To Transition; Derk Loorbach; 31-10-2014

On October 31st, prof. Derk Loorbach gave his inaugural speech ‘To Transition! Governance Panarchy in the new Transformation’. He outlined the achievements of fifteen years transition and transition management research and sketched the contours of a research agenda for the coming years.

He emphasized the socio-economic instabilities that necessarily come along with transitions and the need for novel governance approaches to deal with these. So far, he argued, did regular policies including Sustainable Development, not create these breakthroughs. In fact, such attempts have become part of the so-called problem-industrial complex: societal regimes that are dependent on sustaining ‘’problems’ such as waste production, sickness, fossil energy and so on. He introduced the concept of governance panarchy as the mix of different governance styles that emerges in transition contexts as a new approach to transition management. Complementing the well-developed governance of (transformative) social innovation bottom-up with new forms of top-down and phase-out governance he argued is the way forward to create the systemic breakthroughs necessary for accelerating towards sustability.

sustaining ‘’problems’ such as waste production, sickness, fossil energy and so on. He introduced the concept of governance panarchy as the mix of different governance styles that emerges in transition contexts as a new approach to transition management. Complementing the well-developed governance of (transformative) social innovation bottom-up with new forms of top-down and phase-out governance he argued is the way forward to create the systemic breakthroughs necessary for accelerating towards sustability.