Climate Change Requires Profound Structural Changes

In order to stop the advancing climate change and prevent a further loss of biodiversity, far-reaching structural changes of societal subsystems such as the energy or transport systems are needed. This change needs to take place in different dimensions, ranging from technology, economics, rules and regulations to behaviours. The field of modelling which deals with complex socio-technical dynamics of change is particularly important to improve understanding of such complex processes and support governance of profound structural change.

The authors jointly discussed modelling regarding its contribution to research for profound socio-technical change. In their contribution "Modelling Sustainability Transitions: An Assessment of Approaches and Challenges", the team of scientists examines different methods and approaches to modelling socio-technical change. They analysed modelling approaches from different disciplines in order to identify a portfolio of approaches that can address the scientific challenges that socio-technical change poses to traditional modelling methods. 

The authors include Dr. Georg Holtz, Research Fellow in the Division of Future Energy and Mobility Structures at the Wuppertal Institute, Dr. Jonathan Köhler, from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Dr. Fjalar de Haan, Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Dr. Klaus Kubeczko of the Austrian Institute of Technology, Dr. Enayat Moallemi of the University of New South Wales, Dr. George Papachristos of the University College London, and Dr. Emile Chappin of the TU Delft.

The complete article was published in the Journal of Artifical Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) and can be found under the following link.