, 2021). All of these activities carry implications for the way governments are structured and run.

In our experience in collaborative projects, in-house trainings and discussions, public servants are often well aware of the relevance and need for such actions, but the next day find themselves unable to put this in practice. Research shows that this may be explained because they don’t feel legitimized to do so in their role as a ‘good public servant’ (Braams et al 2021).

The norms and roles of what a ‘good public servant is’ are historically and culturally defined. Not in the least through public administration traditions. These are valuable, but traditions change and still leave room for maneuvering depending on the personal motivations and values of civil servants and the particular context in which they work. The traditions structure what ‘a good public servant is’ but do not fully determine it. Our goal therefore is to research how public servants perceive and recreate their roles to address the tension between the way the government operates and sustainability challenges present.

Based on two case studies, we reflect how existing traditions may be reinterpreted to reduce the tension between what civil servants should do and what they are allowed to do. We look forward to a discussion with the audience on this.

Academic research and policy discussions show increased interest in public procurement as a powerful lever for achieving various policy goals, such as green transition or inclusive economies. Purposeful public procurement is fragmented, however, and practices are discussed in disconnected policy areas such as strategic public procurement; functional procurement; procurement of innovation; green and sustainable procurement; and agile procurement of digital solutions. In each of these branches of procurement, there have been both significant attempts to change existing practices and lively academic reflection of these changing practices. In parallel, governments are increasingly attempting to reform their financial, economic, STI and public policies with a view to tackling specific ‘grand challenges’. Public procurement features prominently in these discussions. In this paper, we will bring together these ongoing and emerging policy practices and academic discussions in order to understand the common issues, challenges and solutions in what we call mission-oriented procurement, a procurement practice directed at achieving explicit societal goals. The paper introduces the concept of ‘mission-oriented procurement’ as an umbrella approach for procurement practices aimed at attaining societal goals. The analysis is based on a systematic literature review.

According to the IPCC, the current pathway of sociotechnical systems leads to a 3 degree increase in global temperature. This brings along a significant increase in extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, storms, creating a situation of sustained, overlapping crisis. Despite the severity of these potential events, strategic adaptation to polycrisis is challenging for several reasons, including institutional inertia, defensive heuristics, and political pressures. An emerging framework of Policy Operations Room (POR) has been proposed for urgent strategic decision making while remaining sensitive to unwanted socio-ecological disruptions (Hukkinen, Eronen, Janasik, Järvensivu, et al., 2022; Hukkinen, Eronen, Janasik, Kuikka, et al., 2022; Järvensivu et al., 2021). Building upon literatures of high-reliability management, scenario exercises and simulations, this framework aims to create strategic awareness and increase adaptive capacity in public planning and governance that the climate change-induced polycrisis requires. While an Operations Room in high-reliability management is used to secure critical operations such as aviation control, water and electricity systems, military operations and financial transactions, in a POR, as the name suggests, the critical system is “policy”. However, like other proposed tools and short-term interventions, its influence remains weak unless it is embedded in governance on a strategic level. Indeed, one of the key concerns of high reliability literature has been the integration of various parts, including the Operations Rooms within the organization. Our paper aims to analyse the value and challenges of using such an analogy from high-reliability management in urban administration by empirically studying the application of the POR framework in three cities in Finland. The empirical analysis is particularly focused on the integration of the POR into the structure of urban administration.