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• What does 'societal anchoring' involve?
• Why is societal anchoring important?
• What types of activity are required?
• What institutional changes should I consider?
• How do I measure societal anchoring?
• What management dilemmas are there?
• What are other tips for societal anchoring?

What does 'societal anchoring' involve?

By societal anchoring we mean the process of transforming individual and local transition projects into a social movement in which the new practices become business as usual; initiating and sustaining new, mutually reinforcing methods and structures, including the cultural elements.

Why is societal anchoring important?

There is often no lack of innovative projects, but individual transition projects are often not followed up. It does not go beyond a single project or several projects and no wider movement is created. Some of the reasons for this are:

• The projects are not designed in a way that matches the existing regime or the existing structure
• Changing the regime is beyond the capacity of the initiators of the project and consequently there is no follow-up to it. Other people in other settings should take over responsibility but don't necessarily do so
• There is no sense of urgency, and even organisations that would be willing to experiment without a sense of urgency do not, for example because they don't know how to or there is no money for a follow up
• New government policies are needed to facilitate the implementation of the new practices on a larger scale (new conditions for granting subsidies or specific environmental rules, for example), but the government is not yet willing to change them.

In other words, more is needed to make the transformation from individual and local projects to a social movement.

What types of activity are required?

Here we describe six types of activity that may be required to move from experimental new practices to a social movement. Which activities you adopt depends on the subject matter, but probably even more on the mission and formal tasks of your organisation.

1 Elaborating concepts or key ideas for system innovation and setting up new experiments in other contexts (expansion of innovation). These activities should always be accompanied by evaluations in order to learn about important regime or structural constraints on innovation. When starting new transition projects, also take into account any obstacles that you encountered in previous projects, since they may require new types of activity.

2 Creating coalitions or consortia to implement innovations. This type of activity is often carried out in tandem with category-1 activities. An example would be the creation of a new consortium with the specific task of further developing a new idea or launching new projects.

3 Creating a sense of urgency and legitimacy for innovation. This can be done by:

• Collecting current data about problems. Examples might be data about climate change and its impact on water systems in order to underpin the need for different approaches to water management
• Collecting up-to-date information to demonstrate the value of providing structural support for projects, for example through social business cases
• Actively communicating the facts that underscore the need for a sense of urgency. For this purpose you can use the media or trade journals, speak at conferences, publish newsletters or create websites; you could also try to convince sponsors or advisory bodies with status to help to disseminate the message of urgency or the vision to specific target groups
• Formulating a vision at a higher level than that of interesting individual projects, for example the level of a sub-sector or sector. This higher-level vision, or social agenda, could also provide overarching legitimacy for other new initiatives

4 Disseminating the philosophy of system innovation. This can be done, for example, by having articles on the subject published in trade journals, arranging media exposure, producing audio-visual materials, etc. You could also try to recruit sponsors with status to help disseminate the ideas.

5  Promoting the incorporation of new ideas in formal policy documents.  Examples of such documents would be structural plans, government vision statements, corporate mission statements and strategic plans. In order to succeed you will need to have excellent contacts and a clear idea of which decisions are made when in the relevant organisations. National advisory councils such as the Environmental Council, the Council for Rural Areas and the Health Research Council could prove to be valuable intermediaries in publicising new ideas. Once the ideas for the transition have been included in formal policy documents they become a guideline for policy or an element of formal policy.

6 Promoting structural changes/new institutions. This is an essential element of a transition project. On this point, see also the question 'What institutional changes should I consider?'

In practice, the activities can overlap. Some activities are also mutually dependent. For example, it is easier to change policies when there is a widely shared sense of urgency. It is then also easier to create coalitions for change.

What institutional changes should I consider?

Transitions or system innovations ultimately depend on institutional change (changes in the regime). Without these changes, existing patterns of behaviour will prevail over new ones. It may be necessary to establish:

• New organisations. These are often organisations that combine formerly separate domains and tasks. Examples would be new chain organisations, care and housing associations and organisations that combine fundamental and applied research. But it can also be a question of giving platform or arena groups or network organisations a more permanent status, or institutionalising them. Examples of institutionalised platforms are the Round Table for a sustainable cocoa economy and similar Round Tables for palmoil and soy
• New formal rules or policy to promote system innovation, such as legislation that creates scope for experiments or new financial constructions, new regulations
• New distribution channels and markets
• New routines, protocols, standards
• Revised or new research programmes or educational curricula
• New knowledge and/or new networks or communities of practice in which supportive learning occurs
• Changes in physical infrastructure (for example in the ICT infrastructure, the electricity grid)

How do I measure societal anchoring?

