2 year Postdoc position (with reasonable possibilities for extension) in Innovation and Sustainability Transitions Studies related to the research project Legitimacy and acceleration of Green Energy Initiatives and Transitions (LEGIT). The overall ambition for the position is to advance our understanding of acceleration empirically and conceptually in sustainability transitions research.
The position is located in the Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Sustainability Transitions (EIST) Group, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen.
Start date is (expected to be) 1 February 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter. The deadline for applications is 8 November 2024.
The full job description is here: https://jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabelige-stillinger/?show=162561
Across the Nordic countries the need for accelerating sustainability transitions is increasingly conflicting with other environmental and social challenges, including the unequal distribution of burdens, nature degradation, and the violation of the rights and interests of local people. Such tensions lead to social backlash, decreasing legitimacy, and, ultimately, delay or cancellation of projects. While civic participation traditionally the primary strategy for ensuring legitimacy, it is evident that current participatory strategies and practices are insufficient in and challenged by an acceleration context characterised by growing scale (more and bigger projects), scope (involving more and more sectors e.g., via PtX, grid development, and CCUS) and speed (urgency and ambitious policy goals). LEGIT brings together insights from, on the one hand, legitimacy and participation research with, on the other hand, recent theorizing on acceleration within Sustainability Transitions research to interrogate topics as ‘responsible acceleration’ and ‘sociotechnical tipping points’ in the search for answers to acceleration challenges.
The Postdoc will focus the Danish context for these issues with attention to the changing strategies of actors (e.g., local and national policymakers, businesses, energy-users, and civil society actors) for coping with new legitimacy challenges, and how institutional and policy contexts shape participatory practices related to the diffusion of sustainable innovations. Focus will mainly be on the energy domain. The postdoc will work in a Nordic team of interdisciplinary researchers across the partners including Syke (Finland, Paula Kivimaa), University of Copenhagen (Denmark, Allan Dahl Andersen), NIFU (Norway, Håkon Endresen Normann; Lene Korseberg ) and Linköping University (Sweden, Harald Rohracher).