Onderzoek: What are drivers and barriers of collaborative public innovation initiatives that contribute to the energy transition on a local level?

In 2013, over 40 Dutch organizations, including the VNG, signed an Energy Covenant. It was agreed that in 2023 the amount of renewable energy should be increased by 16% and that energy consumption should go down by 1,5% each year. Already, there are many initiatives that contribute to a more sustainable future. However, it is yet unknown what makes some initiatives successful and others less successful. This research report advises municipal authorities via the VNG on what they should pay special attention to and what endeavor should be made or avoided in order to increase the chances of producing collaborative innovations in the domain of sustainability.

The research question that is answered in this study reads as follows:

What are drivers and barriers of collaborative public innovation initiatives that contribute to the energy transition on a local level?

In the theoretical section, this study largely adopts Chris Ansell and Alison Gash’s definition of collaborative governance and their model of collaborative governance. That is, collaborative governance is conceptualized as a circular process whereby municipalities and stakeholders work together to produce innovative solutions. However, given that Ansell and Gash’s model falls short on the conceptual development of what successful outcomes of collaborative governance are, the model is complemented with six assessment criteria for successful collaborative governance drawn from Jacob Torfing. Concretely, the model that is used in this study focuses on starting conditions, institutional design, facilitative leadership, collaborative process and effectiveness.

The findings are based on a study of studies. Peer-reviewed studies were retrieved from online scientific databases. In total, seventeen collaborative sustainability initiatives in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom are analyzed qualitatively to distill best practices. The analysis of the cases consisted of two steps. First, the cases were scored with an assessment tool that measures collaboration, innovation and effectiveness. This resulted in four groups of cases: positives extremes, comparison cases, deviant cases, and negative extremes. Secondly, the theoretical model was applied on the seventeen cases. Drivers were found in the cases with high scores whereas barriers were found in the cases with low scores. In total, thirteen critical drivers and barriers were identified.

The study finds that some best practices can be drawn from scientific case studies. The main finding of the research is that what may actually be considered as best practices is dependent on the type of collaboration. Municipal authorities should therefore consider what kind of collaboration they are in. Concretely, three types of collaboration are distinguished: citizens’ initiatives (bottom-up), governing by authority (top-down) and partnerships with other state or non-state stakeholders (horizontal).