Policy Lab

EIT Climate-KIC and its partners are carrying out a system and policy mapping as part of a co-creation process in the Western Balkans to better understand how innovation portfolios can contribute to face the challenge of aligning with the European Green Deal and Circular Economy transition.

The European Green Deal is the EU’s strategy to move towards climate neutrality and circular economy by transformative policy. The Transition Policy Lab addresses that transformation challenge by contributing to shifting practices for policymaking and capacity to co-design and implement systemic strategies.

Throughout a spread prototyping boost in nine of the most economically (and socially) impacted countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Malta, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus), it is shown how system mapping and multi-stakeholders participatory process are crucial tools to support decision making in regional transition and help the prototyping of actions in multi-level complex governance systems.

The Transitions Hub has been collaborating with the EIT Climate KIC RIS programme since its creation. The lab has been providing technical support to RIS regions, challenge owners and practitioners as well as collaborating in applied research on policy mix, among other relevant concepts.

Transitions Hub and VITO has co-designed a series of focus groups for enabling a co-design policy process to support local stakeholder discussions and multidisciplinary stakeholder alignment to build a common vision and connected implementation pathways to reach it. Value Network Mapping has been applied for exploring the understating of the innovation ecosystem, key relations, and transactions. The intelligence collected during the workshop was visualised as part of the knowledge service approach.

Transitions Hub applied its tools to support local stakeholder discussions and multidisciplinary stakeholder alignment to build a common vision and connected implementation pathways to reach it. The intelligence collected during the workshop was visualised, curated using a challenge-led system mapping approach.

The Horizon 2020 SCALER project aims to increase the uptake of industrial symbiosis across Europe by developing a set of best practices, tools and guidelines, and bringing all relevant stakeholders together to scale impact. Transition Hub supported this initiative by designing tailored workshops, applying its tools and methodologies to enable stakeholder discussions. This resulted in the visualisation of current industrial Symbiosis activities, identification of gaps and development of shared roadmaps to reach a common vision.

The MOTION project is an EIT Climate-KIC project developing and testing an innovative methodology to progress transformative change in collaboration with TIPC. This is done by means of collaborating closely with three associated projects, SuSMO, SATURN, and ACT on NBS, and experimenting with the methodology within their contexts to evaluate and enhance their transformative potential.

The EWRC is an annual event during which cities and regions highlight the importance of effective regional government for a stronger European Union. Transitions Hub co-organised a very successful session with DG REGIO, implementing participatory tools to collect and manage knowledge that was later used for internal discussions and presentations.

EIT Climate-KIC organized a workshop on sustainable food systems in the framework of the recent establishment of the International Centre on Sustainable Urban Farming – supported by FAO – in the city. The Transitions Hub co-organized the event with other EIT Climate KIC staff, provided the participatory tools and oversaw the knowledge management process.

The first European event on cities transitioning towards circular economy. The event not only allowed the development of a network of public and private actors for the transition, but also gathered different visions, issues and solutions. The workshops were facilitated by planning tools designed by the Transitions Hub.

The two-day event gathered circular economy (CE) actors from governments (national, regional, city), policy makers, businesses and academia, to jointly work on ways to improve CE financing in Europe. The workshop used a participatory methodology designed by the Transitions Hub to validate CE key objectives and innovation fields at European level, challenge and validate the policy toolkit for CE financing and develop and test a joint programming platform for funders of CE programmes.

This meeting aimed to align the existing circular economy strategies throughout the Spanish geography with that of Europe. The interactive format of the conference allowed for the identification of critical elements to correctly finance research and innovation activities in a circular economy. With the methodology designed by the Transitions Hub, a participatory exercise was carried out to map the Circular Economy Ecosystem in Cantabria and subsequently identify the priorities for a regional collaboration agreement.

A participatory exercise that mapped a range of practitioner’s perspectives on sustainable transition towards circular economy models using participatory tools developed by Transitions Hub.

In the participatory socio-technical mapping workshops designed by the Transitions Hub and implemented as part of the Energy Prospectus project, participants learned to transfer their individual experiences and knowledge to enable the collective construction of the system in which they live and seek to transform.

Two participatory workshops on sustainable mobility in Malaga. During the Transitions-Hub-designed participatory process, participants learned to transfer their perspectives, experience and knowledge to the field of collective construction of the current mobility system in which they live and seek to transform.

A collaborative, participatory workshop between RIS3 and EIT Climate-KIC on regional innovation for a low-carbon economy under the Regional Innovation Scheme (EIT RIS). The Transitions Hub provided the participatory tools and technical assistance during the knowledge management process.

EIT Climate-KIC Partner Day with Sustainable Land Use focusing on Climate-Smart Agriculture, Food Systems Transformation, Integrated Landscapes, and Nurturing Forests. The Transitions Hub provided the participatory tools, such as a socio-technical map, and technical assistance during the knowledge management process.

Connecta Energia is a network that was created to foster sustainable energy systems, especially in the framework of the development of the local Energy and Climate Action Plan. The Transitions Hub supported the incipient network in two workshops by providing the participatory tools and technical assistance during the knowledge management process.

The workshop addressed the challenges of facilitating a horizontal problem-solving process by combining knowledge from public authorities, SMEs and experts to redefine the socio-technical system in which regional climate funds can operate efficiently. Workshops in Bologna and Frankfurt applied visual tools created by the Transitions Hub for easing negotiation of complex issues.

This session aimed to discuss effective pathways for accelerating the transition to a bio and circular economy in Europe. As part of this session, a peer to peer participatory exercise, designed by the Transitions Hub, was organised with a variety of stakeholders such as policy-makers, , corporates, SMEs, start-ups, innovators and topical experts from the EIT Climate-KIC staff.

The project leads identified that stakeholders were struggling to adopt the project results, which were contextualized but remained abstract, with multiple strategic decisions yet to be taken in order to progress towards implementation. Applying foresight through a pilot of the “Scenario Exploration Sytems” (Bontoux et al. 2016) provided an opportunity to bridge the gap between the results of an EU-funded project and the shift to local processes. This methodology revealed blind spots and weaknesses within the governance systems, which currently impede decision-making and implementation.

With activities designed by Transitions Hub, Climate-KIC organised a 3-day workshop involving partners, consortium members and other organisations participating in the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (EIT RIS).

A stakeholder workshop that focused on Malta’s energy transition. The Transitions Hub provided the participatory tools, such as a socio-technical map, and technical assistance during the knowledge management process.

This Cross-KIC workshop focused on entrepreneurship in a circular economy. The primary goal was to pinpoint main actions affecting circular economy process using bottom up indicators gathered through participatory process designed by the Transitions Hub.

The Transitions Hub used a challenge-led participatory approach to support a multi-stakeholder process for strategy development. This workshop aimed to answer the question: what does Cleantech-City Apeldoorn look like in 2030 and through which pathways can this vision be achieved?

The Transitions Hub provided the participatory tools for this workshop, organised together with CENIT in the framework of the work of the STEPS Centre.

The Transition Cities project built on the results achieved from the Climate KIC-funded ‘Pioneer Cities’ pathfinder. This project proposed the development of multi-actor clusters to enable cities to articulate better their needs and challenges. on. Using a template designed by The Transitions Hub, teams formulated a problem, identified challenges, and the resource gap between challenge and solution.

This workshop focused on a strategic system analysis for cross-country practitioners of the Raw Materials Value Chain. The Transitions Hub provided the participatory tools and technical assistance during the knowledge management process.