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Scientific article
Open access
English

Prospects of modelling societal transitions: Position paper of an emerging community

Publication date2015
Abstract

Societal transitions involve multiple actors, changes in institutions, values and technologies, and interactions across multiple sectors and scales. Given this complexity, this paper takes on the view that the societal transitions research field would benefit from the further maturation and broader uptake of modelling approaches. This paper shows how modelling can enhance the understanding of and support stakeholders to steer societal transitions. It discusses the benefits modelling provides for studying large societal systems and elaborates on different ways models can be used for transitions studies. Two model applications are presented in some detail to illustrate the benefits. Then, limitations of modelling societal transitions are discussed, which leads to an agenda for future activities: (1) better cooperation in the development of dynamic models, (2) stronger interaction with other transition scholars and stakeholders, and (3) use of additional modelling approaches that we think are relevant to and largely unexplored in transitions studies.

Keywords
  • Complex system
  • Formal model
  • Simulation
  • Societal transition
  • Socio-technical
Affiliation Not a UNIGE publication
Citation (ISO format)
HOLTZ, Georg et al. Prospects of modelling societal transitions: Position paper of an emerging community. In: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2015, vol. 17, p. 41–58. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2015.05.006
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Article (Published version)
Identifiers
ISSN of the journal2210-4224
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