There are numerous indicators of societal anchoring. The best ones to use depend on your hypothesis of how your intervention could lead to system innovation. But the choice of indicators also depends on the objective and target group of your monitoring and evaluation. See also the cluster 'Monitoring and evaluation'. In other words, though it is impossible to lay down general rules, some signs you might want to look out for are:

• New and more intensive lobbies for sustainable development
• Changes in the perceptions of actors (their values, views, attitudes)
• Convergence of the views of stakeholders
• Publicity for new concepts in magazines and trade journals and at conferences
• Incorporation of ideas about sustainability in formal policy documents, advisory reports
• New routines, standards that promote sustainability
• New competences in organisations
• New knowledge or other networks or changes in existing networks
• New roles and identities for relevant organisations
• New markets; growing market shares for sustainable products
• Changes in the physical infrastructure that promote sustainable practices
• Abolition of inhibiting formal rules or adoption of new policy rules or financial arrangements to promote sustainability
• New curricula for courses

What management dilemmas are there?

Three dilemmas that have emerged in the management of transition programmes in practice are:

First dilemma

How do I pass on innovative ideas while safeguarding the ambitions for the system innovation? Organisations whose principal task was to drive system innovations and that have faced this dilemma have adopted different approaches:

• One approach is to bring together actors that find different aspects of the concept important. These actors can continue to push each other even if the original driver of the system innovation no longer plays that role.
• A second approach is to form new consortia with the specific task of further developing a new idea or launching new projects. These can be public-private consortia or private consortia.
• A third way of safeguarding the ambitions for the system innovation is to formulate a vision (create a social agenda) with a ‘forum' of stakeholders that remains in existence for some time. The members can act as ambassadors. However, a word of caution: it is not always clear in advance whether participants in the arena will actually accept this role. It is also important to estimate in advance the risk that the arena will not adopt the original ideas.

Second dilemma

When is the right time to hand over? This seems to be a real dilemma for organisations that try to get system innovations off the ground. Potential new leaders of the programme often feel unqualified, or they feel that the conditions that would give them an interest in it are missing or they prefer to wait and see what happens. Consequently, the organisation that originally initiated the programme remains involved for longer than intended, although perhaps not in the original role.

Third dilemma

Who receives the bouquets? Organisations that pioneer system innovation have an interest in highlighting the good work they are doing, to the provider of their subsidy, for example, but also to the other organisations in their field. But there are always other stakeholders involved in the development of an idea, such as research institutes or those who further develop the new concepts. These stakeholders also want to demonstrate their innovative role. You can ensure that they can by making agreements on sharing the claim to the innovation or you could gradually pass on ideas. This not only avoids tensions arising over ownership but increases the commitment of other parties.

What are other tips for societal anchoring?

Here are some more practical tips for further developing ideas for system innovations and setting up new experiments:

• Find parties that have an interest in a new experiment of a follow-up experiment. However, you have to realise that with system innovations, in particular, new overarching preconditions will often be needed to give parties a genuine interest. You should also continue to involve former partners and current regime players.
• Design your network in such a way that new ideas are embedded at different levels. Look for officials at provincial and local level and political godfathers among provincial executives, aldermen or national politicians. They can press for innovation and may be able to build political support for it.
• Learn from related problems and solutions in other sectors. However, do not be too quick to copy what already exists; it is not always the best solution for the system innovation that you intend to address.
• Search for favourable conditions in existing policy, such as scope within planning policy or possibilities for a different interpretation of existing rules. Take advantage of instability in policy or a regime (such as food safety rules that are being questioned, crisis in water management) for anchoring ideas for system innovations. This type of factor could suddenly make new, experimental developments interesting.
• Introduce terms that excite stakeholders and which make the discussion of the concepts and projects for system innovation different to other activities. Words are seductive. Also use images for inspiration.